Dear Gossips,

I had two alarms set on Sunday night. The first was at 759pm so that I wouldn’t miss the start of the Benito Bowl. The second was an hour later, 859pm, so that I could jump on Weverse at 9pm to buy the new BTS light stick, aka the ARMY Bomb.

I already have an ARMY bomb… but it’s a few years old, and this is a new chapter, it’s the most highly anticipated comeback of their careers. So I was online with hundreds of thousands of other fans to secure the latest ARMY Bomb in advance – because I don’t want to queue at the concert for over an hour. The ARMY Bombs sold out in half an hour. I was successful after obsessively refreshing and also patiently waiting for my payment pages to load (three times). But that’s not the only Bad Bunny x BTS crossover.

Hamish Hamilton was in the control room on Sunday night for Benito’s performance. He will also return to direct the Oscars on March 15 but he probably won’t have much time to celebrate or rest, because he’ll have to be on a plane pretty soon after that to make his way to Korea, since he’s directing BTS The Comeback Live: ARIRANG, live streaming on Netflix on March 21 at 8pm KST / 7am ET / 4am PT.

This is an outdoor event in the heart of Seoul, and a press release today revealed the stage setup, with an expected 15,000 tickets to be drawn from fans who’ve purchased the album who will be eligible to view the show from officially sectioned areas close to the T-stage. In addition, non-ticked fans will be able to see RM, Jin, Suga, j-hope, Jimin, V, and Jung Kook as they “walk from inside Gyeongbok Palace, passing through the Gwanghwamun gate and the "woldae," a traditional ceremonial stage located in front of the gate, before moving onto a stage built at the northern end of the square to open the show”. Which is why city officials are estimating that “up to 230,000 people could gather around the concert site, and as many as 260,000 if the crowd extends toward the Sungnyemun gate”. (Source)

That’s the scale of the event that Hamish Hamilton will be directing – and, again, this is less than a week after the Oscars. Needless to say, he and his team have to be in preparation for both concurrently, and if ever we needed a Show Your Work from those control rooms, it would be now.

In other BTS news, billboards, posters, and red and white tape with “What Is Your Love Song?” have started showing up in select cities.

An EP with the same title has also been mysteriously added on Spotify, so ARMY is now speculating that we might get a Valentine’s drop from the band… perhaps the lead single for the album? It’s the most excited I’ve been for Valentine’s Day in years, LOL.

While so many questions remain about what exactly BTS will be delivering with ARIRANG – the visuals, the sound, the tour, etc – there is no doubt that their comeback will be… well… Korean. That was made clear with the album title and where they’re setting the comeback show. Like Bad Bunny, BTS has taken their culture global with a catalogue that is predominantly in their native language. After going on hiatus at the peak of their success, they are returning to the stage under the biggest spotlight they’ve ever experienced, with enormous expectations, and they’ve decided to put their culture front and center.

Yours in gossip,

Lainey

Photo credits: Agency/NurPhoto/Shutterstock

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