EXO Concert Review: EXhOrizon Seoul Finale Setlist, 8/10
When EXO's members asked the crowd to stand during the "Lucky One," "Power," "Don't Fight the Feeling" and "Run" medley on Sunday, the seated sections of KSPO Dome jumped along with light sticks raised. It is the segment fans have waited for at EXO shows for years, and at the finale of the group's sixth tour it was the clearest sign that the catalog, not the new album, is what carries this band onstage.
A note on how this review was built: I was not in the building. It is assembled from the Korea Herald's review of the show, Sports Kyunghyang's reporting from outside the venue and the tour's published details. Accounts like these capture the setlist, the structure and the crowd's reaction. They cannot tell you how the vocals sat in the mix in the back rows or whether a medley dragged in the room, so the judgments below are about what the show was built to do and how it was reported to do it.
The finale closed a tour that began in Seoul in April, moved through Asia and came home for three nights at KSPO Dome, Nov. 6 to 8. The Herald put the encore run at about 33,000 fans, with all three shows sold out, restricted-view seats included. Sunday was also the day Seoul recorded its first snow of the winter, and Sports Kyunghyang found fans from China and Malaysia queuing under umbrellas in the rain.
The 32-song set opened with "Crown" and "Suffocate" from the new LP "Reverxe," then went straight to 2016's "Monster." That order is the show's argument: open with the new material, then prove the old material still lands harder. Only five of the six members who have taken part in the group's recent activities were on stage, and the Herald says the performance never felt diminished. The members covered the stage with synchronized movement and elaborate effects, and held the live vocals through demanding choreography. Five people filling a dome stage is the hardest production problem here, and the reporting says it was solved with movement and staging, not by shrinking the show.
The pacing was the smartest part. A soft stretch with "Moonlight Shadows" and "24/7" tipped into "Sweet Lies" and "Crazy," then into the loudest screams of the night for "The Eve," "Love Shot," "Tempo," "Lotto," "Ko Ko Bop" and "Call Me Baby." After the EDM medley came a winter medley of "Sing for You," "For Life," "Universe" and "The First Snow," which arrived on the day of the season's first snowfall, a coincidence no setlist could have planned. The fan songs "I'm Home" and "Flatline" led into "History," "Love Me Right" and, last, "Growl."
The weakness is structural. Thirty-two songs in about three hours means most of them are shortened, and two of the night's biggest segments were four-song medleys. A song like "Power" becomes a transition rather than a moment. The second issue is the new album: the Herald's account names only two "Reverxe" tracks in a 32-song finale. If that is the full picture, a tour named for a new LP spent very little of its last night on it. This was a catalog show.
It worked anyway, mostly because of the room. The members looked reluctant to leave. Suho said there was a moment when he wished time would stop, and Chanyeol said the tour reminded him how much he enjoyed hearing his fellow members perform for fans. Fan interviews outside the venue point the same way: a 23-year-old from China who had loved the group since "Growl" in 2013 was at her first EXO concert in 13 years.
What the night showed about where EXO is now: a live act whose strength is 14 years of hits and an easy relationship with Exo-L, with the next phase running through units and solo releases rather than a full-group album cycle. Sehun teased the choreography of a Kai-and-Sehun unit as "particularly impressive," and D.O.'s digital single "Darling" is out Wednesday, his first solo release since the "Dopamine" EP in September. Suho promised new group music as soon as possible but gave no date.
The "EXhOrizon" tour ended Nov. 8 at KSPO Dome. D.O.'s "Darling" is out Nov. 11.
