Promotional photo for the Love or Die tour
Following the release of his second full studio album and shortly before the release of another one, B.I embarked on an European promotional tour. Let’s see how the Warsaw concert went.
When it was first announced the tour would be happening back in July, I wasn’t particularly interested, as a lot of B.I’s solo music fell a bit flat for me. It’s not that he can’t write music, in fact, he’s actually reasonably decent at it, it’s just that he seems to favor softer R&B styles which is just not my thing whatsoever, nor is it the thing he’s best at. However, I got talked into it by my boyfriend who sadly couldn’t attend with me, as he deserved to see at least glimpses of how it actually went down. The show took place at Klub Stodoła, pictured below:
Entrance, credit: Moje Konferencje, original post linked
The inside while there is no event happening, original post since deleted
The club has two rooms, one being where you can grab a drink, get away from the crowd going at it and go to the balcony, and the main one where concerts are actually happening. Full capacity stands between 2,500 and 3,000 supposedly, and days before the concert, it was announced it had not sold out fully, although when I got there, the place looked pretty packed. Unfortunately, at the time of writing, I don’t seem to be able to locate the photo the crew took of the entire room but I do have the following clip from the song Wave towards the end of the show:
Credit: m_foreverhungry on Instagram
If there were any seats left unbought, it had to be some of the balcony ones. I didn’t fully understand how those were decided, but as it appeared, there were two sections, one at the back of the room and one at the right side of the stage, and neither looked like they had a hard-decided space. On the side of the entrance room, there was additionally a small merch shop, which I didn’t really get to have a good look at, as I arrived a bit late and wanted to leave before the mass would push me somewhere to the back but there was at least definitely the concert shirt available – black with a white Love or Die sign in front, and the tour dates mentioned on the back. Cool but not really something I’d want for myself, even if I’d had more time to think it through.
Before B.I himself went onstage, the concert had a support by DJ Millennium (name so obscured, it did not even figure at the official concert schedule provided by the Polish organizer), who would also accompany B.I all throughout later. The set was pretty clearly entirely pre-prepared and there was little to no live DJ-ing, with the guy twisting the knobs every once and again, to little effect. In any case, it didn’t really matter all that much, the audience seemed to have a good time nonetheless and any crowd interaction, such as finger guns or even a brighter smile, would be met with loud cheers. The set varied in quality greatly, not due to the mixing ability, which wasn’t showcased much at all, but due to the song selection, around half of which would be some pretty lifeless trap, and was my evidence #5291 that you can’t really dance to that type of music much. The crowd livened up greatly whenever the music choices would switch to something more electronic dance upbeat or just familiar kpop tunes. Pretty obvious highlights of the set were Ditto and ETA by NewJeans, and Eve, Psyche & The Bluebeard’s Wife by Le Sserafim (shown below), as well as all B.I’s own tracks, of course.
Credit: adrianka_pl on Instagram
Something which was pretty unexpected for me was that there was no break at all between the opening DJ set and B.I’s performance. Right around 8:30 when he was scheduled to appear, the lights just dimmed, the crowd started rapidly stomping (this would occur repeatedly throughout the night, oftentimes replacing regular clapping, and it got old and annoying extremely quickly), then boom, there he was. Honestly, I thought that was cool – since the scene didn’t need any clean up or gear moving, as the same DJ would play alongside B.I, any further delay wouldn’t make sense either.
Look at the stage from the balcony view, credit: m_foreverhungry on Instagram
I don’t fully remember the entire setlist, song by song, but I’m fairly certain it matched with the below one, from the earlier Paris show, almost entirely:
- TO DIE
- Alive
- ONE AND ONLY
- WATERFALL
- Got It Like That
- illa illa
- Endless summer
- Middle with you
- LOVED
- BTBT
- Keep me up
- TTM
- MICHELANGELO
- Flame
- Illusion
- Lover
- Daydream
- Tangerine
- S.O.S
- Alone
- 4 Letters
- All Shook Up
- Dare to Love
- Die for Love
- The Island of Misfit Toys
- Wave
- Beautiful Life
Encore:
- COSMOS
- Re-birth
- (Unknown)
The „unknown” section consisted of a demo called Love Song, another club track which I believe never got an official release, and a song called Girl, which according to B.I, was written and recorded during the tour. As part of the encore, we also got to hear BTBT again, after B.I had asked us which song we’d like to hear next. Unfortunately, me yelling for the excellent Born Hater went completely unnoticed in the sea of voices but I guess BTBT wasn’t a bad second choice, especially since the crowd apparently knew every single word to that one.
Credit: adrianka_pl on Instagram
Musically, I don’t think any fan of B.I’s could have any complaints. His solo discography might not be long but it does have quite a few songs nonetheless, and most of it has been performed, including many tracks never heard before. I’m not exactly sure the decision to shove a bunch of them into the encore part was the greatest idea, but I found myself enjoying the middle section of the show where the entire upcoming mini album was performed quite a lot. The only song currently out, 4 Letters, is quite decent, it starts off weak, but gets right on track once the beat kicks in, the upcoming feature track Loved was also okay, definitely in the usual B.I style, but the best one of the bunch was the upbeat All Shook Up, which reminded me of the better stuff B.I would write for IKON back in the day. Aside from the encore, the pacing of the show was also definitely good, starting off with a bunch of really strong tracks to leave an impression, following with a bunch of more understated but important parts of his discography, slowing down a notch in the middle, and once again ending it strongly with a couple bangers. Die for Love, Wave and Beautiful Life had an enthusiastic reception in particular, and hopefully give B.I the idea to explore harder club music and/or rock more in the future.
As for B.I himself, it was pretty clear he was just having a good time himself, and it was quickly spread out to the entire venue. Currently, he operates in this sort of unique space between the Korean rap scene and being a full-time idol, which allowed him to do a show that was a mix of both. By far the biggest advantage of the unusual approach was the fact that there was almost no talking – usually, kpop concerts are almost 50% some really superficial prolonged talking bits which would bore anyone, other than the most one-eyed fans, to death. Here, it was cut down to the absolute minimum, only the usual – but not ingenuine – „I’m so happy to be here, you guys are great” and a lot of repetition of the word „zajebisty” (Polish for „fucking awesome”) which B.I liked a lot, and also a bit of concert safety, ensuring everyone has enough air and has something to drink in case they didn’t feel good. He would actually continue to stop the show completely a couple of times if he’d noticed anyone was looking a bit unstable on their feet, and would only restart once he was assured everything was a-ok. I liked that a lot, although fainting during concerts has in my experience always been handled well and never really dangerous, you can never be safe enough, especially in a crowd pretty tightly packed. While the video below does not show the Polish date specifically, you can get the general idea of how it played out here as well.
Regarding how live the concert was, since that’s a thing that bothers kpop fans a surprising amount, given the heavily faked-up industry they’re interested in, I guess that could’ve been improved. Obviously not operating on a truly spectacular budget, B.I had to cut some corners. The simple stage design was completely fine by me, but while the DJ mostly did fine, and the pre-recorded set certainly helped in unusual ways sometimes (e.g. B.I was able to resume a song right from where he stopped, after helping out an audience member), a live band would definitely take the show into a whole new level entirely. Vocally, it was largely live, but it’s clear B.I is also aware of his own limitations and that he’s not exactly the greatest singer, so during a lot of the sung choruses, he would dance around, vibe to the backing vocals, or let the audience fill in the gaps. I didn’t mind that, it’s a lot more honest than claiming „oh we’re totally live” while fully miming to the backing track, and during the slower or more rap-focused bits, he showed he could carry the show no problem. While most of the aforementioned dancing was just sort of swaying around or little freestyles, there were also fully choreographed parts, where B.I was joined by two guys, Shawn and Youngbeen, from the Aitty Too dance team. Dancing is not something I ever really pay much attention to, but to my eyes, all of them did perfectly fine, and less concessions to the regular idol dance, allowed B.I to explore different styles, probably to his benefit, as I didn’t remember him doing quite as well in the IKON times. All of the clips I’ve taken of the dance parts are frankly not worth posting whatsoever, so here’s a studio one, also featuring members of Aitty Too.
Overall, was it a good show? Yeah, I had a good time. Would I attend again, if given the opportunity? Probably yeah, especially if my boyfriend could join me this time. Is there anything I’d change? Well, ideally, I’d like to see B.I fully rocking it out with a live band, as that would suit him very well, and probably provide him with a lot more fun crowd interactions, but I’m well aware that isn’t likely to happen, at least for now, and he, along with his crew, did fine for what it was. Recently, there have been more and more kpop shows around where I live, which I’m happy for, and while I haven’t really been able to attend a lot of them, I’m glad I got to see this one, a bit less tied to the genre conventions, and I might even listen to B.I’s next album once it comes out, a feature so great not even most of my very favourite groups can achieve it.
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