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BTS will hold their long-awaited comeback concert on Saturday night at Seoul’s Gwanghwamun Square, one of South Korea’s most famous landmarks that represent its royal heritage and political and cultural life.
In a free concert expected to draw tens of thousands of fans, the seven members of the K-pop juggernaut, all South Koreans, will perform songs from their first album in nearly four years, ARIRANGits title is taken from a popular Korean folk song.
BTS had been on hiatus because its members had to complete their mandatory military service in South Korea. Spectators predict the hour-long concert, which will be broadcast live on Netflix worldwide, will confirm their identity as a group that has grown from Korea to the world stage.
Pop commentator Jung Dukhyun says the selection of Gwanghwamun may reflect the idea that traditional Korean culture and local things can affect the world, as seen in the success of Netflix’s soundtrack. KPop Demon Hunters.
The group’s comeback coincides with the rise of Korean entertainment worldwide which, in North America, has seen hit songs including a Netflix series. Squid gameOscar winner A parasite and a Tony Award-winning musical Maybe a Happy Ending.
On their heels was KPop Demon Huntersan American-produced movie that focuses exclusively on the magnetic power of K-pop as a genre. Its success depends largely on its sound, which was the first to send four top 10 Billboard songs at the same time, and which made the legendary band behind them the first K-pop girl group to top the Hot 100. They were the first all-female band in any genre to do so since Destiny’s Child in 2001.
It’s their song Gold was the first K-pop song to top the Billboard radio singles chart and — another first — won best original song at Sunday’s Academy Awards.
Kpop Demon Hunters is the most watched movie on Netflix of all time. The song set a record for the most simultaneous top 10 hits on the Billboard Hot 100. UBC assistant professor of Asian Studies Ji-yoon An talks about the event.
BTS’s success in North America came just as that wave was starting to break out, and it underpinned much of what followed. They were the first South Korean group to achieve a Billboard Hot 100 No. 1 in 2020, Dynamite, and in 2017, they won the trophy for top social artist at the Billboard Music Awards – breaking Justin Bieber’s six-year winning streak in that category.
That win marked a turning point for K-pop in Western markets and reflected their social media-focused strategy, which earned them a level of accessible and passionately supported fame that has sustained them ever since.
A center for art and culture
Gwanghwamun Square is named after the nearby main gate of Gyeongbokgung, the palace of Korea’s Joseon dynasty, which ruled the peninsula for more than 500 years until it fell in 1910.
Located in the heart of Seoul, the sprawling square is home to cultural and artistic events. It houses large statues of two of Korea’s most revered figures – King Sejong, who invented Korean writing in 1443, and naval admiral Yi Sun-shin, who defeated a Japanese invasion in the 16th century.
The square is a symbol of South Korea’s young, strong democracy, a place of large gatherings during times of political upheaval in recent years.
When then-President Yoon Suk Yeol imposed martial law in late 2024 creating the country’s worst democratic crisis in decades, protesters gathered in the square, demanding his ouster. The rallies mixed politics and pop culture, with protesters displaying colorful light sticks used in K-pop concerts and signing K-pop tracks such as Girls’ Generation’s. In the New World.
In a message sent to X on Wednesday, South Korean President Lee Jae Myung called BTS “the proudest artist of the Republic of Korea” and expressed hope that the concert will show “our beautiful cultural heritage and the charm of K-culture.”
In addition to the approximately 20,000 ticketed fans in the arena, another 240,000 are expected to fill the nearby stands to watch the concert on temporary screens. Authorities plan to close roads, have subways pass through certain stations and shut down the Gyeongbokgung area.
