beyondasiaphilia

Impressions of a World Tour: CNBLUE in Europe

July 25, 2026 at 3:23 am Leave a comment

Another guest post by my pal Glenn!

Anyone reading this blog is probably already aware that CNBLUE are currently in the midst of their off- and on- 3logy World Tour. Having already played shows in many Asian locales as well as Australia and New Zealand, the band announced a small European leg of the tour a few months ago to include four shows: Berlin, Paris, London, and The Hague, Netherlands. Sitting in the USA I saw this is a good chance to see the band in somewhat more intimate venues a few time zones closer to home than going all the way to Asia. Jumping into trip planning mode I quickly decided that Berlin and The Hague would make good bookends to a summer European adventure.

Once venues and ticket sales were finally announced there was a good bit of grumbling from European BOICE related to the very high ticket prices and the choice of ticket sellers. Much like the mess that was CNBLUE’s 2025 North American tour, there were several small promoters selected and each venue ended up having multiple ticket sales outlets to further confuse everyone. Ultimately I think it’s up to FNC to get their act together when it comes to shows in places that the band doesn’t visit on a regular basis – the band and their fans deserve better. More reasonable ticket prices likely would have led to more ticket sales and bigger crowds. As it was there were a number of last-minute changes to the seating plan and staff moving fans from lower ticket tiers to fill empty spaces closer to the front which was really a slap in the face to those of us who jumped on to buy tickets as soon as they went on sale.

Now, with that grumbling out of the way, let’s go on with the shows.

The show in Berlin took place at the Uber Eats Music Hall in the Eastern part of the city in a thriving entertainment district that includes the Uber Arena next door and several hotels just a few steps from the venue, which was very convenient. Uber Eats Music Hall has a capacity of around 2000 in an all-seated configuration. The venue is quite new and state-of-the-art. I opted for the “A” tier for this show, which ended up being a floor seat just behind the VIP rows. So I missed out on sound check for this show. 

The setlist for the 3logy shows is basically the same everywhere without any changes. Jumping straight into the show with the upbeat track Ready, Set, Go! that opens the 3logy album seemed like a good choice to set the mood. Fans were all on their feet from the start. That was followed by Catch Me from CNBLUE’s 2015 2gether album. It’s a fun track featuring Yonghwa’s signature rock wail that was right home to keep everyone moving. The first section of the show finished with the fan favorite Racer from 2024’s X album.

Then we got the first emcee with the members all trying out their teleprompter-assisted German on the audience, who ate it all up. If there’s one thing CNBLUE know how to do it’s pander to their local audience. Yonghwa especially likes to communicate with fans in their local language, but there was also an interpreter to help out, which was very helpful given Minhyuk’s tendency to speak in whole paragraphs in Korean. They also spoke in English quite a bit. Having given us all their impressions of Berlin – “hot” (it was over 100 degrees F or 40 degrees C in the days before the show), the band then jumped into the next portion of the show with Nothing from Wanted (2021) and golden oldie Intuition, which got lots of screams of recognition. Yonghwa had mentioned that they would be performing all of the songs from 3logy, and Lowkey came next followed by the newer favorite 99%, also from Wanted.

That brought us to the second emcee break which was more thanking everyone for coming and a little bit of Food Talk before launching into my personal favorite from 3logy, Bliss. This is such a great song with its dreamy quality. For me it’s right up there with Royal Rumble, which shares a lot of similar qualities. This was followed by a fantastic version of Domino from the 2015 album 2gether which CNBLUE hasn’t played that often recently. Yonghwa really seems to enjoy his keyboard parts on Domino with the almost theramin-like sound. It’s a great companion to Bliss and shows how well-constructed the set is for this tour. While I personally would love to see them mix the set up from show to show it’s hard to argue that this isn’t a great show. Next was the evergreen Radio which seems to be one of the band’s favorites given how frequently it has featured in the set over the years.

And then some lighter songs including the oldie Love with lots of audience participation and Little Things from 3logy. And after mentioning JungShin’s authorship came Temperature of a Memory, also from 3logy, which was followed by more favorites including Then, Now, and Forever from 2020’s Re-Code and Still, A Flower and To The Moon and Back from 3logy.

After one last emcee the main set closed out with more upbeat tracks Between Us from 2017’s 7 degrees CN, all-time favorite I’m Sorry with all of its audience participation, and Killer Joy, the big single from 3logy, with even more audience participation with lyrics on the big video screen so we could sing along.

The break to the encore seemed to last a bit longer than usual, but eventually the band returned and Yonghwa started the new intro to I’m A Loner, which brought more squeals of recognition from the audience. It’s great that they keep re-arranging and breathing new life into this old chestnut of a song that has probably been played more times than every other CNBLUE song over the years. Then came You’re So Fine, which seems to be one of Yonghwa’s favorites. Again and Anthem of Life from 3logy closed the show.

Afterwards there was a cake presentation and the singing of Happy Birthday to celebrate Yonghwa and Minhyuk’s recent birthdays, then a video featuring European BOICE welcoming the band, which was a nice touch. 

A week later BOICE gathered at the AFAS Circustheater in The Hague, Netherlands. This seemed like a bit of an odd tour stop compared to big capital cities like Berlin, Paris, and London, but apparently The Hague is the live music capital of the Netherlands. I’ll put in a plug here for The Hague as a destination. I was thoroughly charmed by the city. The old town is very compact and walkable. The public transport system is great and there’s very little car traffic. There are several excellent museums including the Maurithuis art museum dedicated to Dutch Masters and is the home of the famous Vermeer painting Girl With the Pearl Earring. I also I happened to see Minhyuk there on the morning of the show, but I didn’t want to bother him as he was clearly recording video for his YouTube channel.

The venue Circustheater first opened in 1904 and has a capacity of about 1800 in the main theater space. It mainly hosts Broadway shows and the stage is relatively compact. There are iron arches over the stage and lots of brick walls so that sound was fairly bright and shimmery. There were no video screens for this show. Here again the show was clearly not sold out and people from lower seating tiers were moved to fill in the empty seats up front once the doors opened to the non-VIP ticketholders.

The VIP soundcheck consisted of Love, Racer, I’m a Loner, and You’re So Fine. The band were very relaxed and Yonghwa engaged in a conversation with one local fan who he said spoke Korean better than he does–I guess she was singing along in Korean. She said she lived in Seoul for several years and he seemed very tickled by the encounter.

The show was essentially the same as Berlin with the only difference being the addition of Cinderella as final encore and the band trying out their Dutch language skills. At both shows Yonghwa did make sure to acknowledge and thank their touring guitar player Keun Park and always-bemused keyboard maestro Klozer, both of whom received rousing cheers from the crowd.

Despite the issues it’s always fun to see CNBLUE and they are all just such total pros. These were my seventh and eighth CNBLUE live experiences and visiting Europe is always great. At this time, whether they will extend the current World Tour to more of the world such North and South America remains a mystery.

As a postscript, shortly after the CNBLUE tour was announced I noticed that one of my favorite Japanese bands DYGL was embarking on a European tour of their own. Their final stop was Berlin two days after CNBLUE so I managed to squeeze in another show. The contrast was large as DYGL is not a hugely well-known group even in Japan. So they played at a tiny venue called Neue Zukunft which is also the Eastern part of Berlin, near the Ostkreuz train station. The room probably has a capacity of 70 people or so and I’d estimate there were about 50 of us in attendance in the hot, sweaty space. The five-piece group includes 3 guitarists, bass and drums, and they play garage-y and punk-inflected rock ‘n’ roll. Their sound has evolved quite a bit over the years from Strokes-tinged rock on their debut Say Goodbye to Memory Den to more pop-rock on A Daze in a Haze to the lo-fi of Thirst to the current garage sound on their latest album Who’s In The House? They tore through their set and were very friendly chatting to everyone in the merch line after the show. It was a great bonus as I have been wanting to see them live for a few years now.

Entry filed under: 2026 World Tour, CNBLUE, Jung Yonghwa, Kang Minhyuk, Lee Jungshin. Tags: 3logy, CNBLUE, concert, Jung Yonghwa, Kang Minhyuk, Kpop, krock, music, rock.