Ahh! As of now, P1harmony was the last scheduled K-pop concert I had for 2025. At least in the US. Yours truly is headed to Japan and Korea in a couple of weeks, so I’m hoping I’m lucky enough to catch something, anything at all, while I’m over there. Keep all of your fingers and toes crossed for me!
While I can’t say that P1harmony has been my favorite group, I still obviously really like them a lot. After seeing and fan-girling over Ampers&One, Youtube made it their mission for me to fall for their older label mates. But I think falling hard for 82MAJOR also made it easier, since Yechan’s older brother, Keeho, is the leader of P1harmony. So basically, all of the things came together in the right way for me to stan this group. I was maybe only a few songs deep when tickets for their tour got announced, and then perhaps foolishly, I bought the top tier VIP package essentially blind.
So that means I got to experience my very first send off! But more on that later. In order to see P1harmony with the very limited PTO I had left, that means I drove a little over five hours to Fairfax, Virginia for their “DC” date. Yes, it happened to be on a Monday, but I was able to make it all work smoothly. The show itself was actually at an arena on a college campus. It was strange, but I liked it! Similar to seeing ATEEZ last year, arenas are where it’s at for these larger groups. That may never happen for Stray Kids, but I’ll take these venues when I can get them.
Also similar to ATEEZ, P1harmony decided to bring Ampers&One along with them to open all of their shows on this tour! That was pretty neat, especially since they did their own relatively extensive tour earlier this year. They only got to perform four songs, but three of them were new ones that hadn’t been released at the time I saw them, so that means I got to experience “Kick Start,” “Seesaw,” and “That’s That” for the first time! And I was also happy that “Broken Heart” also made the cut. It seemed to fit in best with the rest of the songs. Though I had a great view from my aisle seat in the stands, they did play in the half hour before the show officially started, so there were lots of people walking by. But otherwise, they were fantastic! I think they gained a lot of new fans.
As far as the P1harmony experience went, prior to the actual show, we VIP holders got put in a line, handed a tote bag with some merch, and then proceeded to wait for a while. But eventually we did get filed down around the stage for a two-song soundcheck. After experiencing several soundchecks this year I can definitively say it is absolutely not worth the money. For me, at least. We got to hear “Du Du Doom” and another song off of the “Jump” album that I wasn’t familiar with. Keeho is truly such a fun leader. He’s responsible and very kind, but he’s sassy and fun, which just makes him seem totally relatable. Almost like a best friend – and that’s cool! I love that for us!
The actual show was almost a non-stop two and a half hours, playing all of the hits except for “Back Down,” which made me sad. But since they had just released their first all English album just three days earlier, we did get to experience three of the four tracks live! A lot of the back half of the set was a lot more loose as far as choreography goes, and at that point in the show, Jiung’s energy was unmatched! This guy was jumping all over the stage! I was most excited about hearing “Duh!” and I really liked Keeho and Jongseob’s solo cover acts. The former slayed a rendition of Rihanna’s “Phresh Off the Runway,” while the latter made Tyler, the Creator’s “Sticky” sound so, so good. Theo gets first place for the night’s vocals for me, but they were really all so fabulous and really engaging. I’m sure it helps that this was only the second stop. Nothing is stale for them yet.
But the real excitement came after the show when they corraled us all to get ready for send off. Now, seeing clips from other send off experiences, I was prepared to maybe fight a little to get seen because there was a lot of us, and it wouldn’t matter where they put us, there was absolutely no way we were all getting the front row. But, I think they split us into two groups because I totally was in the front! I was a huge chicken though and didn’t show my artwork to any of them. That was the biggest regret I had on my mind as I was trying to fall asleep later. Not even Keeho! I know he would have absolutely gushed over it! Oh well, I guess that means I just have to try for send off again on the next tour. I did manage to get photos with all of the members, but my usual nervous/embarrassed self made it so all I could do was thank them for the great show. Still, they were nice and so, so handsome.
There are still plenty of dates left, so if you have the chance to go see them – do it!
