Two years off and the world’s biggest girl group have somehow become even better
Blackpink closed the European leg of their Deadline world tour with a two-and-a-half hour second night set at Wembley that contained all the tight choreography, slick production and fireworks that befit the biggest girl band on the planet.
Yet it was a happily chaotic, unpolished cover of the Spice Girls’ “Wannabe” during the encore that said most about how this K-pop juggernaut has evolved in the two years since they last played London.
Chaotic and unpolished are not adjectives usually associated with the carefully constructed world of K-pop.
But after a hiatus during which the band negotiated a new contract with their label YG and each of its members pursued successful solo endeavours, Jisoo, Lisa, Jennie and Rosé were visibly more playful and relaxed than in 2023.
These are performers who are at the top of their game and who have the confidence to enjoy it.
Dispensing with the need for a support act, Blackpink blasted the show open with a trio of anthems, “Kill This Love”, “Pink Venom” and “How You Like That”.
The Blinks (as the band’s ardent fans are known) were immediately on their feet, waving their expensive branded light sticks and singing every syllable, as this barnstorming opening section was followed in quick succession by “Playing With Fire” and the defiant, Paganini-sampling “Shut Down”.
Act two of a show that was constructed as a five-act epic saw ethereal, reserved Jisoo perform solo hits “Earthquake” and “Your Love”, only to be followed by Lisa, who – as if to prove her difference – rose onto the stage for her solo set dressed in a tiny, fluffy pink top and skirt inspired by Labubu dolls.
The Thai-born White Lotus star is a key driving force behind the dolls’ intense viral popularity through her regular use of them as bag charms. One would imagine that the singer effectively dressing as one of them (“especially for London”) while swaggering through her attitude-heavy bangers “Thunder”, “Lifestyle” and “Rockstar” will do little to quieten the frenzy.
And so it went on. Act three brought the full band back on stage before Jennie and Rosé took their turns to go it alone.
The former was pop charisma personified as she donned sunglasses for the self-referential “Like Jennie”, while Rosé’s international smash “APT” could have been designed for a 70,000-person singalong, even without collaborator Bruno Mars.
If there was a quibble with the evening, it was not with Blackpink, but with the production, with overlong and oddly slow-paced video segments between acts breaking the momentum to allow for multiple costume changes.
But it is a minor point when you have “Jump”, a frenetic global smash of a new single, in your locker to rev the crowd back up for act five.
The Wembley arch was lit pink as the Blinks filed out of the stadium, singing their way to the tube like football fans whose team had just lifted the FA Cup.
Some feared that time apart might spell the end of Blackpink. Instead it appears to have been the making of them.
