One of my little enjoyments at SXSW every year is KPop night. Each year, the delegates from South Korea send out their brightest and newest exports to Austin. It’s a delight because these bands are ridiculously popular in their home country and then they come here and play this dive bar. It also happens to be one of the most popular nights in Austin, as the lineup to see these pop acts wrapped around the block with people lining up as early as noon on Thursday (for a band that played at 12:30 am)
Crayon Pop is a five member girl group that formed in 2012. Their fame was not immediate, but they’ve had a few big hits since forming and also opened for Lady Gaga before. One of their tracks is Bar Bar Bar, which I will admit, I have in my head after listening to it
To say the crowd was stoked to see them was an understatement. Taking the stage at exactly midnight, the girls came on to a thunderous applause and proceeded to do one of their tracks. The group’s style can be best described as high energy edm style music with catchy choruses. The group seems to have nicely incorporated a lot of audience participation in their music which makes for a fun time.
As expected, the group’s choreographed dancing was on point, they were fun and interesting and did some standard pop stuff. Like during one song, each member had their time up front and was cheered by the fans, presuming that member was their favorite. They also wore those headset microphones for dancing (along with holding microphones) although I’m not sure how much of their vocals made it through. They were helped by backing tracks but that’s probably expected.
The group debut their new track “FM” to us and I liked how one of the girls said that we are “very special people” because we got to see the debut of the track. Tell it like it us.
The obvious highlight of the night was when the girls put on the Helmet for their hit song Bar Bar Bar. I have no idea why they have helmets on…is it a subliminal PSA? Judging by the crowd’s excitement, they could have worn Hitler masks and the crowd would have still loved it. Pop music – making people happy since forever.