Kpop fans are still talking about the badass set at Coachella.
88Rising wow-ed the Coachella audience with its Head in the Clouds Forever set on April 22.
The 80-minute set was the first-ever label-curated set on the Coachella main stage and included artists such as NIKI, Rich Brian, Warren Hue, BIBI, Jackson Wang, MILLI, CL & 2NE1, and Hikaru Utada, according to NME.
88Rising co-founder Sean Miyashiro said to Billboard that their performances, especially notable performances such as 2NE1 and Jackson Wang’s performance, became a hot topic on social media.
“People really freaked out,” Miyashiro said in an interview with Billboard. “Everybody killed it and then Utada showing up on stage and her playing songs from everybody’s childhood, there was a lot of conversation about that. All those energies combined – the past, present and future – people freaked out and were calling it historic, monumental, all those different words.”
The 88Rising team had only a few months to put together this historic set. Miyashiro said that the label got involved with Coachella from their Head in the Clouds festival last year.
“We did our Head in the Clouds festival and [Coachella co-founder] Paul Tollett had heard so much about it that he came and visited our studio the Monday after,” he said to Billboard. “He was really admiring what we were doing and the energy around it and he said, “We’d love to do something with you.” I said, “Let me get back to you and think about what’s the dopest thing we could do.””
Miyashiro also talked about the diversity of genres 88Rising could bring to the performance, saying “the variation of the artists and what they do on stage is what makes it seamless.”
Brian was one of the artists who performed in the main stage set last week. He spoke about the opportunity to perform on a big occasion.
“I feel like we’re just so blessed with this opportunity,” he told NME. “Things just seem to keep happening – we keep just doing so many big things. I’m always just surprised with what kind of projects we end up taking on. This has been the biggest thing so far and just really, really inspiring.”
Their second-week set included K-pop artist Aespa, according to Pop!Inquirer.
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