“I just want to tell you we’ve missed you,” Tonight Show host Jimmy Fallon told the seven guests crammed on two couches during Wednesday’s show.
Those seven guests — RM, Jin, Suga, J-hope, Jimin, V and Jungkook — make up K-pop supergroup BTS, who made their first U.S. late night appearance since 2021 on the NBC late night show. Fresh off the release of their first album in nearly four years, Arirang, the group is in the middle of a press run that included a supersized Netflix comeback live stream.
BTS chatted with Fallon about their return from their mandatory military enlistment in their home country of South Korea, even noting what each member missed about another during that time. The group recounted their experience living together for the first time in years while making Arirang. Jin, the eldest member, took a moment to lovingly rag on Jungkook, the youngest, for being the messiest member in the house because he never fully unpacked in the house.
As Fallon has in the past with guests, he had the group surprise unsuspecting fans, whose reactions ranged from utter shock to screaming to even throwing themselves on the ground and putting themselves in time out — an average reaction to seeing BTS in the flesh.
The group took questions Fallon sourced from viewers, even building the BTS fan starter pack with five must-listen songs — “Swim,” “Mic Drop,” “Mikrokosmos,” “Spring Day” and “Dynamite.” They were also asked to describe how they feel about their dedicated fanbase, collectively known as ARMY, in one word. They decided on “love,” which garnered an audible swoon from the gathered audience.
And, of course, the questions had to get a bit silly. The group was asked if RM, whose real name is Kim Namjoon, if they’ve been in the car with him driving yet. The rapper, BTS’ leader, famously hadn’t had a license until recently. V joked it was “very scary.”
After the interview, the performed “Swim,” the lead single off Arirang. Instead of sticking to the 30 Rock studio, the show brought the group and a select crowd to New York’s Guggenheim Museum. The members started at various sections of the iconic museum before gathering on a stage in the center.
A historic trailblazer in the globalization of K-pop, BTS took over the entire heart of their home city of Seoul to celebrate their return last week, setting their Netflix live stream in a historic location. The choice to stage the comeback performance in front of Gwanghwamun, the main gate and historic entryway to Seoul’s Gyeongbokgung Palace, was no coincidence — as the new album is in many ways a meditation on the group’s cultural identity.
The album’s name, Arirang, pays tribute to a treasured Korean folk ballad of the same name, which was famously the country’s first song, sung by Korean men, ever recorded (it was preserved for posterity by American ethnologist Alice Fletcher in 1896). Motifs from the original “Arirang” feature prominently in the closing minutes of the new album’s opening track, “Body to Body.” One of the most striking tracks on the album is “No. 29,” a song made up only of the sound of a bell being tolled once, with the resonant ringing lasting a minute and 38 seconds. The bell used for the recording is Korea’s original, 1,255-year-old Divine Bell of King Seongdeok. The song’s title is a reference to the historic object’s official designation as “South Korea’s National Treasure No. 29.”
Arirang sends an unmistakable message — BTS no longer only promotes in Korea, but they are proud of their roots. They are, and always will be, a Korean band, even if their audience has expanded to encompass the entire world.
BTS is expected to return to The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon on Thursday night (March 26).
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