Happy Festa! Break out the purple...
It's June. Which only means one thing: time for the month-long BTS party to drop. This round of Festa will mean even more, because of what we are missing.
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One of my friends jokes that my love of BTS, and all the current solo off-shoot manifestations of OT7, is merely an excuse of indulge in more of one of my favorite colors.
Purple.
One the universities I have a degree from is into purple (and has a mascot cat too, so double Yoongi). The flowers blooming right now in my garden are purple. I love Prince, the king of purple. I would drive a purple car, if the carmakers ever got hip again to other colors besides gray, white, and black.
Purple. (All together now… BORAHAE!)
So this month, for BTS and its ARMY, is the purple month. Festa, this year titled, BTS presents Everywhere, is here. Sadly, we won’t get a live Muster concert, thanks to Jin and Hobi being in the Army. The classics they have staged for Muster will not be part of our present this year. House of ARMY anyone?
We will celebrate this 10th anniversary well, and with them, thanks to the stash of content they prepared. This is a huge milestone, as most groups (from K-pop to American) do not reach 10 years, much less together in original form. Much less be this successful, much less having the growth arc continuing stronger now than at the start. BTS is the same seven now, as they were in 2013. Except they’ve all grown up into successful, college graduates who also have many other interests going on in their lives. Growth is not linear, and time is short in the music business. BTS has been blessed with both growth and time - thanks to their patience, hard work, and having good people like Bang PD around them from the start.
Let’s dance it out for them:
Hints are dropping for what we can expect this month: a new, OT7 single, “Take Two”, which is a rare official prod by Suga. Joon and Hobi have co-writing credits. Suga usually does not hang a prod credit for BTS stuff like this. He’s always involved, in everything they do, but the prod. title usually goes for the outside projects. (Think like That That with Psy, which was a prod. Suga.)
The whole city of Seoul will be lit up in purple to honor BTS.
(If this video doesn’t make you smile, you have no mirth in your soul. Get down Yoongi.)
We have the Festa graphic map, which always causes high degrees of silly guessing as to what will really happen. Some clues/detective work have uncovered this much:
June 9 is the release for Take Two. Maybe a video to come?
June 13 will be the release of the official BTS memoir. Which is already a best-seller before it hit the shelves. It apparently was written in Korean, with the help of a writer who works for Weverse magazine, and then translated into English. It was cleverly known as “4C Untitled Flatiron Nonfiction Summer 2023”, which I am now sad to be unable to use as a catchy title for my next non-fiction book. (joking). Big apologies to the Swifties who had their own conspiracy going that this was going to be a book from her. It’s…not Taylor.
Some funny, maybe true, Festa content guesses from me:
June 7: I think that will be JK and Jimin performing “Letter”, aka the hidden track with the invisible ink lyric page, from “Face”. It’s a pretty song, written for ARMY, and JK has already shown us he knows the guitar for it. JK’s also credited with back-up vocals on the song too.
June 10: If BTS has the wine glasses out, we should be drinking too. We will be getting a Festa dinner. Hopefully, it is NOT what we went through in 2022, aka the Festa dinner of doom that set off the mother of all misinterpretation crises. Mop up on aisle three by JK (the next day Live), Joon and Yoongi interviews (we are NOT DISBANDING MEDIA FOOLS), and yeah, that dinner was something for the ages. Everybody but Jin and Yoongi in tears. Joon falling apart. Bye bye luxe apartment dorm penthouse mansion. What the hell is this!?
We now clearly understand what they were trying to say, in code. The solo projects were well underway (Hobi’s Jack in the Box ship was already set to launch, Joon’s album nearly done, Jimin’s in progress, Yoongi’s all over the place because he was in writers block, Tae’s recorded and deleted for the 200th time, and JK doing JK things.) Also, we didn’t know how burned out they were, how the military thing was hanging over them, and in general, how they were ready for the delayed Chapter 2. Good news is, a year has passed, much has become clear, many items of clothing have been shed, shibal and assorted swears have been dropped across the U.S. by Yoongi/Hobi. Future Korean Army personnel are being trained by Assistant Drill Instructors Kim and Jung. All is well.
• June 14: the Festa photo shoot. This is an annual tradition, where they take two sets of photos. One is like the class/family photo, pretty serious and staged. The second one is themed and a little more loose. I still think of how Joon and Jin were ready to hurl after the playground spinner prop they were on turned them around one time too many in 2022. JK, of course, felt FIIINE. (He has a clear history of spinning people to the point of vertigo pukedom, and then laughing because he is fine.)
We may be down to 5 members, and likely down two more in the next few months (Joon for sure, then Jimin or Yoongi). So we know the fresh OT7 content is precious. BTS always goes all out for Festa, which makes it so much fun.
I am glad that Jin and Hobi can use their phones for a little now, because I bet they will be checking in too. Stealth stuff, of course, but we can all use some Hobi Insta likes or Jin dry humor on Weverse.
Let’s rock the purple.