LE SSERAFIM Paris Concert Review: A Night Without Sakura

At Accor Arena on October 21, Huh Yunjin asked the crowd to chant for the member who wasn't there. "Our real Saki is not here with us today physically," she said, according to a fan-posted account on X. "But she is here with us in spirit and heart right guys?" She reminded the room that LE SSERAFIM is always five. That night, it was four.

It was the group's first solo concert in France and the third stop of the five-city PUREFLOW run through Europe, after The O2 Arena in London on October 16 and the Ziggo Dome in Amsterdam on October 18. London sold all 15,000 seats and additional seating was opened. In France, the group had built its audience without a local concert or a broadcast appearance: Billboard France ranked LE SSERAFIM eighth among the most-streamed K-pop groups in the country in 2025, the highest of any fourth-generation girl group. The tour supports PUREFLOW, the second full-length album the group released in May, which entered the Billboard 200 at No. 10, the Korea Herald reports.

Source Music said local medical staff told Sakura on the morning of October 21, Paris time, to rest after a sudden high fever and poor physical condition, and the agency posted the notice to Weverse that day. "As this is our first solo concert in Paris, we sincerely apologize for delivering this sudden news to the fans who have been waiting and looking forward to it," the agency said. Ticket holders learned the lineup on show day. The apology was direct, and it named what mattered most about the date: the first night in a new country was the one that couldn't be done at full strength.

The four members did not talk around the gap. Yunjin turned the absence into the evening's running theme, and Hong Eunchae turned it into a bit, handing out baguettes as what she called "Saki's sister." She wrote afterward on Weverse that she "debuted as SAKI sister today" and had stood in for "unnie," adding that she was "a bit nervous." Fan accounts say the Paris crowd sang Sakura's parts back to the stage. If that holds up, it is the best evidence from the night that French fans knew this catalog beyond the streaming numbers. It also did something the staging could not: it put Sakura in the room.

The weakness is the one the agency named. The best-documented moments of this show are about the person who was missing, not the music that was played, and nothing in the coverage I reviewed shows how the four covered her parts or reworked the songs where she is most exposed. A group that sells a five-member identity answered with a four-member improvisation. It was warm, and it was not the show Paris bought tickets for.

I did not attend this show, and I have not seen full-length footage of it. This review draws on Source Music's Weverse notice, reporting from Korea Daily, Soompi and the Korea Herald, and posts from members and fans on X and Weverse. Those sources capture what was said between songs and how the room responded. They do not capture how the vocals held up, how the choreography was spaced for four, or how the arena sounded. A confirmed setlist was not available in the coverage I found, so I have not judged individual songs. The rating below reflects that.

Copenhagen's Royal Arena hosts the next show today, October 23, and Berlin closes the European run on October 26. Source Music had not said in the coverage I found whether Sakura rejoins for either date. Fan accounts say she told followers the day after Paris that her fever was easing and that she would see French fans again.

LE SSERAFIM's PUREFLOW European tour continues October 23 at Royal Arena in Copenhagen and October 26 in Berlin.