- or The long but truthful account of a
56-year-old Danish author’s first BTS concert
In 1964, when I was
two years old, the Beatles visited my country Denmark for the first and only
time. I was of course much too young to attend their concert and I was only
eight, when they split up, so although I was a huge fan, I never got to
experience them live, which I have always regretted.
When earlier in the
year I learned that the South Korean group BTS was going to include Europe for
the first time on their world tours, I decided that I had to see them, no
matter what, as so far BTS is the only act in fifty years that has been able to
match the Beatles.
B-T-Who?
If you don’t know
who BTS are, frankly it says more about you than about BTS. People as diverse
as Jimmy Fallon, Tyra Banks, Jared Leto, Whoopie Goldberg and John Cena are
among their fans and their popularity has let them to win the Billboard Music
Award for Top Social Artist two years in a row (2017 and 2018), dethroning
Justin Bieber. Within four months they scored two No. 1 albums in the US with “Love
Yourself: Tear” and “Love Yourself: Answer” and their most recent hit “IDOL”
earned over fifty-six million views on YouTube within its first twenty-four
hours. BTS have launched their own end violence campagne “Love Yourself” in
partnership with UNICEF, they have been invited to and gave a speech about empowering
youth at the United Nations, they were on the cover of TIME magazine as “next
generation leaders” and in October they even received the prestigious Korean
Order of Cultural Merit as the youngest recipients ever. They are for sure the
biggest thing happening at the moment.
Many westerners
wonder how BTS can be that influential, because they are just a South Korean
boyband, aren’t they, and when we hear the term boyband we immediately think
about screaming teenage girls, right? Well, according to statistics, only 15%
of BTS fans are teenagers, as most fans are in their twenties and thirties, but
with a whopping 25% who are 40+. Thus, the boyband term is just a label that
western media have stuck on BTS because they sing AND dance. What BTS is, is a South
Korean idol-group, which is something quite different. The title is
untranslatable to western terms as we don’t have the same type of groups, but
most idol-groups are run by one of the three big Korean companies JYP, SM and
YG that decide everything about their groups regarding both their careers and
private lives but then again, BTS are different from all other idol groups,
too!
BTS come from the (originally) small
company Big Hit Entertainment, run by the insightful producer and hitmaker Mr.
Shiyuk Bang (or Hitman Bang as he hilariously calls himself). They never had as
many restrictions as most other idol-groups and right from the start, they were
given artistic freedom to write and produce their own music. As they are a very
talented and tightknit bunch, this freedom to show their combined talents is –
in my opinion – what has set them apart and made them famous internationally.
Starting out in
2013 as an underdog hip-hop group, BTS gradually built a reputation as sincere
and innovative artists who write and talk about serious and relevant issues
such as rigid school systems, gender equality, mental health and other social
and political issues including women’s rights and LGBTQ+ rights, which are more
or less taboo subjects in Korea. Furthermore, their albums and music videos form
an ongoing narrative about the social and academic pressure, the confusion and
pain, but also the hope and love that teenagers and young adults experience
while growing into maturity.
As such, the main idea behind BTS was never
to appeal to the masses, but to talk about important issues, tell stories that
the world needs and be helpful to the world. As it always says in the Big Hit
music intros, this is music and artists for healing, BTS trying to comfort,
heal and help especially the young generation.
Fans got to know
the members of BTS through social media, mainly through their shared Twitter-account
@BTS_twt and their Korean fan café, but also via their dairy logs and behind
the scene videos on their BANGTANTV channel on YouTube and through their two
channels BTS and BTS+ on the video streaming service Vlive where they upload
contents such as gameshows, travel videos and one-on-one talks with their followers,
all with subtitles. This way we’ve come to know the bunch as being just as
lovable, silly, talented and socially engaged as the Beatles, although in their
own quirky way. They are not “a four-headed monster” like Mick Jagger once
described the Beatles, but instead a seven-headed creative entity to such a
degree that they live together, not because they have to like in their rookie
days where they shared a dorm, but because they want to, sharing a common
luxury flat in Seoul.
Meeting ARMY
Unfortunately, BTS
only did seven shows during the European leg of their Love Yourself World Tour,
two in London, one in Amsterdam, two in Berlin and two in Paris. This came to a
total of approximately 140,000 tickets in all, but with millions of European fans,
not to speak of other international fans who planned to see BTS in Europe, the
tickets were sold out without nine minutes, so most fans didn’t get tickets, me
included. I was very disappointed and so was my daughter, who is the one who
introduced me to BTS in the first place. She on the other hand decided to go to
South Korea with a friend instead, leaving me in my misery!
It is said that
miracles happen to those who believe in them, and I do now. With only a few
weeks left to the European leg of the BTS world tour, I was suddenly put in
touch with a young Danish woman who had a spare ticket, as one of her friends
couldn’t go after all. After having discussed it with my daughter, I bought the
ticket, and suddenly I was set for the BTS concert in Berlin on October 17th,
2018. I just couldn’t believe my luck!
On the day of the
concert, I arrived at the Mercedes-Benz Arena at 3 p.m., an hour before the
doors opened, to meet up with other Danish fans whom I had only known online
through Twitter and Facebook up until now. It was amazing finally to meet and to
my surprise, waiting in line was a very pleasant experience too, thanks to
ARMY. BTS fans are called ARMY (short for “Adorable Representative M.C.s of
Youth”) playfully associating to BTS’ name, as in Korean it is short for 방탄소년단 (Bangtan
Sonyeondan), which means as much as “Bulletproof Boy Scouts” - Bangtan deriving
from Hitman Bang.
I can honestly say that I was proud to be
ARMY that day as the atmosphere was so relaxed and friendly, everybody waiting
patiently with no pushing or shoving, and I was also happy to witness the
diversity of ARMYs as people seemed to come in all shapes, ages, colours,
genders etc. Here everyone is welcome, no matter who you are and where you are
from. We are all family.
When the doors
finally opened, everyone proceeded inside in an orderly manner, tidying up
their own trash as they left the outdoor area to go inside. I quickly found my
seat, which turned out to be great as it was a front row seat on the right side
of the stage with only the pit separating me from the front stage. For the next
three hours, ARMYs gathered in the arena, having a blast, singing and dancing
to the on-screen BTS music videos and synchronising their ARMY-bombs, which are
light sticks fans use during the show and which can be controlled by the venue
to change colour according to the songs.
Again, the
diversity and friendliness of ARMY struck me as it can’t be praised enough.
Just in my own row, the row behind me and the row next to me, I counted six
different nationalities, four different races, more than two sexes (if you know
what I mean) and an age-gap of fifty years, as the youngest was a fifteen year
old teenage girl and the oldest a sixty-five year old man, at least that was
what they told me when I talked to them before the show. Because that’s what we
do, ARMY. We talk to each other and wish each other a great concert experience.
To be honest, I actually shed a tear before the show began as the love in the
arena was quite overwhelming.
Showtime
Finally, at 7 p.m.
the show started and let me tell you, this is not your ordinary pop concert,
but a huge show with high production value: moving sets, pyrotechnics, confetti
cannons, specially made videos, background dancers and a breath-taking laser
light show.
The roar of the
crowd was deafening, when the seven BTS members appeared on stage and launched
into the first number of the evening, their current hit “IDOL” complete with an
elaborate, high energy choreography.
A week before the show
in Berlin, the youngest BTS member Jungkook had injured his foot prior to a
show in London and had to have stitches, so he couldn’t join the choreography
and remained seated on the stage during most of the show, but it didn’t spoil
the overall experience, as he sang his heart out anyway and was very much part
of what happened on stage.
When “IDOL” had
finished, it was impressive to hear the seven BTS members introduce themselves
in German on stage and at one point, J-Hope even said, “Ihr seid meine Hoffnung
und meine Stärke” (“you are my hope and my strength”). It made me glad, though,
that my daughter wasn’t with me as I’m not sure she would have survived the
shock of hearing BTS speak German, which is one of her least favourite subjects
in school!
While touring in
the US and Europe, BTS operated with two different set lists, as in many cities
they did at least two shows. As the concert I attended was day two in Berlin,
we got the day two setlist and I was very happy about that. Not that the day
one setlist was bad, it wasn’t, as the two of them were more or less identical
except for the medley of hits halfway through the show. Here the day one songs
were “21st Century Girl”, “Go Go”, “Blood, Sweat & Tears”, “Boy
in Luv” and “Danger”, but day two had “Boyz With Fun”, “Attack on Bangtan”,
“Fire”, “Baepsae” and “Dope”, which are some of my all time favourites,
especially “Attack on Bangtan” (yes, I know. I’m old-school!). The full setlist
looked like this (copyright BTS Kookie Monster):
The kind of music
that BTS make is often referred to as K-pop, Korean pop, because they come from
South Korea and sing in Korean, but K-pop is not a musical genre as such, but
rather a visual and auditory content package, including not only music, song
and dance, but also fashion, TV-shows and more. BTS do sing in Korean mixed
with English phrases, which is one of their great charms, but they didn’t start
out as a pop-group, they were a hip-hop group, so hip-hop and rap are still
close to their hearts. Since their debut, they have expanded into other genres
as well such as rock, pop, R&B, EDM, Latin and jazz and we got a taste of
most of the genres during the concert.
On stage the seven Bangtan Boys (or rather men by now!) are playful,
hardworking, witty, sexy, cute, serious and sincere. They have fun on stage, no
doubt about that, but they are humble and work very hard, wanting to show the
best performance possible as they always put their fans before themselves. Most
of the songs in the show were group songs with choreographies that are famous
because of the high level of precision and difficulty, but each of the members
also performed a solo song.
The members of BTS
Main rapper and group leader RM (born 1994, real name Kim Namjoon (in
Korean) or as we would say in the west Namjoon Kim, putting his first name
first) came across as the playful one on stage, juggling words in his solo
“Trivia: Love” and having fun with both ARMY and BTS, but at the same time you
felt his intellect too. The man has an IQ of 148, which makes him a genius and he
is truly one of the most interesting current thinkers and lyricist.
Especially his speech to ARMY at the end of the show was very insightful
and moving, RM comparing Germany to Korea as the two nations know what it means
to live in a divided country. RM is the only one who speaks English fluently,
so he addressed the audience directly where the others did it in Korean through
an interpreter.
The “big brother” of BTS, vocalist Jin (born 1992, real name Seokjin
Kim), was the one who seemed to work the hardest on stage. You could really see
him concentrating and pouring out his heart and soul, especially in his solo
“Epiphany”. Not only did he play the piano during the first part of the song,
his extremely clear and pretty voice came to its right as well. Normally I’m
not one for ballads, but Jin’s voice touches me every time!
Jin is usually known for his flying kisses and for telling bad dad
jokes, but on stage he came across as much more serious, at least most of the
time. Instead of his usual introduction as “world wide handsome”, he was
presented as “Mr. ARMY Bomb”, but he didn’t have an ARMY bomb with him, so he
had to borrow one from the audience and that caused quite a lot of fun.
The rapper and award-winning producer Suga (born 1993, real name Yoongi
Min), has a reputation of being swag and savage on the outside, but
soft-hearted on the inside and we saw both sides on stage. He is known to be an
introvert, but on stage he was by far the wittiest and one of the most
extrovert of the seven Bangtan men. It’s his job to spur on both group and fans
with comments and shouts during the show and he did that to perfection.
Suga is a fast rapper, a capable dancer and an incredible composer and
we experienced of all of this during the concert. He has a strong stage
presence and I especially liked his almost sarcastically quick wit as well as his
pride and pace in his work, especially noticeable during his solo “Trivia: Seesaw”.
As for J-Hope (born 1994, real name Hoseok Jung), rapper and main dancer
of BTS, he is usually depicted as the sunshine of the group, always being
funny, cute and happy and adding an upbeat, energetic tone to the music, but… He
has another side too, a sincere and… well, “adult” side, that we rarely see on
YouTube or Vlive. It is commonly known among fans, though, that when J-Hope is
abroad, he transforms from the cute and funny Hobi to the ultra-sexy Jay and he
was Jay in Berlin too, for sure, as he was oozing sex on stage. He wasn’t sexy,
he WAS sex, especially in his solo “Trivia: Just Dance”.
J-Hope is a formidable dancer and the things he can do with his body is
out of this world, so during the concert we witnessed him jump over two dancers,
slam down in a split, body roll etc. Furthermore, he uses a variety of very
small, subtle movements of both body and facial expressions to transform into the
“adults only” version of himself. To top it off, J-Hope is the showman of the
bunch, a born entertainer who knows how to capture an audience and interact
with them.
Jimin (born 1995, real name Jimin Park) is also a dancer, trained in
ballet and modern dance and as a vocalist, he is the one who hits the very high
notes. Jimin has a reputation of being sexy, cute and a bit of an angel, which
has always puzzled me as I think he comes across as a bit of a brat on Vlive
and YouTube. Seeing him live, I finally got it, though, as Jimin was nothing
but cute and angelic on stage, including the injured Jungkook in the action and
even carrying V on his back.
After J-Hope and Suga, Jimin was the one who was mostly in touch with
ARMY during the concert, sitting on the stage edge to be close to the fans, sending
us Korean finger-hearts and acting sexy, but then giggling as if his sexiness
is just pretend. In his solo “Serendipity” Jimin did however show powerful and genuine
sexy dancing.
To me, the biggest surprise came from vocalist and dancer V (born 1995,
real name Taehyung Kim). V has always been described as otherworldly, not just
because of his ridiculously good looks, but also because he is somehow
“different”. It’s not just him being eccentric, he has an innocence to him and
a way of speaking and reacting that has made both BTS and ARMY think that he
must be from another dimension.
In any case, we are used to this beautiful, strange and funny man from
YouTube and Vlive, but on stage he was very serious. Instead of goofing around,
he concentrated on giving a professional and spot-on performance. He had a few
“V-moments”, showing his box smile and doing the V-sign, but it seemed almost rehearsed
as part of the choreography, just like his flirtation with ARMY. Next to J-Hope
he was surprisingly the one who flirted the most with the fans. Furthermore, V had
a lot of impact in his solo “Singularity”, where his deep voice and acting
skills made up the perfect melancholy background for the jazzy sound.
Finally, there’s the main vocalist and dancer Jungkook (born 1997, real
name Jungkook Jeon), whose nickname is “the golden maknae”, golden because he
is good at everything, maknae because it means the youngest of the bunch in
Korean.
Although he had to sit down most of the time, he was still golden, his
singing so pure and sincere in his solo “Epiphany” that you couldn’t help being
moved. He came across as very sincere on stage and also very innocent, young
and happy, which made me feel young at heart and happy as well.
The best show in town
The show included unit performances too, namely “The Truth Untold” by
the vocal line Jin, Jimin, V and Jungkook and “Outro: Tear” by the rap line RM,
Suga and J-Hope.
Originally BigHit built BTS around RM, and the rap line came together in
2010 with the vocal line following in 2011 and 2012 and since BTS’ debut in
2013, the rappers have written the majority of BTS songs, “Outro: Tear”
included, and produced quite a lot too, Suga having produced this unit song.
Especially in later years, the vocal line has pitched in with writing and
producing as well, but “The Truth Untold” is written by RM in collaboration
with other songwriters including Steve Aoki, who also produced the song.
For me, the absolute highlights of the concert were “MIC Drop”,
“Airplane pt. 2”, “Trivia: Just Dance”, “Trivia: Seesaw”, “Anpanman” and the
medley as I’m mostly into the high-energy songs, but for anyone who has loved
BTS’ three “Love Yourself”-albums, this concert was perfect.
What struck me the most about the concert was, however, the high level
of energy that BTS possess. It was totally unbelievable, especially with all
the difficult and powerful choreographies. The show ran for two and a half
hours with no intermissions except for the short video breaks that allowed BTS
to change stage clothes, so that ARMY would see them in half a dozen different
outfits from handsome uniforms to plain T-shirts.
ARMY worked just as hard as BTS as the level of audience participation
was incredibly high. During the show all ARMYs sang along to the songs (in
Korean!), chanted the names of the group members, waved their ARMY-bombs and
gave BTS loud cheers and support. It was very touching, and both group and
audience teared up more than once.
I must say that all in all, I was in awe of how well-oiled an
entertainment machine such a BTS concert is. Every detail of both the visual
and auditory side of the show was designed to hit you like a freight train to
such a degree that the 150 minutes flew by and after the encores you asked
yourself what just happened, and you only wanted to experience it again.
As a seasoned concert-goer through forty-five years or so, I can
honestly say that I have never witness anything like it, as BTS truly bring the best show to town.
We’ll meet again
When the concert was over, and we came down the stairs to leave the
venue, it was once again done without pushing and shoving, ARMY spontaneously
chanting the BTS members’ names and singing “Magic Shop”, which was a perfect
way to end the show.
I really hope that I will be able to catch a concert again, preferably
with my daughter next time. I must say that everything about BTS has me hooked,
but especially their music and their lyrics and now their live performance too.
With BTS’ vision and ARMY’s support, I am sure that together they will bring as
many changes and as much positivity to the world as the Beatles once did.
© Lise Lyng Falkenberg, 2018
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