JUNNY Returns to Seattle with null Tour
We were excited to see JUNNY in concert in support of his 2nd full length album, null, released last year. The namesake tour for this album kicked off its North American journey in his home country of Canada on February 16th in Montreal and eventually made its way to Seattle for tonight’s tour stop. The album itself is a beautiful blend of genres. What kicks off with a soft intro focused on JUNNY’s exceptional vocals flows right into a song that made me feel like I was jamming to something mixed by Daft Punk or JUSTICE with its distorted electronic synth combined with funky basslines. Further into the album, “Provider” even gives a nod to Daft Punk with the line “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger.”
After an entry line that wrapped its way around the corner and down the hill, I entered The Crocodile to immediately hear the audience singing along with every K-Pop song that came over the house speakers while we waited for our first act of the night, Hohyun. There were even a few occurrences of friendly reunions and some people giving each other fan bracelets.
Having previously lived in Spokane, Jason Hohyun Lee is a 21-year-old Korean R&B singer and producer. After going through his own tough mental health journey, Hohyun was very vocal about how we should all discuss mental health more openly with each other. As you can see from the pictures, he came out wearing a “Spiderman 2 movie-accurate suit,” which he says is a nod to truly persevering through life’s issues. After throwing some photo cards and spraying many water bottles into the crowd, Hohyun left Seattle with a huge compliment: “Seattle, you really know how to bark.”
Originally born not too far north in Surrey, BC, Canada, now South Korea-based, JUNNY is also no stranger to the Pacific Northwest. He even told the crowd that Seattle has always felt like a second home since he visited regularly for Mariners games when he was a kid. He immediately started the show with impressive dance moves with his mic stand, causing waves of vocal swooning across the crowd the whole night. Similar to Hohyun, JUNNY attempted to cool the crowd’s barking down with more sprays of water bottles through the set.
If you take any time to listen to null, his latest album, it’s obvious why the crowd continued their barking. At some point in the night, I even overheard a loud declaration of “I love this man so much” next to me as he started playing his song “Provider.” To the dismay of the audience, he ultimately declined their pleas for him to twerk on stage. Throughout the set, I saw many occurrences of him locking eyes with individual fans and giving them what felt like their own personal wave hello. This was obviously followed by plenty of booing when he mentioned that one of the songs he played was written about his ex-girlfriend.
At one point he asked the crowd who had been to one, two, three, or even 4 shows he’s previously toured in Seattle, and there were plenty of confirmation screams from the fans. (To the lady next to me pleading for him to say, “3 shows,” I heard you scream for the “4 shows” option as well.) For me, it feels like the growth in interest for K-Pop has always been steady, but there’s been an obvious spike in popularity across the U.S. thanks to many amazing artists and the hit movie K-Pop Demon Hunters. Tonight’s show was clearly sold out, and based on what I experienced, I think it’s very possible JUNNY’s next show may end up selling out even bigger venues going forward.
