1.
BTS’ Permission to Dance at the United Nations If you’re an ARMY, I bet 100% that you’re
now all on cloud nine after seeing the historical performance of BTS at the United Nations building.
Like, how many groups can have the privilege to join the international meeting with the
South Korean president, to deliver a speech there and most especially, to film their song
at the iconic building of the United Nations?
Apparently besides BTS, there is none.
That’s also the reason making their performance of Permission To Dance extra unique though
content-wise, it’s just like all other music videos.
Opening the performance was Jungkook and RM standing at the center of the auditorium,
where apparently not even the most influential artists in the West have ever had the chance
to be there.
Just one minute into the video, the group quickly moved to other settings like the UN’s
lobby, front area and even the precinct.
As ordinary artists, especially those who come from an Asian country rather than an
English-speaking one, and with no formal background in politics, how many people do you think
can afford to film a music video at such a place?
Even with a bunch of money and powerful connections, the UN headquarter is still not a place where
anyone could use for MV background like what BTS did that day.
2.
BTS’ Dynamite on the top of Parc1 Tower It’s not out of thin air that BTS is called
the national treasure since until now, they have multiple times brought KPOP out into
the world and showed everyone the real power of South Korean artists.
Though BTS has yet to bag home the Best Pop Duo/Group Performance title and unfortunately
lost it to Lady Gaga/Ariana Grande at this year's Grammy Award, the group still left
an unforgettable impression on many internationally famous artists with the performance on the
rooftop of Parc1 skyscraper.
Not letting fans down with the high anticipation and the effort to trend #SetTheNightAlightBTS
worldwide, BTS thoroughly prepared a stage dazzled with lights where Jungkook kicked
off Dynamite in a floral set-up.
Then, the rest of the members gradually turned up and continued the song in a recreated Grammy
setting.
However, the fact that BTS did all of these without the help of green screen was yet to
be the night’s highlight as soon enough, they took the audience higher, literally,
by climbing up the stairs to the rooftop of Parc1 where a dazzling helipad waited for
the final crescendo of their performance.
You notice how the center of this circular stage was the BTS’s logo?
If you look closely, you’ll see it was actually printed out and glued onto the platform rather
than being a screen with LED lights like usual.
Plus, since the building is 334 meters high, BTS definitely took the risk of performing
at a terrifying height.
However, their enthusiasm and hard work paid off because from that view, ARMYs could not
only witness a spectacular performance of BTS but also the beautiful skyline of Seoul
from high above.
3.
SNSD’s Genie on top of MBC building Talking about rooftops, of course we can’t
leave out the historic Genie performance of SNSD on the helipad of the MBC building.
While some may think that there is nothing special about this stage, they should really
turn back the time to around ten years ago to see how difficult the setting up this performance
was.
You know how drones were just the technological advancement of recent years, right?
Anyone can now use his drone to film things from high above but for SNSD at that time,
the group had to hire a whole helicopter just to film the three-minute-thirty-nine-second
long video.
SNSD also has to perform under the condition of low air quality.
Notice how the atmosphere closer to the helipad got blurry like the way the heat causes distortion
in the air at desert?
With all these factors combined and the fact that this stage still holds the highest rating
in the Music Core history with 17.2%, or 8.600.000 million real-time viewers, there is no doubt
that this Genie stage of SNSD would forever be there in the history of KPOP.
4.
Red Velvet’s Bad Boy & Red Flavor at Pyongyang North Korea
Another performance with some sense of politics mixed in, right?
While talking about the settings, lighting and stage decorations, this stage is among
the simplest, and probably plainest, of Red Velvet, what makes up for that is way more
significant: to be performing at the meeting marking the remarkable shift in South-North
Korean relationship.
What’s even more incredible about this stage is that, though Kim Jong Un initially couldn’t
come because of schedule conflict, he somehow changed his mind and dropped some activities
just to get there and watch the performance of Red Velvet.
Rumor had it that North Korea even insisted on having Red Velvet rather than any other
girl group to visit the country and after the performance, Irene was also specifically
chosen to stand next to Kim Jong Un in the commemorative photo.
FYI, shortly after the concluding concert, the two countries had met in the historical
summit where they agreed to officially end the Korean War, meaning the show of good faith
with Red Velvet’s presence really did pay off.
5.
KDA’s POPSTARS at the Opening Ceremony of LOL 2018 World Championship
Despite just being a project group and initially made to promote for LOL instead of competing
with other girl groups, KDA still left KPOP with one of the most thrilling performances
when debuting at the Opening Ceremony of LOL 2018 with POPSTARS.
Of course having some real famous names like Madison Beer, Soyeon, Jaira Burns and Miyeon
already made this stage a bomb but considering how the performance perfectly leveraged AR
like nobody ever did, many netizens agreed this stage of KDA was totally deserved in
the history.
When first watching the video, people all thought it was just another heavily invested
stage with a bunch of dazzling lightning and back-up dancers but as soon as Soyeon started
her rap verse, they all realized how everything happening in front of their eyes would change
the games of KPOP forever.
Standing on the stage were not only the 4 singers but also the KDA avatars built at
the finest: the hair was moving along every move, the joints smoothly mimicked those of
humans, and the shadow was also vividly reflected on the floor.
They also added a bunch of other effects for the KDA members like landing from up high,
disappearing into the sparkling purple thin air, showing off superpower or projecting
out of a blackhole.
Apparently, their hard work paid off since until now, no one including SM Entertainment
managed to recreate the same things this company did.
With a company focusing on games like Riot, creating KDA and a thrilling performance like
this was the thing no one saw coming and after that day, not many people really saw that
this 2018 stage was a pistol’s shot paving the way for AR to get into many other performances
of KPOP.
6.
aespa’s Black Mamba - The Debut Stage So, after that pistol’s shot, which is the
first horse coming in this race?
As many of you can already guess, the earliest act to hop on this trend is aepsa and similar
to KDA, they also took the Internet by storm after performing Black Mamba at The Debut
Stage.
Opening the performance, aepsa already got all eyes hooked with the surreal visual, stunning
backgrounds full of sci-fi movies’ spirit, and most especially, the parallel appearance
of each member’s avatar in the mirror.
However, that’s yet to be the highlight of the night because right after the intro,
you’ll immediately feel like stepping into another whole world of exotic creatures that
can be lit up with different colors.
Even the camera angle was also sophisticatedly set up to show off that surreal jungle and
a huge realistic AR black mamba crawling over the stage before gradually approaching the
girls.
Besides the revolutionary camera movement, netizens also couldn’t get over how thrilling
the ending scene of this stage was.
Like suddenly out of nowhere, a gate connected to another dimension was opened and all the
avatars just casually walked out from that.
People also found it hard to believe the budget SM really poured in aespa—a group that had
just debuted for some weeks at that time because based on the finish of the avatars, for example
their soft hair moving seamlessly along every step, the perfect height identical to each
real member, and the stage outfits that perfectly reflected all the complicated lightning of
the surroundings.
They all believed the money and efforts put in this sole stage can already exceed that
of other groups’ MVs.
So, do you think all these performances deserve to go down in history or there should also
be other names on the list?
Comment down below to share your thoughts with us.