by Abi Scaife
It’s been two years since KARD performed in London, and yet it’s like they never left.
Hundreds of fans spend hours queueing outside the venue for a chance to stand against the barrier when they perform. It’s rainy and depressing, a typical British September, but excitement sees them through and the energy is electric when, finally, they make it inside.
Who is KARD?
Made up of J.Seph, BM, Somin and Jiwoo, KARD are a group that has pushed the boundaries of their genre in a hundred different ways. K-pop is inherently complex, multi-media rather than ‘just’ a genre of music, and the KARD are the epitome of this; fun, sexy, multi-lingual, and multi-talented.
This tour is special for KARD, one of the few mixed gender K-pop groups to debut in the last two decades, and not only because it celebrates the release of their first full length album. This tour is a farewell.
After a decade of performing together, gaining notoriety in particular in the Americas for their trap and moombahton inspired releases, KARD are finally calling time.
Did KARD disband?
You can feel it in the air, in the way they perform – throwing themselves around the stage with more vigor than usual, Somin’s vocals coloured with an edge of desperation that wasn’t there before. Even the solo stages are somehow more emotional, with Jiwoo’s powerful Home Sweet Home somehow conjuring an image of a witch on an emotional edge.
Perhaps the standout performance of the night is fan favourite Dumb Litty, a heavy trap track with influences of EDM that has the crowd going wild. Even up on the balcony, you can feel the floor shaking, as thousands of fans jump in unison, holding on to a night that no one wants to end.
Arguably, one of the best parts of any K-pop concert is the chatting – it’s something you don’t get in the same way with Western artists and KARD doesn’t disappoint.
Classic for KARD, they go a step further with a back-and-forth with the crowd that you don’t often see with K-pop groups – at least, not outside smaller venues. BM, born and raised in LA and is fluent in English, has a fast repartee with those in standing that has the whole room in stitches.
The concert feels more intimate than most, in part helped by BM’s fluency, as well as J.Seph’s quick wit that has the crowd laughing, even through the translator. The easy friendship between the four seeps off stage and down into the crowd, fun, comforting and brilliant even with the sword hanging above their heads; this could be the end.
When did KARD debut?
While the group don’t go into the decision behind their disbandment, they do talk about it and, excitingly, it feels more like a pause than it does an ending.
Each of the members of KARD has released solo music and, in true K-pop fashion, everyone gets the chance to perform one of their solo songs this evening. The idea that group members may return to London as solo artists, or even as part of another group, has been a bittersweet consolation since the announcement.
It’s a topic that comes up again and again throughout the night – the lows of the reminder that this could be the end, followed by the highs of a vow; one way or another, in one form or another, this is not the end.
“Will you come see KARD again, if we return?” It’s a promise the crowd has no problem making, with eardrum rupturing cheers.
No one knows for sure what the members of KARD will go on to do after they disband. The one thing that is certain is that there will be thousands of fans patiently, reverently, waiting for the day they return.
