Yasmin Barranca of Pomona, CA brought her four kids to Head in the Clouds Festival at Brookside at the Rose Bowl this past Saturday, August 8th.
It was Barranca’s first time at the music and arts festival that centers Asian talent, but she didn’t know much about most of the acts. She just wanted to see the look on her daughters’ faces when they saw their favorite group perform live for the first time. This was right before KATSEYE’s headlining 8:55 PM set, and Barranca was as close as she can get, a stroller pushed up to a crowd that seemed evenly divided between buzzed twenty-somethings and elementary-age concert goers, parental cohorts in tow.
“All the diversity [it] has, and the dancing, they love it,” she said, cradling her baby son.
“I love her,” twelve-year-old Danielle, Barranca’s oldest daughter, told me. She’s referring to Daniela Avanzini, one of the KATSEYE members performing tonight. She loves her because they share a similar name, an affinity for dance, and “I exaggerate my moves too,” an excited Danielle told me, referring to the group’s expressive choreography.
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When Lara, Megan, Yoonchae, and Daniela, young Danielle’s favorite, finally appeared to loud screams, a five-year-oldish girl perched on her dad’s shoulders that was clutching KATSEYE’s signature lightstick looked beside herself.
It was the biggest and youngest crowd the festival had ever drawn, and the group they’d come to see was down a third of its members.
KATSEYE’s second-headlining festival came at a fraught time. When news broke that Sophia, the charming 23-year-old leader, announced she was taking a break from performances and appearances — after, the label said, medical professionals advised extended rest and ongoing care so she could focus on her mental health — the memes, hot takes and headlines started to roll in, as she was the second member in six months to step away; member Manon announced in February she was taking a “temporary hiatus” and has yet to return. Their third EP, Wild is set to release on Friday, ahead of a 31-date world tour (get tickets here).
What’s in flux isn’t the demand. The crowd was bigger and younger than this festival has ever drawn, the EP ships on schedule, the tour is on sale. What’s in flux is the format: the premise that a pop group is a fixed number of people who arrive and leave together. On Saturday night, KATSEYE demonstrated that a six-member group can work as four.
Shortly after “Pinky Up,” standout vocalist Lara acknowledged the absence of Sophia. “Our sister Sophia can’t be here tonight,” she said, encouraging the crowd to show her some love. Later on in the set, she shouted out Sophia one more time.
Seeing only these four members perform brings home that the strength of the group is in its casting. They held up their own during their hour-long set, adjusting their choreography formation, with Daniela and Yoonchae’s magnetism helping to lessen the blow of the missing members. Lara punched up their songs with vocal runs while Megan’s sincerity stood out. As she kneeled on the stage during “Mean Girls,” one of their more underrated songs and one of their few ballads, you could feel she meant every lyric about “blessing even the mean girls.”
KATSEYE’s team knows its commercial appeal is young girls and leaves the policing to the parents. The day after performing “Pinky Up,” their frenetic declaration of “making out with your bestest friends” before “partying until the world ends,” a press release went out announcing an exclusive capsule collection available from Hello Kitty company Sanrio and KATSEYE at Target.
“Where is the big cloud?”
Photo courtesy of Head in the Clouds
As far as festivals go, Head In The Clouds has an intimate feel, with only two stages, and most of the action happening on the 88rising Mainstage. It’s held on the lush, rolling grounds of the Brookside golf course next to the Rose Bowl. Last year’s edition, which doubled as 88rising’s 10-year anniversary finale, ran two days over May 31st and June 1st, was headlined by G-Dragon and 2NE1, and drew more than 75,000 people. This year presented as a scaled-down one day, even as it booked the biggest crossover headliner yet.
The Toyota Music Den was just far enough to not be affected sound-wise from the mainstage while still being a short walk away. This year featured Filipina-Australian singer-songwriter Ylona Garcia, multifaceted artist Rhea Raj (Lara Raj of KATSEYE’s sister), and a DJ set from rising hyperpop artist Tiffany Day. During Rhea’s set, influencers snapped photos in front of a red Toyota.
Despite the heat, early attendees could snag umbrella seating or set up camp along the grass. The reward for a spot on the small, grassy hilltops was a comfortable view of the mainstage and its two large flanking screens.
“But where is the big cloud?” a guy in his twenties asked me while waiting in line for the festival’s main photo ops, a giant Metro bus. He’s referring to the signature cloud logo available on merchandise, but unlike last year, there were no giant inflatable clouds with which to take fun pics. Somehow, the Metro bus doesn’t have the same appeal.
Shedding Names
XG, photo courtesy of Head in the Clouds
KATSEYE wasn’t the only act on the bill mid-reconfiguration. Everywhere you lookede, groups were shedding members, names, and the collectives that made them.
Dabin.Kr, a Korean hip-hop artist formerly known as DPR Live, turned his set into a confessional. He co-founded Dream Perfect Regime and released four projects as DPR Live before dropping the prefix in late 2023, taking his birth name, and starting his own label, CTYL.
“It’s the end of a chapter for DPR for me,” he said in a moment of vulnerability. “I started losing my sense of self for a bit, and I think I kept trying to become what I thought I needed to be. It got to a point where I couldn’t hear my own voice anymore.”
XG is a seven-member group who has broken through globally. While they couldn’t be more different from KATSEYE, they arrived at Brookside mid-pivot themselves. In January, the group changed what its initials stand for, from Xtraordinary Girls to Xtraordinary Genes, and stopped being billed as a girl group. The same month, four years into a career built on singles and EPs, they released their first full-length album. Dancer and rapper Cocona came out as nonbinary earlier this year.
Despite having all Japanese members, they embody cultural crossover by performing almost entirely in English and spending some time training in Korea, with a discography of singles and EP releases drawing heavily on nineties- and 2000s-era American-inspired rap and R&B.
One of the few groups that played with a live band, their incredible vocals, flawless rap, and energetic dance moves felt more captivating. More pop groups should have their music arranged for live instrumentation; it makes a big difference.
And XG had the best fashion of the festival. With her short-cropped blond hair and bustier, lead vocalist Chisa was channeling a Vogue-era Madonna, while the rest of the group was dressed in a mash-up of Harajuku-meets-Alice-in-Wonderland-meets-early-nineties-clubwear, different for each member yet still visually cohesive.
Umi, photo courtesy of Head in the Clouds
UMI, a Japanese/American neo-soul singer, was another memorable performer, coming out to sing with audience members and bringing out Atlanta-based R&B singer 6LACK as a guest. Female and queer artists shone throughout the day — UMI is queer, along with Lara and Megan of KATSEYE.
The main attraction this year was a group drawing in new festival-goers who might not otherwise be exposed to the sheer depth and diversity of Asian talent that has far too often been either overlooked or lumped together in a nebulous category. (I’m looking at you, Grammy Awards.) The power of KATSEYE even down two members is clear as parents guided sleepy-eyed young girls wearing branded T-shirts back to the parking lot, huge smiles on their faces.