Concert Review: Vocal Kings B.D.U Kick Off 'Tour For Wishpool: Flash & Light' in Jersey City

K-pop quartet B.D.U kicked off their 'Tour for Wishpool: Flash & Light' at Jersey City's White Eagle Hall on Friday night. This marks the project group's first-ever tour, which will hit 24 cities across the Americas and Europe.

The four members of B.D.U, Bitsaeon, Seunghun, Jay Chang, and Kim Minseo, were placed together on the Mnet program, Build Up, where the group was formed. They went on to release their first EP, Wishpool, with the title track "My One." While the group is still in its very early stages, B.D.U have already garnered a dedicated fanbase, due to many of the members already having success as part of other groups. This made for a fun mixture of fans in the audience of this particular concert, which also included New Jersey native Jay's 38 family members (yes, 38!) who filled up the venue's entire balcony level.

B.D.U is a group known for their incredible vocal skills, which they showed off effortlessly throughout this concert. I watched many of their performances online in the days leading up to the show, and was already thoroughly impressed. But, as a music enthusiast and vocalist myself, nothing could have prepared me for hearing the gorgeous vocal tones and seamless harmonies in real life. 

Because B.D.U only has four songs of their own, the setlist heavily featured covers as well as performances the group became known for from Build Up, including fan-favorite, "Drowning" by Korean soloist Woodz.

The group broke off into two pairs for duet performances, with Minseo and Seunghun taking on Harry Styles' "Falling", and Jay and Bitsaeon performing another fan-favorite, Charlie Puth's "Dangerously". Following the unit performances were solo covers by each member, with Seunghun's rendition of "3D" by Jungkook garnering the strongest audience response. Fans were still abuzz over this surprise performance as videos circulated on social media after the show.

The goal of this tour is to be more in the style of a fanmeeting or showcase, rather than just a concert, so the group's members talked a bit and also played a silly and chaotic round of Head's Up mid-show. Fans gave hints to the members as they tried to guess the word that was on a card on their head, which made for a lot of laughs and fun moments.

The setlist was completed with two songs from B.D.U.'s Wishpool EP, the English version of title track "My One", as well as fun b-side "aH-OOh!", which served as the encore.

My one and only complaint was that the show felt way too short, clocking in at around an hour and a half. I would've loved to hear more performances, especially the other two songs from the Wishpool EP, "Everlasting Miracle" and "Forget All".

But if my only gripe is that I wanted more, I'd say this was a successful kickoff to what I hope is a successful tour for B.D.U.

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