This Is BTS: Get Ready to Dance Like Nobody’s Watching

We were all on struggle street when trying to snag tickets for BTS’ Permission to Dance on Stage – Seoul concerts this year.

When tickets went on sale on March 3, ARMYs around the world came out in full force to snap up seats for all three shows at Seoul’s Jamsil Olympic Stadium and all four shows at Las Vegas’ Allegiant Stadium. The tickets were sold out in a matter of hours. Even the 5,000 tickets for the BTS Permission to Dance on Stage – Seoul: Live Viewing were snatched up as soon as ticket sales opened.

But were we surprised? Nope.

After all, BTS is one of the most successful K-Pop groups in the world. In February 2022, the group collected three Guinness World Records for their massive social media followings. BTS currently holds the record for most followers on Instagram (60.5. million), Twitter (56.2. million) and TikTok (46.9. million) for a music group¹.

The group is the third most-streamed artist of 2021 on Spotify, and when Butter was released in May 2021, it had the highest opening day streams in our history at that point and was even reported by Guinness World Records². More recently, their hit Dynamite reached one billion streams on Spotify³, earning the group a spot in the Top 100 most-streamed songs of all time on the platform. The boys celebrated their win by eating bibimbap off their commemorative plaque.

But that’s not all. BTS’ V also personally clinched two awards: fastest time taken to reach one million followers on Instagram (43mins) and fastest time taken to reach 10 million followers on the same platform (4hrs 52mins) according to Guinness World Records. All in a day’s work.

And the boys do work really hard for all their performances. During the three-hour concert, RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, V, Jimin, and Jungkook lit the stage up like Dynamite, their moves slick and smooth like Butter. Every performance was on Fire, and we could see how much Blood, Sweat and Tears were shed with their perfectly in-sync choreography.  Here are our five favourite moments of BTS in concert:

1. We swooned when we saw the big smiles on the boys’ faces, radiating happiness from their entire being, and hearing them say how much they missed the fans. V even mentioned that his heart was “fluttering” from seeing ARMYs in the audience. Borahae! 💜 

2. When fans were not able to “make some noise,” because of Covid-19 regulations, the boys cheekily asked fans to “make some hands” by waving the BTS clappers to lift the energy in the stadium.
   
3. Fans celebrated Suga’s 29th birthday on March 9, the first day of the concerts, and the members sang a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday in Korean.

4. The heavy downpour on day two didn’t dampen BTS’ or ARMYs’ spirits as the group danced and sang to Go Go, with RM making a pun with the word for “rain” (pronounced bi) in Korean. Bi-TS (geddit?) Jimin did give ARMYs a little scare when he slipped during the performance of Black Swan. But we loved how he covered it oh-so-smoothly by pretending the fall was part of the choreography, and kept singing even as he tried to balance himself.

5. And of course, who could keep their eyes off the tiny button on Jungkook’s black blazer straining to hold fast with his enthusiastic dance energy and threatening to expose those chiseled abs during Fake Love.

Keep the music playing and get your K-Pop on with a BTS party at home. Listen to all of BTS’ biggest hits from Permission to Dance, Fake Love and DNA to ON, Boy with Luv and Blood, Sweat, Tears with Spotify’s This Is BTS playlist.

BYO ARMY Bomb.

 _{¹As of March 21, 2022}

_{²As of May 25, 2021}

_{³As of March 21, 2022}