Pyro, Confetti and Deep Lust with BIGBANG, South Korea's Greatest Boy Band
EntertainmentSomething I learned at BIGBANG’s concert this weekend in Newark, New Jersey—something I’ve never learned from anyone else over the past 20 or so years of seeing large-scale concerts—is that to execute a successful arena show, a good idea is to play every single song like it’s your last song.
It helps, of course, if you are the biggest boy band in South Korea and, quantifiably, the entire world; if you possess the physical energy to execute both pristine choreography and your own improvised, gymnastic endurance; and if you are equipped with an arsenal of fireworks and confetti timed to blast off every third or so song. It helps if you have a crew of 12 back-up dancers. But this quintet of very cute, very lovable, and very personally distinct fashionistos let every single rise to a volcanic peak, building intensity with as much flash and bang they could muster, belting out every lyric and hitting every rap with precision, all while allowing the tumultuous libidos of 20,000 screaming women and girls to boil over with subtle suggestion. (Nothing beyond a PG rating, but very expertly delivered nonetheless—they go a long way by being extremely attractive and proffering the occasional pelvic thrust.)
In 2012, my friend and colleague David Bevan traveled to Seoul to profile the way K-pop stars are made. In his great piece, he spoke with DFSB Kollective’s Bernie Cho, who concisely summarized K-pop’s explosion thusly:
“Twenty years ago, this place was pretty third-world and Tokyo was like Blade Runner,” he says of Seoul’s development. “Now it’s the other way around. Koreans didn’t invent cars. Koreans didn’t invent mobile phones. Koreans didn’t invent flat-screen TVs. But they’ve somehow tweaked and twisted the formulas to the point that they feel fresh.”
I thought of this quote as BIGBANG ran through older jams like “Haru Haru,” but mostly focused on newer songs like “Good Boy” and “Bang Bang Bang”—all of which mine Western-born genres like rap and EDM, but flip them into leaner, slimmer, cleaner, shinier versions, besting US musicians at their own game and reaping the hormone-wild benefits. In May, BIGBANG began releasing work from their third album, MADE, a series of tracks corresponding to each letter in the word; it was their first work as a group after three years, a time frame which included solo material from each artist. (Particularly great that night was “Good Boy,” by my faves G-Dragon and Taeyang.) And, as if to throw us a bone but also show his appreciation for US culture, Taeyang shouted out Shake Shack, which the crowd loved. (I am hungry.)