Did anyone go to the BTS concert last night?

[Titsywoo]

Was it good? And how bad was the journey home? I'm taking DD and her friend this evening - they are very excited. I went up to the O2 yesterday morning to get the lightsticks (£45 - pisstake!) as we are a bit rushed to get there after school and even at 10am it was manic with huge queues for general admittance and the merchandise queue was full so had a queue for the queue . Madness! Anyway it was supposed to finish at 10 and DD said last night it finished at 11 so it will be very tight getting to London Bridge in time for the last train. Was the tube station packed with long queues? I don't think I'll be able to drag them out of the concert a few minutes early tbh.

How did you get on last night. My daughter & friend managed to leave as soon as it finished and caught the last direct train to our station from Waterloo. We are now the owners of a £45 light stick which was duly demonstrated!

So I'm really curious about how popular BTS actually are. I live in Korea and are we talking that they're huge and everyone knows who they are or are they still kind of niche, but well-known?

It's so mad to me that they are the ones that made it big. They were around for ages in Korea and then suddenly they just became massive in the west and I have really no idea why.

I think they are still niche although they are going to be on The Graham Norton chat show this week which will widen the audience & awareness. There was an article about them in the Saturday Times magazine last week and I caught a section on Radio 4 Today on Monday. BTS seem to be followed by teenagers, my two are late teens and have not bought as many CDs of theirs recently. My youngest went to a Zico concert and judging by the queue the audience were slightly older, shes also seen Monsta X in London.

We did ok! Legged it as soon as they disappeared from the stage so got on the tube very quickly.

The show was AMAZING! I'm not a fan (although I like some of the songs) but they are brilliant dancers and singers and the lighting and effects were some of the best I've ever seen. Along with the thousands of light sticks the effect was mesmerising.

I think they are more popular than you'd think. Those tickets sold out very very fast. I was expecting to get some easily and it was only due to the fact that I had O2 priority that I got into the AXS waiting room and got some but it was a tense wait! The whole Army thing is pretty big and with social media etc it's becoming a bit of a cult sensation. There were lots of people at the O2 with no tickets who came just to be a part of it since they missed out. Since One Direction broke up there has been a lack of decent boy bands and this fills the spot nicely. Teenage girls need boy bands - surely its a rite of passage to scream and cry at some random good looking lads bopping around the stage?

I must be too old.... I just googled them... the worlds biggest boy band... I’ve never heard of them?!

Yeah pretty much only teenagers have heard of them! They are the most tweeted about band in the world I believe - I don't even use twitter .

Not just £45, don't forget the additional £2 for batteries...

Yeah the amount of money they must be making from the merchandise was criminal. Most of it was sold out way before the show started. We took our own batteries. I guarantee there will be a new version of the lightstick out in time for their next tour (this was version 3 after all and the others didn't work for this concert). I made DD pay for it with her birthday money!

Here! .. We went on the 9th and it was AMAZING!!!!!!!

The crowd was electric and the light sticks just made the concert, as it was all synchronised with the music and all the Armies knew the fan chants.

As performers they were so professional, engaged and connected with the audience, talked to them, serenaded them and made them feel special.

Their reactions to the fans appeared natural, especially as they had a major catastrophe with the golden maknae (youngest member) getting injured and not being able to join the elaborate choreography but smashing it with his amazing vocals.

Love Yourself is their message on this tour and we all need some of that

Seriously recommend some BTS for some feel good and motivation music!

I have absolutely no idea what you lot are on about.
I am soooo bloomin' old. 😂

Shall I await the influx of British teenagers to Korea any time soon then?

The only thing I know about them is that one song DNA that plays in my gym 24/7 and that RM (the main rapper) scored in the top 1% in the whole country in the university entrance exam. My husband tells me this fact every time they're on TV (which is every 10 seconds).

I had never heard of them but watched them on Graham Norton last night and thought they sounded very dated. They look like they have been made in a plastics factory . Sorry.

fussy I also find them really weird to look at. I’m generally into Korean guys but BTS look really strange to me, maybe too much plastic surgery or too much make up, I don’t know but I don’t find them attractive at all.

Not only have I never heard of them, I have no idea what a lightstick is. Off to find out now.

They didn't sound great on Graham Norton last night I agree. They aren't attractive to me but I'm twice their age! They have a very androgynous look about them but that is pretty popular nowadays anyway.

Saw them on Graham & was confused about their appeal. were they wearing wigs? they didn’t look real.

They look like mannequins and a YouTube clip of them on a tv programme made me think of Edward scissorhands. Why are they dressed in such an odd way? Is their fake ness what makes them so appealing?

I’m so old, I’d never heard of these. WTAF is this about a £45 lightstick?

Saw them on Graham Norton too and had never heard of them. They danced well but singing wasn't great and you're all right, they did look very plastic. I don't get the appeal either, but then I'm obviously not target audience!

The appeal is that they are non-threatening non binary types. I work in a school and it’s the quirky girls who are into Anime and the hunger games who are obsessed by them. The princesses with too much make-up and long swishy hair are barely aware they exist.

icould but you could say the same about 99% of kpop boy groups. So why the BTS love? Marketing, I guess.

BTS are amazing, they are incredible young men who are inspiring and spread great messages with their music, they were a great source of comfort for my 15 year old daughter after two failed suicide attempts. I can’t explain it but they were a light in her darkness! We both love them! Their vocals (and rap) are amazing!

They deserve so much more than being called mannequins or the hateful tweets they received after the Graham Norton show. We went on the 10th, it was the best concert ever!

And I can assure you that in the flesh they don’t look plastic at all!

My daughter (and her ARMY friends) are not the quirky types either.

"hateful tweets"? - People are allowed to have a different opinion. It's great that they help your daughter, but that doesn't mean everyone has to like them. They are literally the same as 99% of other boy bands. Like I said, if your daughter likes them and they help her, great, the things that help me are not necessarily deep and meaningful either but I'm not going to sit here and pretend that they are poetic or deep or anything.

If you can speak Korean, you understand that their lyrics are mega cheese. I mean, literally cringe level, teenybopper nonsense. They don't even make sense half the time.

And they have all had plastic surgery, hence the plasticy look. Nothing wrong with that, it's not looked down on in Korean culture at all, but they have definitely had it, especially the one with the biggish nose.

With a name like KingSeokjin, are you sure you're not the fan here?

And this is exactly what I am talking about! They haven’t had plastic surgery.

Biggish nose? There are seven of them, Jin, Suga, J-hope, RM, Jimin, V and JK so which one are you talking about?

And yes I am a fan hence why I went to the concert.

Their lyrics aren’t cheesy at all, you throw the talking Korean at me well some of my daughters ARMY friends are Korean! I know what the lyrics say.

They are on the cover of TIME magazine, they were asked to talk at the UN!

The tweets I’m talking about were hateful, insulting and very xenophobic!

If people don’t like them that’s fine but no one has to insult, mock and be nasty about their appearance.

They are very humble, it was a pleasure to see that at the concert and I’ve been to a lot of concerts!

Yes, Korean 15 year olds. 15 year olds tend not to be too discerning about levels of cheese. Plus there’s something vaguely exotifying about adults who think that their lyrics are especially deep just because they are Korean. They’re the same level as every other manufactured boyband trash.

I don’t know their names. The one with the very obviously plastic nose - literally no Koreans have a nose like that unless they bought in Apgujeong. Like I said, nothing wrong with it, it’s totally whatever in Korea but look at the before and after pictures.

Of course racism isn’t good, but saying they’re a bit shit isn’t xenophobic any more than me saying Nickleback are shit is.

A lot of people talk at the UN, it doesn’t confer any special status on them. Their whole message - love yourself - is great but it’s very easy to say that when you’re a young, famous, objectively attractive man. I would bet all my money on none of them ever EVER dating a fat ugly girl/boy.

If you want to see insulting or mocking, come to Korea. It’s one million times worse here.