Fans of WACK and alternative pop music can look forward again to another edition of WACK in the UK, set for Wednesday 26 March 2025 in London. During this edition, the Tokyo-based groups GANG PARADE, ASP, and KiSS KiSS will take the stage of The Underworld. It will be the same line-up as WACK in the UK vol.2 last year in March, which took place exactly in March last year. In case you missed that edition, you have been given another chance.
Ticket sales will start today, Friday 31 January, at noon UK time. Apart from general tickets, fans also have the chance to buy a VIP ticket upgrade. It is important to know that you need to purchase a general ticket and then upgrade it. With the VIP upgrade, your afternoon is filled with WACK-related activities in addition to your evening.
It will start with a light lunch at 12.30 with all the members of the groups that will be performing later that day. You will be able to make a couple of cheki (polaroid photos) during the cheki event after the lunch, so you have to decide beforehand with which group you want to take the cheki, but also with which member. The latter will include an autograph. This is not all, because you will also receive an exclusive t-shirt and early entry to the show. Those with a general ticket will also be able to get a cheki, there will be a ticket sale for that in the early afternoon.
The agency WACK, founded by Junnosuke Watanabe in 2014, is known for shaking up the Japanese music industry and rose to notoriety with BiS (also known as Brand-new idol Society), labelled “the most disliked girl group in Japan” by VICE in an article in 2014. They broke up in 2014, after almost four years of activity, ending with a show complete with an unlimited McDonald’s buffet, but they left a lasting impression with their sharp music videos and bold magazine shoots.
But it did not stop there for the ingenious idol group BiS in 2014, as the group returned in 2016, two years after the disbandment of the group, which was the start of the second generation and in 2019, the third generation of BiS was launched but will soon disband, overall producing an extensive discography with dozens of singles, (compilation) albums and EPs and a host of musicians who have moved on to other groups or gone solo.
Over the years, WACK continued fostering unconventional talents that have made waves in pop, rock, and everything in between, often defying genre boundaries. At the moment WACK manages more than 10 artists, groups, and talents and it seems to be an inexhaustible well of innovative acts. In August of this year, founder Junnosuke Watanabe announced his resignation as WACK’s representative, 10 years after establishing the agency, to pursue studies in the United Kingdom. In the meantime, he has launched a platform named Dig Your Own Idols for news, interview and video content directly from Japanese idol groups.
More information about the upcoming event can be found on the website of JPU Records.
