The UK hosted its first-ever city pop concert, City Pop Waves, as part of Palace Bowl Presents, a 12-day open-air festival in Crystal Palace Park, South London. The event underlined how Japan's retro city pop genre, born in the late 1970s and 1980s, continues to attract new international audiences decades after its heyday, with the crowd blending long-time devotees and younger listeners discovering the sound afresh.

Three Japanese artists performed: Himiko Kikuchi, Junko Yagami and Masayoshi Takanaka. Kikuchi opened with tracks from her 1977 album FLYING BEAGLE, prompting chants of her name from the audience, while Junko Yagami greeted the crowd in English and performed "Tasogare no Bay City" and the eleven-minute "TERRA – here we will stay," a song written during the pandemic addressing climate change and war, which she dedicated to her newborn grandchild. Fans in attendance included visitors from as far as the Netherlands who had learned the Japanese lyrics specially for the show, illustrating the genre's growing global reach.