There are performances you watch, and then there are performances you remember in fragments. The BTS show at Gwanghwamun Square stayed with me not as a perfect setlist, but as a feeling — a seamless blend of the old and the new.
For me, BTS was a pandemic discovery, a time when I found myself holding on to each lyric like dear life itself. During those uncertain days, I first heard Butter and Permission to Dance. They came to me like a quiet reassurance, cutting through the blue fog that seemed to settle over everything. The lyrics were not complicated, but they were resoundingly uplifting, almost insistently joyous, as if reminding me that even a crisis can be endured, and eventually, overcome.
I had missed them earlier, not being in the K-pop arena. So this did not feel like a return, but rather like meeting musicians I somehow already knew — artists who are deeply genuine to their craft.
I am, in many ways, an outsider — not part of the BTS Army, but someone who simply enjoys their work. And perhaps because of that distance, I noticed something small at the very beginning. The opening felt slightly off, carrying a trace of nervousness. But as the song unfolded, something shifted. Their natural rhythm returned, and with it, a quiet assurance.
I remember Butter slipping into something more intense, Fire rising with its familiar urgency, and somewhere in between, MIC Drop arriving like a statement that needed no explanation.
There was another piece — I struggled to recall its name, but not its intent. It was introduced as a song that held space for each member’s voice, even as it brought them together as one. And that stayed with me. Because that is perhaps what defines BTS — individual voices that remain distinct, yet never disconnected.
And then there were the softer pauses — what I called “Swim” in my mind, but what the world knows as Spring Day, carrying a quiet ache that lingered longer than the spectacle. Life Goes On felt like a return to stillness, before the brightness of Dynamite closed the circle.
At one point, I noticed RM seated on a stool. It took me a moment to realise he was injured, and that he had chosen to stay through the performance without the heavier choreography. Later, when Jimin spoke about how the stage setup had led to RM’s injury, and how he continued regardless, it did not feel dramatic — it felt quietly resolute. In that moment, leadership was not an announcement, but a presence.
The space itself became part of the performance. The aerial view of Gwanghwamun Square revealed a striking T-shaped expanse, with the Hotel Koreana appearing again and again in the frame, almost like a silent witness. The surrounding buildings lit up with BTS displays, turning the city into an extension of the stage. And the Army — with their glowing hand lights and unrestrained cheers — looked nothing short of stunning. There was an energy that travelled between stage and crowd, not as noise, but as shared participation.
I watched the team give their all while the crowd simply had fun — a contrast that did not divide, but completed the experience. One song in particular stayed with me, a piece written in Los Angeles and later shaped in Korea. It carried within it the musical memory of Arirang, the traditional Korean chorus structure echoing through a contemporary sound. It felt like a bridge — not just between places, but between past and present.
Even beyond the performance, something more personal unfolded for me. Even while being part of a large family, I have often felt like an outsider. Whether in school in Chennai or later in the United States, there was always a small part of me that felt set apart, quietly observing rather than fully belonging. Music, perhaps, has always been my way of bringing my whole being together.
Be it Indian classical traditions — both the northern and southern banis — or the charm of Western music, I found connection in sound. K-pop, and later K-drama, entered slowly into that space, but for a long time, it remained emotionally distant. That changed with BTS. With Butter, something shifted. Their music did not just play — it moved. It danced in tandem with something within me, gently lifting a world that had felt weighed down, and turning it, if only briefly, into joy.
The group itself has come a long way. There is a certain maturity now, a quiet steadiness in how they present themselves — more stoic perhaps, but still deeply honest in their intent to see things through. With their compulsory military service, they step into another role, one that speaks of duty beyond art.
In India, we do not have such a mandate, yet we often speak of karma yoga — the idea that one’s path of action, when aligned with purpose, becomes its own form of service. Perhaps that is where the resonance lies. Not in similarity of systems, but in shared ideas of commitment and responsibility. And in a more personal, almost wistful sense, I find myself wishing for an “army” like theirs — not a force of conflict, but a community bound by shared appreciation, energy, and care.
It wasn’t about getting the order right. It was about how the music moved — between eras, between moods, between who they were and who they have become. And somewhere within that movement, even as an outsider, I found a quiet sense of belonging.
Credit: Mira Assisted
Itinerant Storyteller 