Another year, another MTV World Stage.

Credit: MTV Asia & Lucas Lau

Among the 4 international acts lined up for this year’s World Stage at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, latest God of sexy Robin Thicke (who remained unscathed from the controversial MTV Video Music Awards performance with Miley Cyrus) was the headliner. But it was obvious which act most of the 15,000-strong crowd was all prepped for.

Photo credit: MTV Asia & Kristian Dowling

Armed with banners and clappers and clad in jerseys emblazoned with “WOLF”, the title track off EXO’s first full-length album, fans of the Korean pop band knew how to make their presence felt at Sunway Lagoon’s Surf Beach.

The 12-member band is the latest addition to the mega-boyband phenomenon in the K-pop scene. EXO (another proud product of Korean music industry giant SM Entertainment) is split into 2, EXO-K and EXO-M. The former promotes the group on home ground in South Korea, while the latter spends their time working the Chinese market.

Photo Credit: MTV Asia & Kristian Dowling

Taking the stage after Malaysian’s hip-hop extraordinaire Joe Flizzow, EXO’s entrance sparked a sudden hysteria in the audience; the pre-pubescent girls were falling all over each other in their rush to get the best possible view of their oppas (Korean for older brothers). Let’s not forget the fireworks display and laser light show that jazzed up EXO’s intro dance, both of which were absent during Flizzow’s set.

Credit: MTV Asia & Lucas Lau

As they opened their set with “Wolf (”, the sheer volume of the fans (collectively known as “Exotics”) would have rendered the rest of the audience temporarily deaf, if not for the fact most were a safe distance away from the crazy fan zone. Barely taking a minute to take a swig from their plastic bottles, the boys jumped into their next song “Growl (으르렁)”with knife-like precision. No wonder this single hogged the number 1 spot on music show charts across 3 major TV stations in Korea for over a month.

Decked out in stylized versions of the common Korean school uniform – plaid jacket, crisp baby blue shirt and tailored burgundy pants, the boys did their introductions in a mix of English and Mandarin (4 members are direct imports from China). They even slid in a bit of Arabic, in a Muslim greeting, with Chanyeol’s (EXO-K member) unmistakable “assalamu alaykum”.

Unabashedly showing off their bilingual abilities, the 2 EXO sub-groups joined forces to perform the Korean and Chinese version of “History” together. This double language version of the performance was made famous during their set at last year’s Mnet Asian Music Awards (MAMA).

With their school uniform get-up completely soaked thanks to the drizzle, which eventually brewed into a full shower, the 12 boys waved their goodbyes just after “History”, making their set last a grand total of 20 minutes.

Photo credit: MTV Asia & Kristian Dowling

Perhaps the ridiculously short set list (in comparison to Far East Movement’s performance which went on for over an hour) is a result of the boys’ exhaustion from flying across several countries over the weekend, but what could possibly explain their arrival at their press conference the following day 2 hours after the scheduled time? Who knows?

MTV World Stage 2013 will premiere on MTV Asia on Sep 21 at 11:30am.