Seventeen performs at Oakland Arena in Oakland, Calif. on Aug. 14, 2022 during the group’s Be the Sun Tour. Photos courtesy of the artist.

OAKLAND — With BTS on hiatus, who’s the top K-pop group in the U.S.? Judging by album sales, that honor goes to 13-member group Seventeen, the only other K-poppers to sell more than 2 million units in the first week of sales. Seventeen, or SVT for short, did this with their fourth album, Face the Sun, which also reached No. 7 on the Billboard 200. When their label re-released the album in July with four new songs, it debuted at No. 4.

Seventeen’s current tour of 12 North American cities is the group’s first opportunity to play those songs live, and Oakland Arena on Sunday was the third stop. The roughly two-and-a-half-hour show consisted of three main acts. SVT began and ended with performances by the entire group—Jeonghan, Joshua, Hoshi, Wonwoo, Woozi, DK, Mingyu, The8, Seungkwan, Vernon, Dino, S. Coups and Jun—with the middle segment dedicated to unit performances; a quartet specializing in singing, a hip-hop quintet and another quartet with the main focus on footwork.

Despite starting on an energetic note with the bassy and galloping “HOT,” free flowing “March”—both from the new album—and the EDM-inflected “HIT,” it took a while for SVT to get going. It didn’t help that right after the fiery start (quite literally, with repeated bursts of flames shooting up from around the stage), the show was halted for the crowd to be told roughly eight times that this was the group’s first time in Oakland. In fact, Seventeen last appeared locally in January 2020—playing SAP Center in San Jose—sans S. Coups, who was on leave to deal with anxiety. Such scripted dialog can be hit and miss, and at this show, it killed momentum. Many in the crowd were back in their seats five minutes into the speechifying.

Seventeen at Oakland Arena.

Luckily, anthemic ’80s-like pop tune “Rock with you” came next. The 13 members, at this point dressed in bedazzled bullfighting-like outfits, made their way to a large platform in the middle of the floor. Because there were so many of them, they needed the entire space to stretch out for a dance number.

Afterward, all but Joshua and Vernon left the stage for the duo’s song “2 MINUS 1.” While the song is reportedly inspired by pop-punk queen Avril Lavigne, they conjured a different inspiration with their performance, walking around the stage with partial microphone stands a la Freddie Mercury, striking rock star poses melodramatically.

Seventeen at Oakland Arena.

Following a short break, Seventeen’s performance team (Hoshi, The8, Dino and Jun) had the stage, continuing to rebuild the momentum with synth-laden R&B number “Moonwalker”—that is, until the song exploded into a banger, with the four trading sweetly sung lines with rapped parts. The four were dressed in white and moved sensually on the stage in the middle of the floor. Some of the dance moves clearly paid homage to Michael Jackson, yet they were more “Thriller” than “Billie Jean.”

The four remained for the disco-inspired number “Wave,” dancing amid laser blasts, before ceding the stage to the vocal quintet (Woozi, Jeonghan, Joshua, DK and Seungkwan), dressed in silky blue outfits and sitting on a riser to start while singing soft ballad “Come to Me.” But it was on the following song, “Imperfect love,” where Seventeen hit its stride, starting the first mass singalong of the night. The house lights were turned on before a spray of confetti capped the song by the vocal quintet.

The hip-hop unit (S. Coups, Wonwoo, Vernon and Mingyu) went last, performing “GAM3 BO1” and “Back It Up.” The latter song featured more hard-hitting rap, but the former was a pleasing blend of K-pop with glitchy PC music.

Seventeen at Oakland Arena.

By the time all 13 members were on stage together again, they had regained their stride. Wearing red jumpsuits, the group performed “Mansae” in front of a wall covered in traffic signs and colorful graffiti. This ode to ’80s R&B gave off serious Boyz II Men vibes. SVT followed that up with “Left & Right”—performed as a jock jam—at one point even dribbling a basketball around the stage. “Very Nice,” meanwhile, could find a place in some Broadway show, as Seventeen showed. It was punctuated by another burst if confetti and some of the group’s best dancing of the night. 

The latter end of of the show included “Shadow,” with its house dance music rhythm and some of the best singing of the night. “Crush,” which featured the return of the flame jets, was highlighted by sweet falsettos, while recent singles “_WORLD” and “Darl+ing”drove some fans into a tizzy.

Follow editor Roman Gokhman at Twitter.com/RomiTheWriter.