I really love going to kpop concerts, it’s one of the only social situations where I never really feel my social anxiety spike. In fact, kpop fans are so chill, that I actually feel fully relaxed. It’s really nice. So in 2025 I went to a number of concerts, I’m going to discuss them all and rank them from my least favorite to my most favorite. The caveat here is that I genuinely loved all of these concerts, I can happily recommend them to anybody, and I’m looking forward to seeing all these artists next time around too. My wife and I did get a little tired of traveling for shows this year though, and we saw a few less than we had in 2024. That said, I’m getting the concert itch again already, so I have no idea how long this article will be next year.
10. Ateez
I’ll be honest, I’m not really their target audience for this last tour. They played almost none of the music from their first few years, and in fact did a ton of b-sides and unit songs instead. As I am more of a surface fan of Ateez, I was just a little lost on the songs themselves. That said, Ateez are really talented performers, so they still put on a good show, although they just felt a little more subdued this time around? I also may have just lost that new concert magic, we’ve seen them 5 or 6 times now, or something along those lines. That said, I’ve been liking more of their recent stuff again after a lull the last few years, so I may be more hyped for their next show.
9. Seventeen
The rankings actually got really hard immediately, all these shows were great. Anytime Seventeen is near us we go, they’re my wife’s favorite boy group. Last year I actually thought I was burning out on their shows, similar to Ateez this year, I felt like I was just lost on the music a little bit. But this year, they seemed super energetic and had a great set list. I think the members were kinda trying to make up for the members that were out a little, but they honestly did a fantastic job. You take any 4 of them and tour them around and they’ll probably put on a great show.
8. TripleS (Come True)
Great show with some great members, although I’d feel that way about any group of 8 from TripleS. I had a ton of fun at this concert, and it made me want to see them again…
7. SMTown
I had trouble placing this one. On one hand, it had a number of artists that I’m not interested in, on the other hand seeing TVXQ and SuJu on stage was legendary, the crowd was INSANE, and Hearts2Hearts are adorable and did so well too for performing in front of such a huge audience so early into their career. I already like Hearts2Hearts’s debut song, but this made me root for the group. Also, I love my shirt from this concert, one of my favorite concert shirts ever.
6. QWER
If QWER comes to your area, just go, you won’t regret it. They are so cute and have a great vibe. This show was also in a smaller venue and the crowd was super passionate. The whole energy on this show was just top notch. I almost always prefer smaller venues with smaller crowds for exactly this reason.
5. Bibi
I don’t really care for listening to a lot of Bibi’s music just in the background, it’s good, but not really my vibe. But Bibi is so immensely talented that every single song is your vibe when she sings it live. I didn’t know most of the songs on the set list, but there were no misses, just hit after hit after hit. Bibi is also super playful and fun with her audience, one of the most interactive shows I’ve been to. Her fluent English and really good sense of humor help with that too.
4. Babymonster
As evidenced in other year end articles, I fell hard into BabyMon’s music this year. Their concert lived up to the hype for me. They are all super fun on stage and the group was jumping a lot of the time. Hot Sauce live goes SO HARD. Another one where I really love the merch, the monster shirt is fun, and their light stick looks great.
3. TripleS (Alpha Percent)
The last few years I’ve had 1 VIP ticket concert, this year, I did this with TripleS. It was worth it so much. This was actually a last minute choice to attend, I went alone, which I never do because of my social anxiety, and I drove straight to the airport after because I had a prior commitment to get to (hence it being so last minute). That said, it was wonderful, I made a friend with the guy sitting next to me, made even more friends in the post-concert VIP event line-ups, and got a picture with my current TripleS bias Chaewon (who is incredible at being engaged with the fans when on stage). TripleS is such a special group to be a fan of, because they are constantly improving and getting better in a way that you don’t often notice as much with other groups, and it’s a ton of fun to watch their development. They also have a pretty good VIP package and great concert merch, they keep doing Vinyl’s of the most recent album hand signed by the members of the tour, so I’m up to two so far, and intend to catch them all.
2. Viviz
I took my sister to this one for her birthday. I decided to mention this to the guy at the check in desk and he actually gave us high touch wristbands! Viviz puts on a great show, they really ride the line between cute and sexy in a really unique way. The high touch was also a big deal because we’re both big fans of the Viviz members since the Gfriend days, Eunha has long been one of my favorite idols, since Love Whisper in 2017. The interesting thing here is that after many high touches people are excited after. This one, everytime somebody walked out of the member’s line of sight they audibly, and fairly loudly, exclaimed how pretty they were, it was bordering on comical actually. But shoutout to the check in guy, you’re really cool for that, it meant a lot to me and my sister.
1. Purple Kiss (Headway)
I missed PurKi’s final US tour, we had already scheduled something else that day. So, for me this was the end. In terms of set list, it was strong, in terms of performance, it was strong. Purple Kiss are a truly fantastic and talented group. I had fun each time I saw them live. Last time we did them VVIP and Yuki was out. Yuki had been one of my top idols of all time for a while, number 1 and usually a minimum of top 3 most of the time since Zombie. So, that time I got a signed album with a hole in it where one of my favorite idol’s names should have been. I did have a selfie at that tour, I got it with Ireh, she’s also amazing, and very underrated, give Ireh some love. So fast forward to this tour, one of the pieces of merch is a hand signed album with all member names on it, score. And I got a selfie ticket once again and finally got my selfie with Ireh. And you know what, it turned out pretty great, which is nice, because I always get super nervous about these things. So, for being consistently amazing performers with an always great setlist, and the runback where I finally got my Yuki selfie, PurKi gets first place.
That’s the list, it was genuinely hard to rank these because they were all so great. The top 3 were standouts because I got to interact with idols at all of them, and honestly, if I hadn’t had such a clear way to separate them out, this would have been much harder. I actually want to leave by saying this is more of a review than a real ranking, I might do them in a different order writing this on a different day, so just know that every one of these artists is fantastic and are 100% worth going to see.
