By Catherine Shin
At KCON 2026's Artist Stage, &TEAM played to a crowd packed so tight most fans watched their favorite member on a screen instead of in person, and stayed locked in anyway. Less than 24 hours later, on the official M Countdown stage, the same nine members performed in monochrome instead of streetwear, trading the loose, fan-facing energy of the first show for something sharper and built for distance. This doubled as a test of range, and &TEAM's U.S. debut passed it.
The stakes were higher than a typical KCON slot. &TEAM debuted in December 2022 as Hybe’s first “global group”, built under the label’s multi-home, multi-genre strategy. Nearly four years later, they made history again: becoming the first group to top a Korean music show with a Japanese-related release, a feat that showed exactly the kind of cross-market appeal KCON was testing.
KCON marked their first U.S. performances altogether, following an intimate stop at the GRAMMY Museum, making this as the trial run on whether their sound translates outside Japan and Korea.
The Artist Stage answered that question with volume. Despite Mnet's attempt at a queue system through the app, entry ran first come, first served, and the room filled fast under dim, stage-focused lighting. Before performing, members signed autographs and waved to fans pressed against the barricade, a level of access that shaped the six-song set as much as the setlist did.
That set opened with "Deer Hunter," the group's breakout viral track, its pulsing rhythm and synchronized point choreography giving the show an immediate hook. "Back to Life," "FIREWORK," "MISMATCH," "Run Wild," and "Go in Blind" followed, songs chosen for their Western-leaning production as much as their popularity, a setlist built to pull in fans who knew the group only in passing. Between songs, members introduced themselves individually and ran a dance-off against two audience members, pulling the room into the performance.
The Mnet Countdown set, by contrast, played tighter - just two songs, “Rush” and “Deer Hunter,” compared to the Artist’s Stage six-song run. Here, the members traded the Artist Stage’s streetwear for striped black-and-white racing jackets, each look finished with silver jewelry and accessories unique to each member. For their cover of BTS’ “2.0”, the group switched again into a mix of denim and leather jackets accented with splashes of red, similarly to the styling BTS built around the performance of the original track.
&TEAM's crossover ambitions came through near the end of the set, when SANTOS BRAVOS joined them for a cover of BTS' "Permission to Dance." Here, the two acts converged on a shared reference point: BTS, still the clearest shorthand for "K-pop" to a casual Western audience. It gave the room something familiar enough to sing along to. For fans who came specifically for &TEAM, it was an introduction to a label-mate group most had likely never seen live. For casual attendees in the crowd, it doubled as an unexpected entry point to two groups they may not have followed before.