{"id":140815,"date":"2026-09-02T17:55:34","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T17:55:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/140815\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T17:55:34","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T17:55:34","slug":"bts-opens-four-night-stand-at-inglewoods-sofi-stadium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/140815\/","title":{"rendered":"BTS opens four-night stand at Inglewood’s SoFi Stadium"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When the members of BTS announced recently that they\u2019d opted not to submit<\/a> their music for consideration for next year\u2019s Grammy Awards, the seven-man K-pop group\u2019s carefully crafted statement made clear they were protesting the Recording Academy\u2019s introduction of a new category meant to honor \u2014 or perhaps to marginalize \u2014 the best in Asian pop.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe hope our music can be heard and loved for what it is, rather than being divided by region or language,\u201d they said, and indeed there was no doubting their across-the-board popularity as they performed Tuesday for a diverse capacity crowd at Inglewood\u2019s SoFi Stadium. The concert was the opener of a four-night stand midway through BTS\u2019 first tour since the members completed their mandatory South Korean military service; the road show follows the release this past March of \u201cArirang,\u201d BTS\u2019 first studio LP in nearly six years.<\/p>\n

\u201cL.A., it\u2019s been a long time, right?\u201d Suga asked in Korean near the end of the two-hour gig as he and his bandmates \u2014 Jung Kook, Jimin, V, RM, J-Hope and Jin \u2014 sat on the edge of a rotating platform in the center of the enormous stage. The deafening response suggested he\u2019d gotten it almost right: In fact, it had been too long.<\/p>\n

\"V <\/p>\n

V performs with BTS on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

(Kayla Bartkowski \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Yet if Tuesday\u2019s show convincingly framed BTS as a world-class pop act (no small-bore awards categories required), it also had to be viewed in the context of a transitional moment for K-pop more broadly.<\/p>\n

While BTS was away, the genre made strides toward a kind of showbiz ubiquity, none more striking than the success of \u201cGolden,\u201d from Netflix\u2019s \u201cKPop Demon Hunters<\/a>,\u201d which topped Billboard\u2019s Hot 100 for eight weeks last year and won an Academy Award for original song at the most recent Oscars ceremony. On the other hand, K-pop groups like Enhypen and Stray Kids have struggled to duplicate BTS\u2019 crossover appeal; they sell loads of CDs and merch to their ultra-devoted fans but so far haven\u2019t managed to reach casual listeners as BTS did before its hiatus with hits like \u201cButter\u201d and \u201cDynamite.\u201d (Folks in the Enhypen or Stray Kids standoms might argue that\u2019s because Top 40 radio shares the Recording Academy\u2019s tendency to ghettoize.)<\/p>\n

\"Fans <\/p>\n

Armoni Williams, from left, Georgia Kerr, Fatimiah Allenburns and Shania Williams outside SoFi Stadium before BTS\u2019 concert on Tuesday night.<\/p>\n

(Kayla Bartkowski \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

Think of the return of BTS, then, as a test of K-pop\u2019s lasting cultural penetration, particularly in the United States, which BTS has long treated as something of a second home. You can hear the tension between the band\u2019s loyalty toward home and its global aspirations on \u201cArirang,\u201d which folds traces of traditional Korean folk music into glossy pop tunes and throbbing hip-hop tracks; you could see it too at SoFi during a song like \u201cBody to Body,\u201d which came accompanied on giant video screens by images of women in traditional Korean dress.<\/p>\n

Between songs, the members spoke mostly in Korean, though much of the music was sung in English \u2014 a decision BTS is shown grappling with in a Netflix documentary about the making of the new album.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow is the time to sing this big song,\u201d RM said somewhat dutifully on Tuesday before the group did \u201cButter.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Jimin <\/p>\n

Jimin performs with BTS at SoFi Stadium.<\/p>\n

(Kayla Bartkowski \/ Los Angeles Times)<\/p>\n

In spite of all this baggage, the show was more or less a blast, especially in a loosey-goosey third act that followed two sections full of intricate pyrotechnics and well-practiced choreography. Tuesday was Jung Kook\u2019s 29th birthday \u2014 an occasion that had many in the crowd wearing paper party hats \u2014 and here his bandmates took the opportunity to present him with a crown and to lead the audience in an appealingly sloppy rendition of \u201cHappy Birthday\u201d; the energy reminded me a bit of peak-era One Direction<\/a>, when the members of that British boy band would spend large stretches of their concerts just hanging out onstage trying to crack one another up.<\/p>\n

Also: top-shelf looks. After years of what you can imagine were arduous meetings about wardrobe strategy, it was a delight to see BTS having entered its grown-up wear-whatever-you-like era. (I realize the meetings are probably still taking place.) Jimin, his hair grown long and dyed blond, was the night\u2019s standout in a mesh top he paired with what looked an awful lot like somebody\u2019s grandpa\u2019s fishing vest.<\/p>\n

Where\u2019s the award for that?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When the members of BTS announced recently that they\u2019d opted not to submit their music for consideration for…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":140816,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[39070,1598,71618,71617,5939,47339,71616,12397,195,10611,15441,71615,26394,7442,4162],"class_list":["post-140815","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-korea","tag-birthday","tag-bts","tag-cultural-ubiquity","tag-grammy-awards-ceremony","tag-group","tag-hand","tag-inglewood","tag-jung-kook","tag-k-pop","tag-member","tag-show","tag-sofi-stadium","tag-song","tag-tour","tag-year"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140815","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=140815"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/140815\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/140816"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=140815"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=140815"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/korea\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=140815"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}