To quote RM, “I need the whole stadium to jump. Put your phone down, let’s get all the fun.” Or maybe not the whole stadium, but the whole sprawling crowd gathered at Seoul landmark Gwanghwamun, which has been outfitted for the grand return of the groundbreaking K-pop group, BTS.
Fresh off the release of their fifth studio album, Arirang, the seven members of BTS — RM, Jin, Suga, J-hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook — kicked off their first group live performance in over three years, BTS The Comeback Live | Arirang, Saturday night in Seoul. The concert special, which was broadcast live around the world on Netflix, had been highly anticipated.
Starting with a sweeping shot of Seoul’s Joseon-era Gyeongbokgung Palace, the live-stream eventually revealed the seven men of BTS standing in front of the palace. “Hello, Seoul,” the group’s leader, RM, told the crowd. “We’re back.”
The show kicked right into the new album’s opening track, “Body to Body,” which ended with a group of performers in traditional Korean hanbok, playing the Korean folk song “Arirang.” BTS then jumped into new songs “Hooligan” and “2.0,” before formally introducing themselves to the tens of thousands of fans gathered in Seoul’s central square. “We are finally here, and we are seeing you again,” Jimin, 30, told the crowd. “The fact that I’m speaking here, I am so moved.”
BTS continued through the brisk show playing some non-Arirang hits like “Butter” and “MIC Drop,” before returning to new tracks “Aliens,” “FYA,” their new single “Swim,” “Like Animals,” and “Normal.”
“BTS 2.0 is just getting started,” J-hope, 32, declared from the stage after singing “Normal.” BTS member Jin, the eldest at 33, added, “Thank you for waiting, ARMY!”
The K-pop superstars closed out the night with their smash hit “Dynamite” and the fan favorite “소우주” — known as “Mikrokosmos” in English. The melodic closer had the huge crowd energized and swaying along, as the nearly 50-foot stage, fully adorned in LED lights, beamed hypnotic celestial imagery in neon blue.
BTS The Comeback Live | Arirang in Seoul.
BigHit Music/Netflix
While all seven members of BTS were back together again for the historic show, RM, was forced to limit his participation due to an ankle injury he suffered during rehearsals two days before the comeback show, the band’s label BigHit Music announced Friday. The rapper, however, was impressively mobile and committed throughout the show despite his injury, which required him to wear an ankle boot and use a stool at the front of the stage as his home base for much of the performance.
“Although there will be limitations to his performance, RM will participate on stage to the extent possible and hopes to connect with ARMY and the audience,” a statement released Friday read. “As many have waited a long time for this performance, he will do his utmost to deliver his best.”
The live stream, unsurprisingly, let viewers at home hear the men of Bangtan Sonyeondan in crystal clear high-quality audio. But the sound on the ground in central Seoul was also truly impressive, with the band’s voices booming and echoing through Gwanghwamun Square.
Arirang, the group’s first album in nearly four years, served as the official return to the global stage for the boy group, who spent their time away releasing solo music and completing their mandatory military service in their home country of South Korea. BTS fans, collectively known as ARMY, have been waiting in anticipation as each member was discharged over the last year.
A historic trailblazer in the globalization of K-pop, BTS took over the entire heart of their home city of Seoul to celebrate their return. The choice to stage the comeback performance in front of Gwanghwamun, the main gate and historic entryway to Seoul’s Gyeongbokgung Palace, was no coincidence — as the new album is in many ways a meditation on the group’s ethnic identity. The palace, looming grandly just behind the stage, was lit up with a dynamic video projection, integrating it into the concert — the first time the historic and deeply symbolic structure had ever been used for a pop show.
The album’s name, Arirang, pays tribute to a treasured Korean folk ballad of the same name, which was famously the country’s first song, sung by Korean men, ever recorded (it was preserved for posterity by American ethnologist Alice Fletcher in 1896). Motifs from the original “Arirang” feature prominently in the closing minutes of the new album’s opening track, “Body to Body.” Later, one of the most striking cuts on the album is “No. 29,” a song made up only of the sound of a bell being tolled once, with the resonant ringing lasting a minute and 38 seconds. The bell used for the recording is Korea’s original, 1,255-year-old Divine Bell of King Seongdeok. The song’s title is a reference to the historic object’s official designation as “South Korea’s National Treasure No. 29.”
Arirang sends an unmistakable message — BTS may be singing more in English than in the past, but the members are proud of their roots. They are, and always will be, a Korean band, even if their audience has expanded to encompass the entire world.
Before Saturday night, no pop concert had ever been held in Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square, owing to the site’s deep historical and political significance. Netflix and Hybe raffled off 22,000 tickets for cordoned seating dancing areas surrounding the stage, but the streamer and label were expecting at least 260,000 people to pour into the square and its surrounding streets. After the show ended, the production was extremely cautious about getting the crowd out safely, releasing attendees in stages to avoid dangerous overcrowding or chaos. It still took nearly two hours for concertgoers to fully empty the plaza.
BTS The Comeback Live | Arirang in Seoul.
BigHit Music/Netflix
BTS The Comeback Live | Arirang marked the first-ever live stream of a standalone concert for Netflix. The production used a jaw-dropping 23-camera setup to capture the live experience for fans around the world. “It was very clear from the start that this opportunity was one we could not pass up,” Netflix’s vice president of nonfiction sports and series, Brandon Riegg, told press at a briefing ahead of the show.
“We view these live events as an opportunity to reach fans and members around the world in a way that is becoming increasingly tough to find: singular events that really pull people together,” Reigg continued, noting it “just doesn’t get any bigger than BTS” when speaking about the live stream. “I would venture to guess this might be the biggest thing this year that we see on Netflix in terms of our live ambition.”
Saturday’s concert and broadcast was directed by live TV veteran Hamish Hamilton, known for directing several Super Bowl halftime shows, including this year’s showstopper, featuring another global icon, Bad Bunny. He also directed this year’s Academy Awards telecast, jumping on a plane to Korea immediately afterwards to begin on-site collaborations with Hybe, Netflix and BTS.
“BTS is the greatest band in the world, so it’s a huge honor to be asked to direct this live show in such an iconic location,” Hamilton told press in Seoul.
“Every decision we have made in terms of camera approach, stage design and production has been built around one question: how do we make the person watching at home feel like they are standing in that square?” Hamilton said. “There are big sweeping moments that convey the full scale of what is happening in Seoul, and then there are moments of real intimacy where you are right there with the band. The millions watching around the world are every bit as much a part of this night as the people on the ground in Seoul.”
With the whole arena-style show taking place in a busy public square, staging the concert was more like a military takeover than a typical arena gig, suggested Jonathan Mussman, the streamer’s vice president of production for nonfiction and live programming.
“When you do this in a stadium, you can completely control the environment and you can take your time setting up,” Mussman said during a press walkthrough of the venue the day before the gig. “We’re really pushing the boundaries of what’s possible in the live concert broadcast world.”
Whereas a typical arena rock show — like Harry Styles’ recent Netflix concert — requires a few hundred crew, Netflix and Hybe employed over 1,000 local and international production pros — not including scores more security — to pull off Saturday night’s spectacle
“It really takes an army of production veterans — plus BTS ARMY, of course — to make this happen,” Mussman added.
BTS will perform for the first time in the U.S. in nearly four years this coming week. The group is slated to perform at a Spotify event on Monday, followed by their return to U.S. television later in the week, with two nights scheduled on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.
