Did I even have an inner fangirl? Oh, I certainly do.
Tickets were purchased and this Baby Army found herself attending the four sold-out BTS concerts in Los Angeles in November and December.
Not knowing how close the seats would be in a 50,000-seat stadium, I dragged along some birding binoculars. Being a theater critic, performance is everything to me. I wanted to see the dance numbers unmediated. I wanted to see their faces (are they really real?) and control my gaze a bit.
There were off-camera moments I wanted to see. Through the binoculars I watched the ever-tactile and fidgety Jungkook mindlessly stroking RM’s fuzzy hat during their closing ments. Jin and Jungkook playfully poked each other while singing. Mid-song, Jin did something to distract Jimin who bursts into a smile and then started laughing (with a friend we have Zapruder’d the ample online footage and still can’t quite figure out what Jin did to trigger this). V "conducted" the audience, having them move their lightsticks back and forth to his own musical beat. SUGA whipped up the crowd with his fists in the air. RM bounced around like an inexhaustible Tigger.
And still there were a million things I was missing. I wanted to just keep watching this every night.
The seven-member band opted for a show based around group songs and not solos. This meant they were all on stage, all the time, operating as a unit. It also meant they did not get much of a break. It was a bold statement for men who have had to sit on the sidelines for 2 years waiting for this day to perform in front of a live audience. They have never chosen the easy path and this choice reemphasized that.
The show had 5 major sections with some slight variations of song on each night.
Tickets were purchased and this Baby Army found herself attending the four sold-out BTS concerts in Los Angeles in November and December.
Not knowing how close the seats would be in a 50,000-seat stadium, I dragged along some birding binoculars. Being a theater critic, performance is everything to me. I wanted to see the dance numbers unmediated. I wanted to see their faces (are they really real?) and control my gaze a bit.
There were off-camera moments I wanted to see. Through the binoculars I watched the ever-tactile and fidgety Jungkook mindlessly stroking RM’s fuzzy hat during their closing ments. Jin and Jungkook playfully poked each other while singing. Mid-song, Jin did something to distract Jimin who bursts into a smile and then started laughing (with a friend we have Zapruder’d the ample online footage and still can’t quite figure out what Jin did to trigger this). V "conducted" the audience, having them move their lightsticks back and forth to his own musical beat. SUGA whipped up the crowd with his fists in the air. RM bounced around like an inexhaustible Tigger.
The seven-member band opted for a show based around group songs and not solos. This meant they were all on stage, all the time, operating as a unit. It also meant they did not get much of a break. It was a bold statement for men who have had to sit on the sidelines for 2 years waiting for this day to perform in front of a live audience. They have never chosen the easy path and this choice reemphasized that.
They began with the large-scale, drumbeating exuberance of “On” followed by “Fire,” “Dope,” and “DNA.” This section showcased their precision dancing and relentless energy. After two years of the members and the audience holding their breath, this opening let everyone release that tension.
But it was the second section for me that demonstrated their care of craft. They started with “Blue & Grey,” a quiet ballad released in 2020 on their pandemic album BE about burnout and struggle. With the members dressed in blue coats, save V in a gray one, they stand before reflections of themselves.
But these are not mirrors but projections of their past selves and eventually there are deviations in movement from the projection. The distance between the past and the now is readily apparent. With lyrics that reference mirrors, shadows, echoes, and reflections on time it’s a lovely combination of image and song.
This transitioned into the stunning "Black Swan." It was the most theatrical moment of the evening. The song references Martha Graham’s quote: “A dancer dies twice — once when they stop dancing, and this first death is the more painful.” The song uses this as the stepping off point for these artists to imagine what would happen if/when they could no longer perform and they lose their connection to music.
Before they began to sing, an ensemble of dancers emerged and surrounded them. Clad in black with arms of white feathers they formed giant swan wings from afar. Each member emerged from the cluster of wings. Some are lifted, others lean into them. They came from the same core, but they are also individuals.
Then they began to sing. It is in this section of the concert where where Jungkook’s coat button lost its hold on his bare chest one night and Jimin flashed more skin than was expected. And I gasped. I am human.
But it was the second section for me that demonstrated their care of craft. They started with “Blue & Grey,” a quiet ballad released in 2020 on their pandemic album BE about burnout and struggle. With the members dressed in blue coats, save V in a gray one, they stand before reflections of themselves.
But these are not mirrors but projections of their past selves and eventually there are deviations in movement from the projection. The distance between the past and the now is readily apparent. With lyrics that reference mirrors, shadows, echoes, and reflections on time it’s a lovely combination of image and song.
Then they began to sing. It is in this section of the concert where where Jungkook’s coat button lost its hold on his bare chest one night and Jimin flashed more skin than was expected. And I gasped. I am human.
But it’s also such a poetic number. You have to hold two BTS truths together—unexpected sexiness and skillful artistry go hand-in-hand.
It’s one of the lures of BTS. They are not just seven pretty faces (though they are stunningly beautiful men). They are triple-threats. They sing, dance, and act these sequences.
Frequently, fans speak of their “duality.” If you’ve watched any of their variety show (“Run BTS”) or their vacation series (“Bon Voyage” or their pandemic staycations “In the Soop”) you’ve seen them be silly, playful, inept (charmingly so—I mean watch out for the fried chicken they cook), emotionally open, and vulnerable. But when they step on stage, there is nowhere else you can look. They deliver shock and awe with their choreography, charisma, and intensity.
But then in a flash they can be seven goofballs teasing each other on stage, accidentally kicking balls at each other, and maybe intentionally flashing some skin at an audience who will lose their mind over a collar bone (myself included).
Having a heart-to-heart with the audience about how hard it's been away from performing is as much a part of BTS as the synchronized dance moves.
They played it every night and even when I knew it was coming, I lost all control of my body each time. I spied none of the hip thrusts the song is fan-famous for because I was screaming the lyrics and bouncing like I’d never bounced before. I did the same for “Idol,” a song about them embracing who they are after years of people putting them down. With a refrain of "You can’t stop me loving’ myself," and a rebel yell of revolt in its melody, it possessed me. Something in the chaos and explosion of seeing these performers just unleash these songs live, took hold of me.
One night, they acknowledged their own lyrical creativity setting up an intro of “Save Me” and then shifting into its partner track “I’m Fine.” The two songs work as lyrical mirrors of each other.
They slowed down for an encore interlude that changed each night. Even if these were more emotional songs, they still found moments to tease each other and play with the audience. This is where unexpectedly there was some Squid Game cosplay.
My friend’s husband asked me afterwards if I was a “changed woman” having finally seen BTS in person. And I think the metamorphosis has been happening all along.
BTS is all of this. It’s these multitudes that I flew across the country to see in person in the middle of a still ongoing pandemic.
There is something to their work that goes well beyond their music. They are relentless perfectionists and create layered, smart, and fun songs with tremendous choreography to go with them. But their narrative is compelling. This is what sealed my fate as a BTS fan.
They were seven kids plucked from obscurity and trained together at a label that did not have the money or clout of the big Korean labels. They were scrappy and had to fight for any attention. So they began to connect directly with fans through Vlogs. Even as worldwide superstars, this is still central to what they do. They honor and celebrate that their fans have helped them get to where they are today. They took so much time during the concert to talk about their struggles during the pandemic and how much seeing "eye-to-eye" (since we're masked it was not "face-to-face") with a live audience meant to them.
Their friendship and support for one another is also so key. Yes they may be clowning one another on stage but they are seven very different personalities who somehow together form this alchemy of talents. They understand their strengths and weaknesses. They need a mix of people to do the work they do. They are not afraid to show how bad they are at things that aren't music (they ARE getting better a foot volleyball). This honesty, openness, and acceptance is not just some "manufactured" brand but central to their ethos.
As they proceeded with the concert, they included new English-language hits like “Butter” and “Dynamite” as well as catalog classics.
We got a portion of “Baepsae (Silver Spoon).” It’s an explosive song about BTS being societal underdogs who refuse to accept the world as it is and are trying to change it for themselves (and riffs on a Korean idiom). It pushes back against generational labeling, assumptions of lazy youth, and a system stacked against young people.
We got a portion of “Baepsae (Silver Spoon).” It’s an explosive song about BTS being societal underdogs who refuse to accept the world as it is and are trying to change it for themselves (and riffs on a Korean idiom). It pushes back against generational labeling, assumptions of lazy youth, and a system stacked against young people.
They played it every night and even when I knew it was coming, I lost all control of my body each time. I spied none of the hip thrusts the song is fan-famous for because I was screaming the lyrics and bouncing like I’d never bounced before. I did the same for “Idol,” a song about them embracing who they are after years of people putting them down. With a refrain of "You can’t stop me loving’ myself," and a rebel yell of revolt in its melody, it possessed me. Something in the chaos and explosion of seeing these performers just unleash these songs live, took hold of me.
They slowed down for an encore interlude that changed each night. Even if these were more emotional songs, they still found moments to tease each other and play with the audience. This is where unexpectedly there was some Squid Game cosplay.
I was so happy to see them happy. They got looser and sillier as the shows went on.
It was nice to see that they are real live men not just characters on my TV. Yet, they were consistent with my online experiences of them. Without question, they are wildly talented, relentlessly hard-working, and somehow after all they have accomplished still humble enough to give thanks for the opportunity to keep doing this.
I could speak about their voices, the dancing, or even give admiration to the detailed costumes, narrative design, and seamless direction. Everything has been so thought through, but my brain could hardly process it all. Even seeing it four times, it was not enough. I’d like some more please.
As a first-timer at a BTS concert (and someone who genuinely has no aptitude for memorizing lyrics or even recognizing familiar songs I’ve listened to 1000 times) I was a little overwhelmed by the fan chants that are recited alongside the songs.
It was nice to see that they are real live men not just characters on my TV. Yet, they were consistent with my online experiences of them. Without question, they are wildly talented, relentlessly hard-working, and somehow after all they have accomplished still humble enough to give thanks for the opportunity to keep doing this.
As a first-timer at a BTS concert (and someone who genuinely has no aptitude for memorizing lyrics or even recognizing familiar songs I’ve listened to 1000 times) I was a little overwhelmed by the fan chants that are recited alongside the songs.
But I loved shaking my “Army Bomb” and watching the arena glow with them. I bought the BTS-themed light stick well before the LA shows were announced as some sort of pledge to myself that I would go to a concert if they had one.
After two years of not really leaving my apartment, and not sure how I would reintegrate in society after so much extreme isolation, I was leaning on BTS as the thing that would motivate me to push forward.
With the Army Bomb synced by bluetooth to the lightshow within the show, I felt it’s pull. You become part of it all and this light in your hand creates this intimacy and connection. Community is so critical to this band and this fandom and these little orbs become a direct reflection of that.
In fact, during the last concert which coincided with the upcoming birthday of member Jin, people were handing out little paper cut-outs of a moon to put on top of your Army bomb. Celebrating his solo song, "Moon," we were instructed when to hold them up and surprise him for his birthday. It's this kind of fan-organized endeavor that is just a part of what their Army fandom does. And he was visibly moved.
I thought I would cry more than I did at the concerts, what with all my pent-up pandemic feelings. But I was startled to experience so much happiness. Maybe more than I have ever felt before.
For the week I spent “with” BTS in Los Angeles, I felt liberated from my pandemic struggles. I was still masking (and double masking at the concerts), but I saw so many LA friends, ate inside restaurants, and spent time doing things I love. I had missed what it felt like to be living. Being in this room with them reminded me.
So it was hard to let go of that. The final show was more emotional. Ending live performances for now and this 4-date tour seemed to be just as hard for these artists as it was for us to say goodbye to them. They were facing quarantine restrictions back in Korea which were implemented while they had been away.
Putting all this away until the next possible tour date (Seoul in March if COVID recedes) felt like a disruption to their flow. I expect they were feeling the same kind of release I was in Los Angeles and that now had to be boxed up again for a few more months.
I thought I would cry more than I did at the concerts, what with all my pent-up pandemic feelings. But I was startled to experience so much happiness. Maybe more than I have ever felt before.
So it was hard to let go of that. The final show was more emotional. Ending live performances for now and this 4-date tour seemed to be just as hard for these artists as it was for us to say goodbye to them. They were facing quarantine restrictions back in Korea which were implemented while they had been away.
Putting all this away until the next possible tour date (Seoul in March if COVID recedes) felt like a disruption to their flow. I expect they were feeling the same kind of release I was in Los Angeles and that now had to be boxed up again for a few more months.
For me, I can still be fed by BTS videos and content from home. However, BTS has been waiting all this time to be reunited with live audiences. Fingers crossed that will come again for them in March 2022 and beyond.
This pandemic changed me and with all that terribleness it made space for BTS to come into my life. Being in the same room with them has been a part of the pilgrimage, but it’s not the entirety of the experience. It feels like only the beginning. I hope there is much more to come.
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