Youth - Sometimes Arcs are Circles
Okay @thirstkanaphan. You win.
Let's talk about "Youth."
Here comes the obligatory Luke disclaimer that one day I might not put at the start of every post. This time it feels important to say for...reasons. As in -
I should probably acknowledge formally that Yunho and Mingi are my ult biases. Look, I don't know how it happened either.
Neither of them are my normal "type" when it comes to the rest of my biases either. I normally have a thing for leaders. Name a group, I can guarantee you my bias will be the leader. It's kind of embarrassing at this point. (I'm sure that says something about my personality as a whole, but that's not what this post is for, okay?)
But here we are. Trust me, Hongjoong has tried, and most likely will continue to do so. Who knows what 2026 will bring?
(Update as of 12.26: Yeah. Alright Hongjoong, I'll write about you soon. Fine, you've forced my hand).
But, yeah. Yunho and Mingi. Those are my guys. Pretty sure I'm stuck with them at this point.
It's also pretty clear, at least based on the way I write about them, that I feel different ways about them. For instance...
Mingi makes me grin like a stupid idiot at my phone. I love Mingi's creativity and spontaneity, his skill and determination. He makes me laugh the hardest whenever I'm watching any of their content. I have such feelings of genuine pride when I watch his work, (see the "ROAR" breakdown). In regards to his onstage energy....let's just say it comes off as bratty more than anything else, at least to me. And, let's just say I....probably shouldn't talk about how that makes me feel online.
Yunho haunts me. I am plagued by visions of him during any waking moment of the day. I once described biasing Yunho as feeling like a Richard Siken poem on shrooms. In other words, feral, and out of my body with longing to the point that it feels a little disgusting. Like something caught, lurking under my skin.
So. I'm weird about them. I'm really weird and really gay about them. I have accepted this.
But it's not my fault totally, because oh my god guys. They're so....well. I mean. Have you heard "Youth"? HAVE YOU WATCHED THE "YOUTH" MUSIC VIDEO?
(Oh, I know many of you have watched at least ONE performance video of "Youth." Yeah. That one. Yeah, we're gonna talk about it a little, don't worry).
The Towards the Light tour is so deeply important to me because of its bombastic audacity to make big choices. I've talked at length about those choices, whether that be in my "Wake Up" post or my "Arriba" post. I've broken down the complex sequences, taken notes on slowed down recordings of grainy quality. I've praised whoever did the lighting to the moon and back at this point. It all comes down to the same thing, the same thing I emphasize over and over again. An unending commitment to storytelling.
So what story is "Youth" telling?
See, the lighting for "Youth" is crazy because it breaks so many of the rules I’ve told you all about for lighting design for concerts, yet it does so with such grace and elegance that I weep every time I see it. It does this because the story of "Youth" is so deeply personal, so deeply known by its two members, so it has to think before it acts.
It is circular, and by that I mean, "Youth" starts us out at one place and we return to that same place by the end of the song. Changed, sure, but still ultimately the same people. If you recall my "Wake Up" post, I mentioned that the purpose of a song in a musical, or even in a concert, is moving forward through the story, or the emotion, or the song. Youth doesn't do that. It noticeably doesn't do that.
And you got that from the lighting, Luke?
Remember, I'm what some might call a huge fucking nerd.
See, the first thing that's a big deal about Youth that we have to talk about is genre. Genre of lighting design. It's easier to explain this by looking at the other unit songs, and what they do differently. For instance, "Youth" stands apart because...
It cannot leap onto the battlefield like "MATZ" does. If you look at the lighting design of "MATZ," like here...
"MATZ" is all reds and oranges with touches of green here and there. "MATZ" is red and oranges and flames. "MATZ" is on fire, they are dangerous. It's all there in the lyrics, and the lighting commits to that feeling. They are, noticeably, the only unit that primarily utilizes warm colors, with accents of purple as necessary.
It cannot slink in the shadows like "IT's You." If you look at the lighting design of "IT's You," like here...
"IT's You" is all ice blue and lasers and hyper-techno influences. Never before have I seen a number so committed to its lighting resembling a gay club at 2am. Once again, it's all there in the lyrics. I should not need to explain whatever the hell Woosansang have going on. (Honestly, I'm more of the mindset of "Good for them." They deserve whatever they've got going on).
It cannot sweep your legs out from under you, like "Everything." (At least, not in the same way. More on that later). If you look at the lighting design of Everything, like here...
"Everything" is Jongho's vocals and his undeniable stage presence. "Everything" lights him like a god because his vocals beg you to do so. Look at him go. Look at that staircase they constructed specifically so he looks like a prince at the top of castle. Once again, it's all in the song.
"Youth" is different. Whereas "MATZ," "IT's You," and "Everything" exist in completely different lighting genres, they all live within the realm of concert lighting. "Youth"...
"Youth" starts like this.
God, okay there's so much to explain already.
Firstly, this telephone booth. This telephone booth kills me for so many reasons. Of course, there is the obvious one, that Yunho and Mingi relived the conversation that marked such a powerful turning point in their lives every performance. But, the nerd in me is screaming because this is a custom made practical.
Practicals, in lighting design, are lighting sources that are visible as a part of the diagetic narrative of the story. Without trailing down a long path about diagesis and musical theatre, let's just say that a practical is a lighting instrument that is canon to the world of the performance. In Phantom of the Opera, when the chandelier flies down over the audience and into place for the opera, that chandelier is a practical. It lives within the canon of the world. The same goes for this telephone booth.
This telephone booth actually contains three practicals, namely the neon "TELEPHONE" sign, and the two oblong rectangle lights mounted in the frame. All of these are painstakingly wired and powered by something like a car battery hidden in the construction of the booth. They are most likely controlled by a wireless data system, or at least that's what I would do if I was building it. In other words, somewhere in this booth is a little radio signal that transmits whether or not the lights should be on to the lighting board. This all takes time, and trial and error, especially when you're building something like this to withstand being toured from city to city.
What does this mean to the overall performance beyond just being a well constructed set piece?
Essentially, the inclusion of this phone call at the beginning of the performance defines the entire tone of this song as a reflection on this one memory Yunho and Mingi share, before everything changed in their entire lives. In other words, this is a memory play.
Memory play is a genre of theatre, arguably coined by Tennessee Williams, wherein our point-of-view character acts as our narrator through past events of their life, often through a highly subjective and often conflicted lens. Its a distorted and convoluted type of theatre, often very easily misunderstood. Glass Menagerie is a really good example. I would argue that The Great Gatsby only works when it's adapted as one.
This is what I mean when I say the lighting from "Youth" is in a completely different genre. We're lighting "Youth" like it's a memory play. Let's look at the beginning again.
Look at our reliance on fog, on the heavy blanket of it that covers the stage and smears the deck. We do not see Yunho and Mingi walk the ground in this opening, in our minds they might as well be floating. Look at our key light, (aka our main light that mimics our real world lighting reference). Never before have I seen a more direct attempt at the natural cool blue of moonlight in an ATEEZ performance. It even follows the other lighting principle, of employing the reflections of the practicals, (aka our light sources that are cannon to our world), as the remaining sources of light. That's why we have this red aura around them for their phone call, it's a reflection of the telephone sign. It's theatre lighting, and it's memory play theatre lighting.
Now, you may be wondering, Luke, if this is a memory play, who is our protagonist?
I don't even know if I have to explain it this much. It's Mingi. Of course it is.
This is Mingi's song that he wrote to and for Yunho. This is Mingi's most personal work after his return to ATEEZ. This is Mingi's reflection on what he thinks his youth meant. This is Mingi's memories, first and foremost. There's also the significance of blue being the primary color of the song, and that being such a prominent color for Mingi, beyond its practical use within the narrative of the performance.
So we start at the phone call, specifically, at least I think, Mingi's imagined memory of the phone call. That's why we don't see him, which is a strange take to have, but I can only imagine Yunho exists here almost as an imagination of what Yunho would look like on the other end of the line for Mingi. Mingi remembers and imagines what Yunho would look like, first and foremost.
And from that night, that phonecall, that memory, we bleed away into a broader scene, flickering in and out of Mingi's past, and his memories with Yunho. But what's complicated here, and what provides us with our emotional journey, is the way these memories and this duet unfolds. Basically, in rewatching the concert performance nine billion times for this breakdown, I noticed one very clear thing.
This is a duet with distance. They're always finishing each other's sentences. They're always dancing around each other. They're never fully together. They can't even make eye contact with each other.
Look, here at the top of the song..
Mingi is watching Yunho as he sings his first part, but Yunho is pointedly staring straight ahead. Like he can't even hear him.
It's noticeable when we get to Yunho's verse too.
BBTrippin are surrounding him, and Mingi is present, but not watching. Yunho is sheltered, separated. Like we're watching him through the cracks of something we're not quite supposed to see. This is what I mean by memory play, Yunho exists here as a refrain to the song, an echo of Mingi's memory.
Mingi, too, is separated. Once again,
when he pops back up again to continue the song, he, too, is surrounded by BBTrippin. Yunho is gone.
Now is probably also the time to point out that the physical look of the lighting for Yunho's portions, too, live outside of the canon that we've set up in the initial phone call. Yunho's section uses the audience blinders in slow waves, cascading the soft blues over his number. Yunho's scene comes without the waft of moonlight that Mingi returns too, that was in the initial scene. Mingi is lit with more variations of blue, mimicking the natural varieties of light, whereas Yunho is ethereal in the softer blue. Ghostlike. It's crazy.
Once again! We're looking at each other but we're not really looking at each other. Notice how Mingi is, once again, searching for Yunho in a wall of people, and coming up short.
(This is purely a selfish image because oh my lord look how good they look here. If you recall my Mingi post, I explained about how because Mingi is designed for the lighting positions of dance, you can literally have two lights, one centers on his hips and the other on his chest, and he looks fantastic. The same goes for Yunho by the way, they both look amazing with low side light. This is one of those moments and it makes me feel so giddy. Anyway. Gay sidenotes aside).
Because here we go. Conflict. The major break in the color scheme. It is incredibly important for me to emphasize to you that this is the only time in all of the unit numbers where the color scheme breaks this drastically. Even though "MATZ" does shift in color throughout the number (something something gay people), it doesn't have such a seismic break from its original color scheme of oranges and reds.
And I puzzled over this, because it happens when they start dancing together, in sync. This should be the thing that brings them together, except...
Except it's not. Because even though they're working in sync, they're still not communicating. I remind you of the fact that they have not made eye contact once yet during this number. In this choreograhy, they are synced but they are on opposite sides of a wall. They literally have walls up surrounding them.
It is also worth mentioning that we're pulling from the colors of their music video in a real way here, namely, the raging inferno of the house burning down.
Look at the warm oranges and golds here as Mingi stumbles around. With the fog on the ground, it almost looks like he's being burnt by the flames, as the orange echoes over the deck. Something is not right, (within our narrative, not during the performance), you can tell because look how Yunho is lit:
It feels, scattered is the best way to phrase it, like all of these thoughts are ramming into one another, but note how its scattered so purposefully. The oranges are still at the bottom and the top, the fire encircling but not quite burning to the center yet. Our blues are still here, and with the contrast of the warm oranges, they make Yunho feel even more ghostly, like a figure lit by candelight.
And then. Then we get one of my favorite sequences. I foreshadowed that I was going to talk about this part in my last post and here we go.
Okay, so Yunho's little dance solo bit here is an example of when what you're not supposed to do technically works out beautifully for you in terms of storytelling. Let me explain with this series of images I painstakingly went through to try and capture what I mean.
Okay, you might have looked through those and been like oh, cool, a spotlight moved over to him as he kneeled down to do his dance number and highlighted his hand reaching for the sky. Very nice, very good.
See, but the inside baseball here is that this is a live move, and at a critical point of the number. A live move is when our moving light makes a move with the light on throughout its entire movement. You may say, Luke, that happens all the time, right? And sure, it does in concerts. If you watch other ATEEZ numbers the lights are moving all over the place, they're blinding the audience, they're grooving to the beat.
But not in this one. Look through "Youth" again, and you will see a noticeable lack of movement, of effect patterns, of flashing. Sure, that's because it's a slower song, and sure, that's because it's emotional as all hell. But, and this is a bit of red string on a corkboard from me, it's also because this is the most theatrical lighting based in a genre where everything means something.
And in theatre, live moves are rare. We normally use a system called marking to purposefully limit them happening. They are a moment of fourth wall break, where the audience realizes that someone is trying to direct your attention so obviously. In other words, our narrator is trying to direct our attention to somewhere with such pinpoint accuracy, that we have to notice.
And in this case, what this live move means in the context of this song, is that Mingi had such a powerful memory of Yunho in this moment, in this section, that it literally broke apart everything else. I am saying that Mingi's memories of Yunho, Yunho's role in this moment, breaks through everything being on fire and burning up. Yunho saves Mingi. (This is literally what the lighting is telling you, I can't make this shit up).
And once he remembers this, reconciliation and returning to him happens almost immediately.
What am I talking about? I'm talking about this.
Their little duet, where finally, finally they're moving in sync. No walls. No backup dancers. Just them.
Still though, we're living in the world of memory. We're out of time now, moving through past and present, in nowhere and everywhere at the same time. Note how there are almost no lights on in this moment, just pools and prisms of spirals on the ground.
And then...after a few breathtaking moments.
It happens so quickly that it's hard to spot, but fortunately for you, this is the part where I cry so I had to point it out.
The wash of color, of blue, returns in a two-step process.
Yunho catches Mingi's hand, and causes a blast of light brighter and wider than anything else I've seen in this tour (other than maybe the end of "Wake Up"), explodes across them. It is timed perfectly when their hands touch. There is nothing else to say.
2. Yunho lifts Mingi up, and they finally, finally make eye contact. It's small, sure, and maybe there's an argument for Yunho not quite making it, but how else do you explain this brighter white blast of light. And, this is my personal interpretation, but I think this is us seeing Mingi as Yunho sees him. Note how he's backlit, and it's his first time being lit like Yunho. He's brighter than the sun. Once again, there is nothing else to say.
In the last section, after that one-two punch, they raise their hands in a triumphant clasp. And it happens so quickly that you can barely see it, but look at Mingi. Look at his smile. And we return, back to the blues.
And look! They're finally allowed to look at each other and see each other. This is, in my personal opinion, where we break out of the form of the memory play in totality because they are lit together and they are lit evenly. Yunho is not a ghost running rampant in Mingi's mind. Mingi is not the blinding sun, ever unachievable.
They are together again, as it should be. And they dance in the center, in sync. Sharing the blues together.
It's really no wonder that Mingi proposed at the end of that song. It's a rollercoaster in a lot of ways. I can only imagine living that every night, being rocketed through their past and their present, might make him ride that high into something deeply unplanned. Yet, I can't help but feel that the giddy release of emotion is the only way Mingi must be able to get through "Youth" without exploding every night.
This is all to say, that Yunho and Mingi and "Youth" as a whole, are defined by the memories they have of each other, and the memories that echo through their music. I don't think it's a stretch to say that the staging and lighting of this number live in those memories too.
Anyways. I leave you with my mother's reaction to me explaining Yunho and Mingi -
Me: So, Mingi wrote this song, basically for Yunho, and it's called "Youth," see, because they've known each other since they were in our middle school.
Her: Uhuh. And have they dated in that time they've known each other?
Me: I mean not that we know of. But. Their song is basically about them moving through hardship together, and finding the youth of their past in each other.
Her: That's really gay, Luke.
Me: I haven't even explained the proposal yet.
Thank you as always for reading. I love Yunho and Mingi.
(My mother is one of the biggest allies I know and has been since she was very young, she does not mean gay as a bad thing, but rather a statement of fact. Also her bias is Yeosang).