The nearly four hour festival featured more than a dozen SM acts. It was streamed live and for free on the first day of , drawing an impressive The concert was technically spotless, with crystal clear image quality, zero buffering, and fairly consistent real time English subtitles. That last bit may have been helped by the fact that the majority of the speeches seemed scripted, but it was nonetheless appreciated by an English-speaking viewer like myself.
There is no way a virtual event can hope to match the kinetic energy of an in-person K-pop performance. Still, the excitement SMTown Live was able to generate is nothing to shrug at. The concert was opened by a friendly but forgettable inspirational video.
Then, it was time for the first of three NCT sets. Over the course of SMTown Live, the various NCT units performed nearly every title track they released this year, plus a few extra tunes, which is a staggering number of songs. This pattern repeated again for groups that performed multiple times but spread out through the show.
Watching them hustle between stages was head spinning in a simultaneously humorous and vaguely concerning way. More than anything, it was a tangible reminder of just how absurdly hard they, alongside many other SMTown Live performers , have worked this year.
Another early performer was Red Velvet. They were perhaps the most buzzed about act prior to SMTown Live. It was wonderful to see Wendy looking so healthy, and Red Velvet seem poised to move onwards and upwards in Despite a previous announcement that he would be taking a break from activities due to a relapsed disc injury , he put in a few limited appearances during SMTown Live.
You have to wonder who cleared him for performing when he was seemed to be in pain and risked exacerbating his injury by doing so. While all the performers involved did their best, there is something tragic about seeing DJs try to pump up the volume to an empty stadium. These performances inadvertently brought to mind the challenges of the pandemic.
Some stages that did resonate were solo performances from Kai and Taemin. These dancing kings delivered predictably stellar renditions of their hits. Super Junior and their sub-units were some of the stand out performers of the concert. Their vocal unit Super Junior K. Whether cracking jokes during their greeting, or turning it out on the stage, Super Junior brought the easy self-assuredness of veteran performers to SMTown Live.
TVXQ displayed similar professionalism during their appearances. As Yunho and Changmin bounded around the empty theater, they somehow managed to convey the unmistakable whisper of a live concert-like feeling. TVXQ were the exception. They pushed past the limitations of the virtual medium to deliver something truly unique.
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