BTS arrived on a massive stage once more, shining amid tens of thousands of ARMY lightsticks. It was a moment that felt like it had been years in the making. The giddy fancams, the ending ments, the chaotic antics of seven of the most energetic performers to have ever lived. The online friends and offline friends, the strangers who didn’t feel so strange at all, really. The feeling of being alive, being together, being here.
In a triumphant four-night run at Los Angeles’s SoFi Stadium, BTS pulled off the magic that turns music into memory. The way you can look at a photo of eldest member Jin in Squid Game pigtails or a video of Megan Thee Stallion strutting down the stage for her “Butter” verse and think I was there. When BTS dropped their album BE last November, they built many rooms. At SoFi, they added another one — a glittering ballroom for all their fans to live inside, if just for a few nights.
Among BTS fans, it’s common to categorize your ARMY entry point in an era or big milestone moment. You’re a “Dynamite” ARMY or a Saturday Night Live ARMY or a 2017 AMAs ARMY, or for a lucky few, a 2013 debut ARMY. For me, ARMYdom grew slowly over time. A seed planted in 2016 when a coworker showed me “Blood Sweat & Tears,” another when I joined Teen Vogue in April of 2018, just in time for Love Yourself: Tear and the Billboard Music Awards performance of “Fake Love.” A full-throttle push after the “Boy With Luv” music video, into a summer of binged Run episodes, Bangtan Bombs, and stan accounts.
It all builds on top of one another, always more rooms and things to discover about yourself and the artists you love. BTS’s Permission to Dance shows felt like a culmination of all that building, even as they hinted at so much more to come from the South Korean septet. Though we’ve seen numerous online performances of one of their discography’s crown jewels, “Black Swan,” every eye in the room was rapt with attention during their contemporary dance. Each member emerged only to disappear into the black-and-white wings of their accompanying dancers. The quick-fluttering wingspan, the wind-rush sound they made even amidst all of the noise.
Part of the reason BTS is so compelling to watch live is that they each bring a unique, special energy to their performances — and they did so this time, too. Leader RM, at turns philosophical and full of off-the-cuff swagger; Jin, quick to laugh and joke and not take things too seriously — until the perfect emotional moment; Suga, self-assured and spitting fire or cutely waddle-running around the stage, gums out; J-Hope, dancing out of his mind before throwing out the most glowing grin; Jimin, a full-body performer, always honest and full of heart, if perhaps too hard on himself sometimes; V, playful or mysterious depending on the minute, his low baritone an anchor; and youngest member Jungkook, always giving 500% in everything he does, earning affectionate smiles from his members in the process.
To be in a stadium of BTS fans is to feel a lot of love: from the guys, who clearly enjoy what they do, and from the fans, who helped them build all of this in the first place. Songs listened to for the first time become the songs that soundtrack car rides and long walks and time spent with friends. The songs that get you through difficult times — a pandemic, the loss of a loved one, a breakup — become the songs you want to scream with more than 50,000 people at the top of your lungs. All of the online concerts in the world can’t quite capture the real feeling, even as they serve as a vital stopgap. And that’s a good thing, isn’t it? Proof of heart and life. Proof that we need each other, even masked, the body heat and thrum of energy beneath the skin.
This week, I found myself back in the same Los Angeles hotel I happened to be in when their album Map of the Soul: 7 came out in February 2020. I had been traveling for work at the time, just a few days break from New York winter. I stayed up late for their press conference — it was my first real BTS comeback — gazing out the window toward the Hollywood Hills. I edited Sara Delgado’s piece on the self-referential nature of the album from the hotel swimming pool. I called my mom and dad to check in. I listened to the album in the back of a taxi on the way to the airport, sun setting gently.
That week is now forever crystallized as Before. Soon after I arrived home: news reports, work from home, quarantine, empty grocery shelves, DIY masks, spiraling dread. Two months later, my dad’s stroke: anxious flight home, quarantine, no hospital visits, pausing the TV during the “Spring Day” music video to talk to him about where his medicine might be and saying I love you one last time on the phone, the long walk down the stairs to break the news to my sister.
That summer, I walked around my mom’s condominium complex listening to an endless loop of “Spring Day” and Agust D’s “People,” thinking of what I had lost. In the weeks after my dad died, many non-ARMY friends and family offered me similar kindnesses: they would watch whatever BTS content I sent them. Two of my closest friends came over one night and we sat in the living room as I showed them “Black Swan,” “Blood Sweat & Tears,” “Dope,” “Daechwita.” My roommate sat patiently through all the BTS music videos in chronological order until she knew all the members by name. ARMY friends, meanwhile, sent BT21 merch and funny gifs and messages to let me know they were thinking of me. All of this soothed me and broke my heart in equal measure.
Almost two years later, I’m writing this story in that same L.A. hotel, in a room that faces the direction of SoFi Stadium this time. It all comes together in a supercut, each of our lives and BTS. Oh, these BTS years. Names memorized, videos watched, lyrics analyzed, articles read and written and edited, tweets sent and discussed, lessons learned, tears cried, inside jokes created, friendships forged, awards won and milestones celebrated, concerts attended. Euphoria and grief, rage and relief, and above all, something to hold that burns brighter than even the most powerful lightstick: A movie we can watch whenever we want. Our BTS years, may they go on and on and on.
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