Big Bang Will Make Their Return at Coachella 2020

At one time, K-pop top boy band was not BTS. BigBang was the Kpop kings when they released their debut album in 2006, Korea was in love; by 2012, so was much of the rest of the world.

BigBang’s fifth EP entered the Billboard charts that year, marking the first time any Korean group charted in the US; their music has outsold that of the Backstreet Boys; their videos have been viewed more than 4 billion times on YouTube. 

BigBang occasionally took breaks from performing together while its individual members — known as Daesung, G-Dragon, Seungri, Taeyang, and T.O.P. — pursued highly successful solo careers. By 2016, however, just as the group was reaching its peak, it began to break apart. One by one in the months that followed, the boys enlisted in the military, required of all South Korean men between the ages of 18 and 35. By 2018, with each member either starting or about to start their military service, the group had no choice but to announce a hiatus.

It is exciting for music fans that the group’s name appeared on the Coachella lineup.

BigBang’s Coachella concerts will be the group’s first since it went on break in 2018 (the group will return as a four-piece, without Seungri, who left performing after a much publicized sex scandal). (Also set to appear: the group Epik High, another longtime K-pop staple that has collaborated with BigBang in the past.)

Will the group stumble without Seungri, who choreographed much of their impressive footwork? I have a feeling that, as long as four-fifths of BigBang is up there singing and dancing, fans will be too overwhelmed to care.