It’s the last year-end festival of 2025! MBC’s Gayo Daejejeon is synonymous with the new year, as it also acts as a new year’s eve celebration (except for last year when it was postponed). As I always say, this adds a welcome sense of ceremony to the proceedings and makes it a special I look forward to.

The theme tonight was “cool,” using the clunky acronym “MUT” (which I gather is a synonym for the Korean word) to stand for “Meet Ur Twenty.” It’s the twentieth anniversary of the festival, as well. There’s a lot going on between these two ideas, but I appreciate the honoring of legacy and tradition.

I’m so happy that MBC never really changes up the venue for this show. The crowd is super close to the dual stages. This lends the broadcast a sense of intimacy and interaction that the other festivals don’t really have. Plus, this year they have a live band! That’s a big YES from me. I can’t tell you how happy this decision makes me. It’s also a real test of the idol groups’ mettle. It’s not easy to perform with a live band, which was evident from some of the night’s stages, but the attempt alone earns extra points from me.

One thing I didn’t like was that the show introduced the idea of “voting for your favorite performance of the night.” I know this is rich coming from someone who is literally ranking his favorite performances of the night right now, but must we turn everything into a fan competition?

As always, this ranking represents my own thoughts, meaning it will heavily favor music I enjoyed this year as well as performances that re-arrange or remix existing songs.

There’s a lot to highlight this year, so I’ll start with some honorable mentions:

LE SSERAFIM – Hot + Come Over
I don’t feel like I can really include this in the ranking because it was a pre-recorded performance video with no audience rather than a live stage, but it was cool anyway so I wanted to mention it. It actually reminded me of that awesome covid-era Studio 2054 video that Dua Lipa filmed.

Treasure – Paradise + Everything
These were as great as they always are, but performing a “band” version of a song without being able to utilize the actual live band was quite funny.

Ian + Jeemin + Wonhee – Cover Stages
The obvious lipsyncing prevents this from being on the list, but these three certainly have charisma and I love two out of the three songs they covered. (you can probably guess which two)

ITZY – Focus + Tunnel Vision
I wish I enjoyed Tunnel Vision more because this was a pretty cool mix. The song continues to do nothing for me, though (and it kinda dragged on, here).

Hearts2Hearts – Style
Vocal and mic issues keep this from being on the list, but I appreciate the rearrangement and I’m so happy they finally performed Style for one of these festivals.

15. KiiiKiii – Strawberry Cheesegame + Dancing Alone

At first, I wasn’t sure about the band arrangement for Dancing Alone since the best parts of the instrumental involve synth and that was absent here. However, it got better as it went on and I loved the climax.

14. BOYNEXTDOOR – As Time Goes By + If I Say, I Love You

If ever there was a song calling for a live band arrangement, it’s If I Say, I Love You. They didn’t do much to it, but the performance was as stable and charming as ever.

13. NCT Dream – Beat It Up + Chiller

Beat It Up was fine, but I really enjoyed the new mix of Chiller. It added oomph in all the right places, bringing the chugging electro to the forefront. I would’ve loved a climactic dance break.

12. YB & Seungmin (Stray Kids) – Peppermint Candy

Wow, it’s so nice to hear Seungmin get to sing on a song like this! I feel like he never gets to show this off and he sounded wonderful here. The linked video includes a song by just YB first, which I wasn’t as keen on.

11. KickFlip – Mama Said + My First Love Song

The staging for Mama Said was very clever (I love how JYP is like their headmaster/dad, basically) and the beefed up rock mix of My First Love Song was very enjoyable. Too bad they didn’t use the live band, though! (at least as far as I can tell).

10. IDID – CHAN-RAN

This is where a live band arrangement really enhances a song. The energy just feels so much more alive. I loved the brass touches.

9. ZEROBASEONE – Iconik + Star Eyes

Okay, why doesn’t the studio version of Iconik sound like this? Seriously, this mix had so much more punch and funk. But whoever decided to turn Star Eyes into a ballad has my eternal wrath. I’ve been waiting for this song to be performed for months and we get half of it slowed down? Yes, a strings section is always nice and sentimental, but this could have been a real moment. So frustrating. At least the instrumental picked up halfway through. The vocals were all over the place, though. It’s up this far on the list because I have a soft spot for the song.

8. “Back to 2005” Cover Stages

Cover stages like this are very common during the year-end festivals, but what I liked here was the variety of idols performing and the novelty of these songs all being twenty years old. Some of them (Anymotion!) felt like more left-field choices too.

IDID did a nice job with a very difficult classic (Rising Sun).

7. IVE – Gotcha + Rebel Heart

Gotcha sounded awesome with a band arrangement and the dance break before Rebel Heart was very striking. The rock-meets-marching-band rearrangement of the song worked pretty well, too.

6. Team 20’s – Journey For Myself

I just love this kind of cheesy stuff. A bunch of idols turning twenty this year singing their hearts out together. I felt bad for the ones who didn’t have a teammate to stand next to. At least Kyungmin and Yujin clung onto each other!

5. ATEEZ – The Real

Definitely not my favorite ATEEZ song, but this was a great, energetic way to kick off the evening. What a spectacle! (That ARRIBA song they performed later in the night was SO not my thing, though…)

4. Dohoon, Jihoon & Youngjae (TWS) – Love Shot

I have this pet peeve about idols always covering Love Shot because there are so many better EXO songs and I don’t think this one is as good as people make it out to be, but this was an excellent cover. The added dance break was fantastic and it’s so fun to see them tackle such a different concept.

3. NEXZ – Beat-Boxer

This was a very cool remix of the song. A little uneven in places, but they really bring the energy and have been a highlight of this year’s year-end festivals.

2. MEOVV – Drop Top + Hands Up

What great singing! The stripped back, live band version of Drop Top worked so well. Hands Up was much more straightforward (until it reached its exciting conclusion!), but these girls are so talented.

1. TWS – Countdown! + Go Back

Look, I will shout this until I’m blue in the face. They’re so freaking talented. That’s live singing with insanely demanding choreo backed by a live band. I loved the movie musical, jazzy feeling of these arrangements. The group is just offering a different type of showmanship than their peers at the moment and I find them incredibly fun to watch. There’s such a sense of joy emanating from the stage.

(Unfortunately, for some reason this is the ONLY performance MBC has not yet uploaded to YouTube so we’ll have to do with a fan upload for now. WTF, MBC??)

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