KATSEYE’s surprise Coachella set

KATSEYE walked onto the Sahara stage at Coachella on Friday, April 10, and turned a festival debut into a crossover set when EJAE, Audrey Nuna, and Rei Ami came out to perform “Golden,” the song they sing in Netflix’s animated film “KPop Demon Hunters.” The same set also included the first live performance of KATSEYE’s new single “PINKY UP.” (variety.com) That surprise landed because “Golden” was not just a random soundtrack cut. Netflix’s Tudum site lists “Golden” as part of the “KPop Demon Hunters” soundtrack, and the credited performers are tied to the film’s fictional girl group HUNTR/X. (netflix.com) The three singers KATSEYE brought out were the real voices behind HUNTR/X: EJAE voices Rumi, Audrey Nuna voices Mira, and Rei Ami voices Zoey. Variety and Yahoo both identified that exact trio after the Coachella performance on April 10. (variety.com) (yahoo.com) KATSEYE used that guest spot in the middle of a set built around its own catalog. Crowd-sourced set reports from the April 10 Sahara show list “PINKY UP” as the opener and “Golden” as the guest-performance centerpiece. (setlist.fm) (1001tracklists.com) “PINKY UP” was brand new when they played it. KATSEYE’s Weverse notice said the single was released on Thursday, April 9, 2026, at 12 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, which meant the Coachella stage got the live debut about a day later. (weverse.io) That made the set do two jobs at once: introduce a fresh KATSEYE song and cash in on a Netflix music property that already had its own audience. Rolling Stone’s Coachella write-up called “PINKY UP” the live premiere, while Variety focused on the HUNTR/X reveal as the night’s surprise. (rollingstone.com) (variety.com) There was another layer to the show: KATSEYE performed without Manon Bannerman, who has been on hiatus since February. Page Six reported on April 10 that the group had said she stepped back to focus on her health and well-being, so the Coachella debut arrived with one member missing. (pagesix.com) Coachella has always run on surprise guests, but this one came from a different pipeline than the usual rapper-brings-out-rapper formula. The Orange County Register’s April 10 festival recap singled out KATSEYE’s “Golden” moment as one of Day 1’s notable pop-culture collisions. (ocregister.com) What showed up onstage in Indio was a chain that now runs from streaming platform to soundtrack to fictional act to real festival crowd. A Netflix film released “Golden” in 2025, three credited singers carried it into the real world in 2026, and KATSEYE turned that handoff into one of Coachella’s first-night reveals. (youtube.com) (variety.com)