By Mark Savage, Music Correspondent for the BBC

The biggest act on Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage this year isn’t Coldplay or Dua Lipa. In fact, you might not even have heard of them.

The act in question is Seventeen – a K-pop boyband that boasts a whopping 13 members, and which sold more than 10 million albums last year.

The only act to sell more? Taylor Swift.

But despite K-pop’s global success, the UK has remained frosty towards the genre.

Even though bands like BTS, Blackpink, Stray Kids and Aespa have broken out, their biggest hits have tended to come in collaboration with Western artists like Selena Gomez, Lady Gaga or Coldplay.

Seventeen don’t do collaborations. Unlike most Korean pop acts, they also write and produce their own material. Now, they’re making history as the first K-pop act on Glastonbury’s main stage.

The scale of the honour isn’t lost on them.

There’s a great sense of responsibility We’ll keep coming back to that feeling and do our best to prepare, so that we can blow everybody away… Not just our fans, but every other member of the audience.”

says Choi Seungcheol, aka band leader S Coups

Seventeen play the festival in a year that sees it moving further away from its rock roots than ever.

Reflecting the audience’s evolving listening habits, they’ll be joined on the Pyramid Stage by Afrobeat icons Burna Boy and Ayra Starr, while pop star Dua Lipa and R&B sensation SZA gain headline status.

Seventeen play shortly after lunchtime on Friday afternoon. It’s a far cry from the late-night sets they play in Asia but S Coups is unfazed.

The time of day doesn’t really matter to us, It’s actually even better that we’ll be performing in the afternoon because the audience can see us better under sunlight.”

says Choi Seungcheol, aka band leader S Coups.
SEVENTEEN (세븐틴) ‘Spell’ Official MV

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