Post-concert depression is real, which is how I fell asleep in front of my laptop yesterday with a half-eaten bag of BTS Oreos on my chest. I have tons of things I need to do, everything from unpacking and laundry and being generally upright, but the will to move has vanished.
Because what is the point now? All of the anticipation and the planning and the freebie-craft and the logistics are behind us, as well as our proximity to our beloved South Korean septet, so my motivation is what? To do normal, mundane things?
Why?? When for four days, we had this:
Last weekend, we journeyed to Las Vegas to see BTS at Allegiant Stadium. This is where my narrative breaks down. I’m having a difficult time distilling this into a streamlined, cohesive post.
Maybe I should go back to the beginning, to when I first found BTS twelve years ago.
On August 19, 2014, the day that Dark&Wild was released, my (now-ex) boyfriend and I were visiting the A Bar in Itaewon. I was basking in the glow of Seoul, having finally done the biggest, scariest thing I had always wanted to do: Live and work in a foreign country. The bar was filled with a mix of expats, US military, and young Korean professionals.
Aaron, the man with whom I’d traveled to Seoul in the hopes of starting a brand new life abroad, was unhappy with his placement in Yeonsinnae – it was too urban and clubby for his taste – so he was consoling himself with a Cosmo or three while I vibed to the mix of Korean and Western music the DJ was spinning…
One of which was Second Grade by BTS. I remember it clearly because of its distinctive use of gunshots during the chorus of an upbeat, playful song. I loved it instantly and felt so excited by how different it sounded from anything we had back home.
The ex frowned and waggled his finger at me as if to say, “No, no, you uncultured fool,” while with his mouth, he said, “Why do you always like such childish songs?”
This from a man six years younger than me, a who proudly held the opinion that all music released after 2001 belonged in the trash as it was all random noise created by talentless hacks.
The next song that played on the sound system was Taylor Swift’s Shake It Off, released only the day before. I proceeded to flip out and dance in my seat, to which he responded with a look of smugness that seemed to say, “I rest my case.”
I never forgot that moment in the A Bar and the first time I heard BTS in the (Dark&) Wild. Aaron didn’t last six weeks in Seoul. He pulled a midnight run, breaking his contract with the English Program In Korea, as well as my heart and my trust. Learn this lesson from me: A man who abandons his dog will absolutely abandon you. But that’s a story for another blog.
The next year, when my son and I returned home from Seoul, we dived headlong into K-music and culture as a way to grieve the city we weren’t ready to leave.
BTS helped us reconnect to something too deep and too big to mourn… The loss of a home, a place where we felt accepted and appreciated for the first time in our lives, and a lifestyle that finally suited who we really are.
At that point, Park found Run from the BTS’ ep The Most Beautiful Moment in Life, Pt. 2. We fell fast and we fell hard, our propensity for special interests colliding as we dived deep into the world of BTS. We watched every video, every practice choreo, every vlog and every episode, from BTS Gayo (the predecessor to Run BTS) to Rookie King and American Hustle Life. We learned every detail about the seven members of Bangtan Sonyeondan that we could find.
Park and I found lifelong friends in the BTS fandom, ARMY, including Park’s amazingly wonderful partner, Sae.
As of the writing of this blog, I have seen BTS in concert five times. I also traveled to South Korea to see Kim Seokjin for FESTA 2024, right after his release from his mandatory military enlistment. We also saw JHope during his Hope On the Street Tour, and we had VIP/Soundcheck for Kim Seokjin’s incredible solo tour Run_KimSeokjin, which is the best concert experience I’ve ever had.
But I’m focusing right now on the most recent tour, Arirang.
Arirang bears special significance for several reasons, chief among them the fact that this is the first tour Park, Sae, and I have gone to together.
The second is that this is the first tour after BTS has completed their mandatory military enlistment, a feat they undertook with the devotion for which they are known. Each member served extraordinarily well, distinguishing themselves among their peers for their endurance, leadership, and dedication to their squad.
We owe a debt of gratitude to Sae, who worked hard to secure these tickets for us during presale. We attempted tickets for Arlington, El Paso, Baltimore, and Vegas, securing only three spots in the 100 section for Vegas.
Tickets in our virtual wallets, we booked our hotel room and flights before the rest of the US even knew what was about to hit them!
Then came the planning: Outfits, cupsleeve events, freebies, meet-ups, and Vegas activities. Park and Sae had never been to Vegas before; I was so excited to be with them as they experienced the city for the first time.
With great anticipation in our hearts, we began to count the days down.
And then my Mom died. Unexpectedly, without any warning. At the time, my Dad was in a touch-and-go situation health-wise, so I had to make some difficult decisions in order to make sure he’d be okay. I quit my job at the University and became my Dad’s full-time caregiver.
For a long, terrible while, we hovered in a kind of limbo state. Gradually, and in no small part because our sweet family pulled together around him, my Dad’s health improved.
Slowly, we began to put the pieces of our hearts and lives back together. And once again, BTS was there with us, providing connection and consolation in a time of loss and grief. Arirang became the soundtrack of our kinship, reminding us that before, when we had to start over with nothing, we were able to return to each other and grow into something stronger.
Arirang is a Korean folk song that embodies the concept of han, which is a deep sorrow combined with endurance, the understanding that someday, that cherished something that was lost will return. Arirang songs speak about leaving and reunion, sorrow and joy, and the happiness of return.
For us, it meant a return to the heart of our family after losing my Mom. It meant coming through for each other rather than letting go. I meant being present through our grief, even though it hurt.
On Mother’s Day, which was my first without my Mom, Park, Sae, and Jason surprised me with Day 2 floor seats in Las Vegas.
I was stunned. The show had been fully sold out since the second day of ticket sales. In fact, BTS added two more dates in Las Vegas to accommodate the demand. [For the record, Allegiant Stadium has a capacity of 68,000, and BTS sold it out for four whole days.]
But Park, Sae, and Jason managed to do the impossible. Three floor seats, right on the aisle for D2 Las Vegas.
An additional bonus to these seats meant that during the performance of IDOL, we would be in the first row as the group made their way around the stadium, singing to the audience at the tops of their voices, “You can’t stop me loving myself.”
I couldn’t believe our happy luck, and I could barely express my gratitude to them for giving us such a memorable Mother’s Day gift.
On Friday, May 22, we boarded a 5 a.m. flight to Las Vegas, thanks to Jason who ferried us to the airport long before dawn. At Austin-Bergstrom, we encountered our first fellow ARMY, easily identifiable with our t-shirts emblazoned with hangul and purple whales, our accessories featuring the BT21 characters created by the BTS members themselves, and one of our favorite fandom traditions: Freebies!
Freebies are part of a fun exchange fellow members of the fandom share with each other at concerts and get-togethers.
This was our first freebie of the trip, handed out to us while we were boarding our flight from Austin to Las Vegas. It contained a card with contact information on it as well as a photo card and a hand-made keychain for Yoongi. The freebie packet also had glitter butterflies and a pair of tiny dice.
My Jimin and Jungkook “Come On, Wing” sticker I designed as a freebie for the BTS concert. I drew the base from scratch using my Wacom tablet and then colored and textured it in Photoshop. It took me weeks, and in the end I couldn’t decide if I was happy with it. I hesitated too long, sadly, and ordered them too late. They arrived after we’d already left for Las Vegas.
I also designed the Hooli-JIN sticker on the water bottle behind the Come On, Wing sticker. They turned out SO cute, and I didn’t waste any time ordering them.
Park and Sae hand-made 200 custom bracelets for the concerts. Each was was unique and personalized to a different member. People went bonkers over the bracelets at the concert and in the line outside the venue. You could say they were a Big Hit!
Freebies range from cards, keychains, stickers, and charms. Most often, they’re a combination of these things, sometimes with a piece of Korean candy thrown in as well. They represent the diverse and creative expression of all of us in the fandom. For me, freebie making tops the list of favorite things about fandom life. It’s like blending the excellent parts of Christmas and Halloween, and it doesn’t matter if you’re Dope Old ARMY (what Namjoon calls us those of us who are 50+) or small children. Freebies are exactly that: FREE!
On both days, we encountered families with their younger children exchanging freebies. It thrilled me, moving me to tears even now as I recall it, to see people gathering to share things they’d so lovingly made.
Our flight to Vegas went well. We checked into Paris early and in the style of Las Vegas, we headed downstairs to Vanderpump à Paris for a boozy brunch. In fact, we spent the rest of Friday meeting up with friends and attending BTS-related events, including a pop-up at a Tous Les Jours, BTS noraebang, and a mochi-beignet tasting.
We met up with Park and Sae’s friends from Baltimore and their friends from Los Angeles, so we had seven altogether. We went to a Korean restaurant called Ondam. We visited the ARTE Museum Arirang Exhibit, where we drank purple lattes and played with interactive exhibits. I bought a gorgeous sakura music box that plays Spring Day from the museum gift shop, which I’ve put on the shelf beside the photo of my Mom. Bogo shipda, Lala.
All of this was before Saturday, when we would see our first BTS show, and we enjoyed every minute of it.
Here is a photo of me in the Crystal Mall Las Vegas, taken from above the Celine store, where ten years ago, Seokjin and Taehyung were photographed with their arms linked in a way that made it appear as though they were on a date. It was very boyfriend, but at least one manager and JHope was present. You can see my excitement at finding the exact place. Also, look how cute I am.
That cool wooden structure to the right is a two-story cafe.
This brings us to Saturday, D1 of our BTS concerts. We arrived early and got into the venue without much trouble. Las Vegas knows how to host concerts, so all of the bobbles and quirks El Paso experienced had already been worked out. Since these were our original concert tickets, it thrilled us even more to see our floor seats from our perch in the 100s. In typical BTS fashion, the best was yet to come.
That’s not to say our D1 experience wasn’t fantastic. We had an amazing show experience, complete with unique stadium food: A bahn mi dog and a bulgogi dog.
It probably goes without saying, considering how many concerts we go to every year, but I love live music. Whether it’s a massive stadium show like BTS or an intimate dance hall concert like Monty Montgomery, the ability to connect with artists and others via music will always be one of my absolute most favorite things.
So I’ll let these photos convey my feelings…
All seven members, plus Seokjin on the big screen.
The full arena: Every seat filled and glittering with lights, every person moved to sing and dance and be part of something larger.
Our D1 seats versus where we would be sitting on D2 (funnily enough in section D1)
There’s really nothing like it.
Our D2 floor seats may have placed us closer to the action, but getting to see the stage from this point of view was also a fulfilling concert experience. Our bonus songs were Permission to Dance and Go Go, both of which I had named as possibilities. I had joked with Park that the songs would be Permission to Dance and Disease, neither of which are Park’s favorites, but Go Go holds a special place in our hearts as the first choreography Park ever learned.
After Into the Sun, which slipped up on us way, way too fast, we drifted out of the arena en masse to the Strip, where Las Vegas lit up in red in honor of Arirang. They also treated us to fireworks, which caused some unexpected chaos on one of the footbridges.
Luckily, or rather… unfortunately, Park has some experience with mob situations (looking at you Marco Polo airport in Venince), so he stepped up to help direct the several hundred pedestrians choking the passage, and we didn’t get crushed to death, so YAY!
26,000+ steps and countless amazing memories later, we returned to our hotel, where we crashed for about five hours because we had brunch reservations at Tae Asian Bistro with our friends at 10 a.m.
Dumplings, dim sum, ramen, crispy pork belly, galbi sirloin, fresh fruit, pastries, and myriad desserts. Plus, the ambience. 10/10 would go again.
Again, a huge thank you to Sae for coordinating the ticket sales for both D1 and D2. Sae also booked Ubers and made reservations for us, which made the whole trip so much more amazing.
We arrived early on D2, dressed in our matching Chimmy, Kooky, and RJ outfits. We handed out all of our freebies before the concert began, chatting with fellow ARMY on the floor and collectively freaking out about how good our seats were.
Another aspect of fandom I adore is the costumes. People go all out in their chosen attire, picking from thousands of internal references we’ve experience in the last 13 years of content. A few of my favorites were two Dope Old ARMY dressed as twin aliens with silver-spangled dresses and glow-in-the-ark masks, a clever woman dressed as a tuna, and a person wearing the fake beard and binding ropes Taehyung wore during the Sowoozoo performance of Daechwita. Several people wore elaborate and beautiful traditional hanboks in honor of Arirang. Even more turned out in the full fishnet-and-black-leather glory of Hooligan, complete with feathers, studs, and platform boots. Don’t even get me started on the signs. I love them all, and they’re amazing.
D2 brought us closer to BTS than we will ever get in our lifetimes, and I’m super okay with that. I want to adore them from afar because I tend to go into full-on glitch mode in the presence of people I admire. This is how I managed to somehow tell Sara Watkins of Nickel Creek that my Dad asked her to sign a body part, and then managed to bumble into some rambling explanation of how I didn’t want her body parts and that I am not, in fact, a serial killer.
So this is as close to Kim Seokjin as I will ever get, to spare him my incredible awkwardness, and also, perhaps, my sanity.
I grabbed this photo while filming the Idol parade around the stadium floor. He did not look out at the crowd at all, choosing to focus on Taehyung in front of him and keeping up with the group as they marched around us, singing the famous refrain from Idol, “You can’t stop me loving myself.” The whole thing took about 70 seconds. I know I didn’t breathe for that whole time. This is the man who wrote Abyss, and The Astronaut, and I will come to you. After his military service, he created a whole year’s worth of content and went on tour, just so we would not miss the other six who were still enlisted at the time.
His album, Echo, was in the player of my Mom’s car the night she died, which meant she was listening to him on that lonely drive into the Hill Country, the one from which she would never return. It comforts me in ways I cannot yet begin to speak, that his songs were the last ones she would hear.
Below are some final images of our D2 experience, to share the magnitude of our joy. On D2, I danced so hard, my heels bled but I was so excited, I barely even noticed. Our love for BTS has transcended generations. It’s helped us communicate, connect, and overcome loss. BTS bridged a gap between South Korea and here, helping us feel home when we could not longer be there.
These concerts were a culmination of that love and connection. It was more than us watching seven men singing and dancing on stage. We sang and breathed and danced with them in celebration of all that we have survived and all that we’ll become.
I’m very grateful. Thank you and Borahae, until we meet again.
