Tens of thousands of excited fans gathered at Tokyo's landmark Tokyo Dome on Friday to watch K-pop megastars BTS perform their first concert outside South Korea on a new world tour. The seven-member group, reunited on stage last month after a years-long hiatus for mandatory military service, drew massive crowds.
Fans packed the area around Tokyo Dome, which holds up to 55,000 people, with many ticketless attendees soaking in the electric atmosphere.
Miki Satani, 50, clutching her concert ticket, told AFP, "I waited so long." Having discovered BTS six years ago, she added, "BTS give me lots of energy and cheer me up. When I have various kinds of hardships in life, I can receive cheer by listening to their music... I feel they are like vitamin supplements for my life."
Ticketless Russian tourist Viktoria Diatlova, 27, expressed her affection, saying the band's music "has such a beautiful message." Noa Iwaasa, 22, a Tokyo hairdresser, said, "BTS is part of my life, as I've been listening to them since I was a student."
The tour, coinciding with the release of their latest album "ARIRANG," began last week with a show in Goyang, 16 kilometers from Seoul. It will feature 85 performances across 34 cities worldwide, with Tokyo shows on Friday and Saturday marking the first outside South Korea.
