Nearly three years ago, BIGBANG played New Jersey's Prudential Center for the East Coast leg of their 2012 Alive tour. The K-pop phenoms opened the two shows emerging from capsule pods and spent it riding bedazzled segues and ziplining above concertgoers. It felt like the quintet represented the future: A previously unidentified breed of boy bands for U.S. audiences with their spectacle equally as captivating as their genre-bending bangers.

Fast-forward to this past weekend, BIGBANG has since released just eight new songs as a group, but nonetheless brought their Made world tour to North America with the U.S. leg closed by another two-night stint in Newark. While the band still has yet to release their full-length Made album (which was pushed back indefinitely from its initial Sept. 1 release date), the show created a powerful statement that positions BIGBANG not as the boy band of the future anymore, but as five individuals that are separately complex, but together an undeniable supergroup.


A Tarantino-esque film showcasing the well-dressed bad boys BIGBANG portray in music videos opened the concert and kickstarted a narrative that the quintet is trapped in a glamorous world of complex girl, substance and mental problems. Throughout the night video interludes exhibited the band's sex-symbol/rapper TOP drunkenly yelling at himself in a mirror while leader G-Dragon couldn't stop flashing back to a past lover.

But when the guys emerged from behind towering LED screens, it was mostly their signature cool-dude swag that was under the spotlight -- albeit, with a newly sophisticated presentation.


Openers "Bang Bang Bang" and "Tonight" brought a flashy, onstage party complete with streamers and fireworks, but the guys may have shined brighter during softer moments. Standout "Bad Boy" included sections of slick group choreography which helped the band command the audience to bounce along with them throughout. It was followed by a tender take on "If You," presented as the guys stood at microphone stands wearing white dress shirts and suits. But the most remarkable moment had to be when the quintet led the entire arena in singing the all-Korean chorus of "Haru Haru" -- a song released in YouTube's early days and four years before "Gangnam Style."

This time, BIGBANG's mind-boggling visuals weren't necessary. In 2012, BB vocal powerhouse Daesung performed solo track "Wings" outfitted in larger-than-life angel wings, but now he was fine rocking alongside backup dancers. Meanwhile, hip-hop-leaning cuts like "Zutter," performed by G-Dragon and TOP, and "Bae Bae" didn't rely on flashy props, but instead the members' charms for a believable performance. Each BIGBANG dude had a solo performance and each found a way to get fans screaming throughout. Equally important were the onstage antics -- the most entertaining provided by Daesung's multiple hip thrusts or youngest and most sprightly member Seungri's crowd yells (e.g. "Give me your energy!" he roared during a crowd chat) -- which earned big-time audience approval.



G-Dragon addressed the status of the elusive Made LP during the show saying the "new album is coming out very soon. It's amazing, we love it." Rumor has it that after Made, the BIGBANG boys could serve South Korea's mandatory two-year military service for men, marking an uncertain future for a band who only put out eight songs in their last three years -- a lifetime and a half in the quickly moving K-pop world. The sentiment wasn't lost on member Taeyang -- who stepped up his stage presence, grabbing control of the spotlight and consistently refusing to let it go -- telling the audience, "I don't know when I'll see you again, but I really want to see you again."

Whether it was goodbye or not, the Made tour may have accomplished more than a night of entertainment in showing that boy bands can, in fact, shine as a collective and on an individual, human basis. BIGBANG and its five superstars are still redefining what a boy band is today and experimenting with what happens when real life enters into the mix.

NEWARK — It’s hard to overstate how imperious T.O.P. looks onstage. The oldest member of the outlandishly popular K-pop boy band BigBang, he walks slowly, almost reluctantly. He regards his surroundings with Clooney-like reserve. If it’s possible to be rolling your eyes while maintaining fierce eye contact with several thousand people, he can do that. He stands ramrod straight, making it seem as if he’s always peering down on what’s transpiring around him.

What’s happening is an extreme, intense, overwhelming Korean pop carnival, and at the Prudential Center on Sunday night — the second of two shows here — T.O.P. was almost certainly the only one over it all. For about a decade, BigBang has been one of the most innovative and popular acts in the flooded-with-talent and always-in-flux world of K-pop. Nothing has derailed the band — not the occasional scandal, romantic or legal; not long breaks, like the years that pass between albums; and not the success of G-Dragon, the group’s breakout star.

BigBang is at work on a new album, “MADE,” and has been releasing singles over the past few months that are in general less Technicolor and frenetic than its songs of a few years ago, which helped the group break out beyond Asia. (The last time BigBang played the area was three years ago, at this same venue.) This is a sign of musical evolution, and also a realization that the boy band mode comes with built-in time limits. There is also the looming specter of conscription: South Korean men are required to perform two years of military service.

But for now: G-Dragon, G-Dragon, G-Dragon — so many of the screams here were for G-Dragon, fashion show front-row habitué and collaborator with Diplo and Skrillex. Slight and baby-faced, he was toned down from his usual visual excess. As in all boy bands, there is a hierarchy here, of course: G-Dragon is very much at the top. He gets the best clothes — a fascinating patch-covered oversize bomber jacket, or a snow-white turtleneck — followed closely by T.O.P., who at one point wore what seemed to be a Mondrian print on a suit.

In most boy bands, that would be enough — the rest would be filler. But there is no Chris Kirkpatrick or Howie Dorough here. There’s Daesung, with the same lovable-scamp affect as Ed Sheeran and a powerful voice; Seungri, the youngest and most mannered of the bunch (they’re all in their mid-20s); and Taeyang, the most feline and the most impressive singer.

G-Dragon and T.O.P. drew the most eyeballs during this electric, ecstatic show, in which multiple songs were accompanied by fireworks or lasers or streamers, and in which costume changes came Instagram fast.

But it was actually Taeyang who stood out the most. His hair fried into a crisp 1991 drape, he stalked the stage with ferocity and sang with real force on songs like the recent single “Loser” and an impromptu (but not, really) snippet of Michael Jackson’s “Billie Jean” late in the night while Daesung danced.

Throughout the night, the group’s indebtedness to American pop, hip-hop and R&B was on full display, from Taeyang’s vocal runs to T.O.P.’s post-dancehall toasting to G-Dragon’s nimble rapping and strange allusion to the “school of hard knocks” he and the band had gone through. (Well, not always full display: BigBang’s backing band, made up wholly of black American musicians, was hidden in the dark at the rear of the stage for most of the night.)

The show and the group were almost perversely chaste, at least onstage. Less so in the interstitial videos shown between songs, which show the band members as what they are: men playing at being boys.

But even if BigBang is nearing the end of its reign, appetite for the form remains, as was clear from the young and extremely diverse crowd here. Boy bands are an industry and aesthetic all but abandoned by the American pop machine. But like, say, automobiles, South Korean success with the form is another example of a concept kick-started here but perfected elsewhere. A night with BigBang is a loud reminder that American exceptionalism is waning — long live imports, though.

Source: NY Times