Climbing Moss

Last week we told of our first London gig of 2025 – 8 Turn at the Islington Assembly Hall, a little event with an audience of around 500-800 fans, well this week we want to tell you about another gig we went to, a slightly larger event at the Tottenham Hotspurs Football Stadium, where Stray Kids took to the stage…

We saw Stray Kids last year at Hyde Park for the BST Festival, but this time round it was just the guys playing on their own and for 2 nights, Friday and Saturday the 18th and 19th July and in front of 50,000 fans each night. We attended on the 1st night of the DominATE London.

The venue, the Spurs Stadium can hold nearly 60,000 supporters for a football match, but with the stage taking up one end of the open air arena the capacity is reduced, but could have easily filled the place to the rafters, even with the pitch covered in seating areas and standing sections. We were sat in the ‘C Section’ which meant about near the centre circle of the pitch, any further forward and we would have had to pay somewhere in the region of £450 a seat instead of the £200 each. A VIP ticket which included getting in for the sound check and being in the front pit, right up against the stage would have cost somewhere in the region of £1,000 each!

We arrived via bus that was supposed to get us to White Hart Lane, but was curtailed at Tottenham Bus Garage a mile up the road and we had to walk along the High Street with the steady flow of other fans that stood out like sore thumbs amongst the inhabitants of N17, not the most culturally affluent of locations, but as we approached the stadium the crowd grew and we got swallowed in the sea of black, red and white, like the ‘Team Colours’ of a visiting team playing at the modern premier league club. So many variants on the costumes of videos, of member’s own outfits as well as people holding posters, pictures and faces of the members, Skzoo’s (plushies of the band members) and thousands and thousands of Light-Sticks.

We weaved and wandered through the throng to find our entrance and were handed freebies by complete strangers, little bags of goodies made to hand out to random people, bags of photo cards, bracelets, stickers and even sweets, all for complete strangers, just for turning up. We took our offerings and headed towards the section we needed and found ourselves passing through security with no issue, a simple bag search and a scan for contraband (perfume, lighters, alcohol and anything dangerous or that could be made dangerous in a crowd).

Up the flights of stairs to the entrances, we entered what some consider holy ground and others (Ash included) consider enemy ground, if they are an Arsenal Fan! Inside a cacophony of talking and excited chatter hit as the masses sat, drank and ate in anticipation of the main event. Food and drink is in abundance here…. apart from vegan/veggie food that had apparently gone in the first 30 mins so we instead opted for Cider!

Toilet queues were silly for the women’s, Bob and a fair number of others took the sensible alternative of heading in the empty Men’s – hey if anyone asked they would just state they are transitioned men and no one would be able to prove otherwise!

We headed for our seats. Section C1 and sat in the (for once) lovely weather! Thankfully Day 1 was really 28c, but on Day 2 it apparently rained most of the time.

The gig started at 7pm with a visual and a drummer beating a virtual drum, then the 8 gentlemen appeared atop a flight of stairs with a scream of ‘LET”S GO!’ Sent the stadium into a frenzy of screams and singing.
Everyone in the seated area stood up (why it even bothered stating it was seated, we do not know as soon as the music started everyone rose and didn’t sit back down until the end)
What happened next was 4 hours of non stop music, chatting, joking and banter…

Opening with one of the more epic songs – Mountains, leading into Thunderous, JJAM, District 9 and then Back door.
The members took a brief break to say – Hello and introduce themselves in their own unique way.

Then we went straight back into the songs with Hellevator, Easy, S-Class, Walking on water, Charmer, Venom then Hall of Fame which was all music medley mashup while the dancers got their moment to shine.

The members came back to ‘Chk Chk Boom’, Domino and ‘Gods Menu’ then we entered into the …

The duets where vastly different vibes – Starting with Han and Felix – Truman, Followed by Burning Tires -Changbin and I.N. which made for a fun/cheeky little version. Next up was the sexier – Escape – Bang Chan and Hyunjin and finally ending with the Vocals in Cinema – Lee Know and Seungmin – which whilst they sang had the credits of fans names who were in the audience, if you had signed up for Live Nation your name was on there – it’s just a case of finding it….

There was another brief break before a huge inflatable man appeared on the stage before – ‘Giant’ began, then into Walking on Water, S-Class, Lonely Street, Cover Me, where the Audience were asked to raise the banners we were given on entry.

Then onto, Topline, Social Path and LALALALA where there was a vast amount of fireworks and pyrotechnics and splashing water from the members into the VIP section.
There was another talking section where the members asked about their duets and did some audience interaction.
Then Megaverse, Maniac and Superboard.

There was a brief break and then the members stepped onto Moving Platforms while they sang ‘I Like It’, ‘My Pace’ and Blindspot whilst being wheeled around the Arena, so that everyone could have a close-up look, the platforms were followed by Gigantic Inflatable Skzoo’s.

They came back to the stage singing their signature song ‘Stray Kids’ and ended the Set with Miroh – arguably one of the biggest and most well known songs. They did a brief goodbye – which everyone knows is a fake goodbye because they still have the encore!

They came back on quickly and started singing again, with ‘Chk Chk Boom’ (the festival version) – full of fire, fireworks, confetti and all manner of grand spectacles, then the whole night ended with ‘Get Lit’.

They did an outro – said their goodbyes, the translator was finally needed (mostly for I.N.) then did a group ending photo.

Bob left happy once again with the vow that next year we would be seeing them again (If we can) Ash left happy to be out of that stadium.

We were all ushered out fairly quickly after the lights came back on and we exited into the open air where we were met by thousands of others. We were now reduced into the role of fish in a school of other fish all crammed into a tiny space known as the streets back to the stations. The buses were so rammed being that there was no adjustments to their schedule one came every 20 minutes and got packed before even getting anywhere near the stadium. We ended up walking all the way back to Tottenham Bus Station where we still weren’t able to get anywhere near a bus as people were just jumping on the back. It took well over an hour to get back anywhere remotely close to home. This was badly organized! We ended up having to detour to somewhere off field to get to a bus that wouldn’t be packed! Clearly the stadium hasn’t had a talk with TFL and maybe should do in the future to deal with the overflow.

Overall –

Bob – I had a good time – I got to see one of her Ult groups once again so yay! I could actually see them this time! The venue was pretty good! The music was once again great. The microphones at times were a bit reverby and echoey so it was a little hard to hear the members talking but seeing the reactions and hearing how loud the audience was truly goosebumpy. Plus seeing the members from close up when they went round the Arena was really pleasing as I finally saw Lee Know! Oh and hearing Miroh live was a memory I will store forever! It was still a shame we didn’t get to hear some more of the older stuff but I suppose it happens.
Ash – It should have been at Arsenal – I struggled with the talking – I had taken my Loop ear protectors which work! A little too well so I struggled hearing the start. The walk home ruined a lot of the experience (it was painful) Once again in the middle of problematic areas. I still can’t stand a couple of songs. I do however like the last song which really left a lasting impact with the sound and the confetti etc.

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Next up Enhypen in August and then, well we aren’t sure what, but we will of course report on it all here on climbing-moss.com