beyondasiaphilia

Let’s Go Crazy: CNBLUE’s North America Strategy

March 7, 2025 at 6:13 am 1 comment

After more than ten years, CNBLUE is finally touring North America again, with shows planned in April in Toronto, New York City, Los Angeles, and San Francisco. During those ten years the band has gone through a lot of changes, due to a two-year plus hiatus for their mandatory military service, the scandal-ridden departure of their lead guitarist, and the COVID-19 pandemic. But in the past couple years they’ve come back strong, with an especially stellar 2024, so now it seems they’re re-setting their sights on a more global presence. 

Although CNBLUE was the very first South Korean band to have a world tour way back in 2013-14, for the most part since then they’ve focused their attention on building audiences in Asia, which they’ve done to massive success. But that means they’ve only played a total of two shows in the US in their fifteen-plus years of existence (not counting a joint performance with their labelmates FTISLAND and a few stages at KCon). With the rise of Kpop in the US in the past several years, it seemed like everyone and their mother was touring here except CNBLUE, but now that’s about to be rectified. But as a band and not a dance group they have less appeal to mainstream Kpop audiences in the US, so they’re not likely to be a breakout success like BTS or Blackpink. Instead, it seems more likely that they’ll have to follow the lead of another Asian band that’s also hugely popular in their home country, One OK Rock from Japan. 

OOR started touring the US way back in 2014, right around the time that CNBLUE last played in this country. But unlike CNBLUE, OOR has been coming back to the US on the regular, with follow up tours almost every year since then (except during the COVID-19 pandemic years of 2020-21). For most of those years they played in 3000-5000 capacity halls, but after more than ten years touring in the US, OOR is now moving into somewhat bigger venues here, including the 12,000-seat Prudential Arena in New Jersey. On the West Coast they’re playing in 8000-seat houses, but in most of the rest of the country they’re still playing 3000-5000 seat venues. So despite their vast popularity in Japan, where they routinely sell out the 55,000-seat Tokyo Dome for several nights in a row, OOR are still something of a niche attraction here in the US. But they’re gradually moving up, after many years of hard work touring in North America.

If they’re lucky, CNBLUE will follow a similar trajectory, and I’m sure they’re itching to jump in the game in North America. A further plot twist—sometime late last year CNBLUE’s frontman Jung Yonghwa torn his meniscus in his right knee and in mid-January underwent surgery to repair it. As of today he seems to be on the way to recovering, but for a little while it seemed a bit iffy if it would be a good idea for the North American tour would go forward, since Yonghwa’s signature stage presence includes continuously running and jumping on stage for upwards of three hours at at time. 

But this tour is hopefully just the first of many to come, so if Yonghwa isn’t able to tear around the stage at full speed like he usually does it’s not the end of the world. This is just the first foray into a long-term commitment to expanding outside of Asia and if the example of OOR is a guideline it’s going to take a long time and several tours for them to successfully break into the US market. If their shows on this tour are somewhat less manic it’s okay, and CNBLUE will hopefully come back again next year or the year after when Yonghwa is back to his old self and can fully jump around. Despite the ten-year gap since their last show here, I have a feeling it’s not the last time CNBLUE will play in the US, and they’ll be back much quicker this time.

This tour is a little appetizer, so if they’re not able to be their fully hyped-up selves on stage it will be okay, since there will be other chances—this time they’re just dipping their toes in the water. As OOR has shown, this market is a tough nut to crack no matter how popular you are in Asia. There’s only one way to get to where OOR is and that’s through hard work and diligence, and if CNBLUE wants to succeed here they’re going to have to do the same and grind away at smaller venues until they build their fanbase here. This tour will be the first step in a long road, but I think it’s totally worth it, since they’re good enough to be globally popular and to compete in the world market. This time around Yonghwa will just have to come up with creative strategies to allow for his current physical state, which I’m sure he’ll do brilliantly. And above all, I have faith in the power of CNBLUE’s music. Their concerts are not only about running around on stage, but also about the sheer genius of their songs. That brilliance will shine through no matter what form their stage performance takes.

To buy tickets, go here:

Toronto, Ap. 16: https://www.ticketmaster.ca/cnblue-voyage-into-x-toronto-ontario-04-16-2025/event/1000624CAEC01BF6

NYC, Ap. 18: https://dice.fm/event/yolkla-cnblue-voyage-into-x-live-tour-18th-apr-knockdown-center-new-york-tickets

Los Angeles, Ap. 24: https://www.axs.com/events/846222/2025-cnblue-live-voyage-into-x-in-north-america-tickets

San Francisco, Ap. 27: https://www.axs.com/events/845376/cnblue-tickets

Entry filed under: CNBLUE. Tags: CNBLUE, Jung Yonghwa, Kang Minhyuk, Kpop, Lee Jungshin, music.