Big Bang's Seoul concert had it all

The five-member K-pop band Big Bang performs at the "World Tour MADE" concert at the Olympic Gymnastics Arena, Seoul, last weekend. / Courtesy of YG Entertainment

By Kim Jae-heun

K-pop idol band Big Bang of YG Entertainment had it all from setting up a top-quality stage with excellent sound equipment, to hiring a world-class concert production crew for their last concert of "World Tour MADE" at the Olympic Gymnastics Arena, Seoul, Sunday. The show also celebrated the band's 10th anniversary of their debut in 2006.

The venue adopted a 48-ton nude stage, made of steel truss for the first time, to secure a clear view for every seat at the concert and installed the latest sound equipment "Adamson Energia System" to present the best sound quality for the audience. Renowned lighting and production designer Roy Bennet, Beyonce's videographer Ed Burke and music director Gil Smith II worked together to create Big Bang's all-time best show.

On the last concert of their MADE tour, the K-pop band kicked off the show with their dance-pop and trap music hit, "Bang Bang Bang," off the latest album MADE released digitally last June. Big Bang sang a total of 19 songs in the show including the members' solo tracks such as Seungri's "Strong Baby," T.O.P's "DOOM DADA" and Taeyang's "Eyes, Nose, Lips."

The five members of the group were enjoying the stage with their fans and dancing to the music with ease rather than perfectly showing off their original choreography _ which is often regarded as the Big Bang style of performing as they always shout out "let's play" before walking out to the stage.

The show attracted a total audience of 39,000 during the three-day set in Seoul and some 13,000 fans attended on the concert on the last day holding banners spelling out: "Big Bang is My Everything," creating a magnificent scene that impressed the musicians.

"Nothing would have been possible without our fans in Korea," said Seungri during the performance.

Taeyang said he visited many countries during the world tour and he missed Korean fans a lot.

The MADE concert also featured lighting shows with a total 106 large-output lasers that created 25,600 different colors, an enormous number comparing that to a normal concert use, which uses only eight lasers.

The concert held on the last day was video streamed live worldwide on both the Chinese portal site "Tencent" and Korea's No.1 portal site Naver's "V App" mobile service, which recorded 3.62 million views alone.

Big Bang's world tour concert kicked off last year, travelling to 13 countries including China, Japan, Thailand and Singapore, and performing at 32 cities. The K-pop group played to a total of 1.5 million fans in 66 shows.

Big Bang's concert was particularly successful in Japan where the band played to 911,000 fans during 18 shows in four cities that set a new record for the largest audience at a foreign artist's concert. In China, 25,000 fans in 13 cities attended the band's concerts, which set a new record for a Korean pop group on the mainland.

The New York Times reported on Big Bang's concert at the LA Staples Center saying that "A night with BigBang is a loud reminder that American exceptionalism is waning." The show was ranked 10th for the year by Billboard.

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