- BTS rapper Suga broke down on stage and sobbed during the last three tracks of his D-DAY concert.
- Suga finished a three-month long world tour in Seoul on Sunday.
- He cried during “Snooze,” “Dear My Friend,” and “Amygdala,” three hard-hitting, emotional songs.
Going into the final day of BTS member Suga’s D-DAY tour, fans of the Korean rapper already knew it was going to be an emotional roller coaster ride.
Suga — also known by his solo stage name, Agust D — wrapped up three months of solo touring on Sunday with “D-DAY: The Final,” a three-night event at Seoul’s KSPO dome.
For the first two-thirds of the concert, the rapper tore through one blistering song after another. At one point, he brought out his bandmate and BTS leader RM for a short segment, where the latter performed a soon-to-be-released and as-yet-untitled song.
For two days, Suga pulled through what’s set to be his last in-person concert for years — he will soon begin his mandatory military service — without tears. But during the last 20 minutes of Sunday’s concert, the floodgates finally opened.
Suga first started tearing up during “Snooze,” a song he dedicated to the late composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, who’s probably best known for “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence,” a 1983 war film starring David Bowie. He tried to hold it together, but began choking up at the line: “Because you too are just a human, like everyone else.”
He managed to get through “Snooze,” pausing several times during the performance to collect himself as tears rolled down his face.
But what was even harder to watch for longtime ARMYs and fans was the next song, “Dear My Friend,” a track Suga added to the D-DAY set list for the tour’s last three nights. “Dear My Friend” is from Suga’s 2020 album, “D-2.” It appears, from the lyrics, to be a letter to a troubled friend who struggled with addiction, who Suga visited multiple times at a Seoul prison.
Fans — myself included — cried along with the rapper as he gasped for breath and tried to finish the song. He sometimes buried his face in an arm, and doubled over while sobbing.
I didn’t think he would manage to finish “Amygdala,” the last song on the set list, without going off-stage to take a break, but he launched right into it after catching his breath. “Amygdala” is a particularly revealing song, by K-pop standards, where Suga gets brutally candid about depression and suicide.
Get through it he did, buoyed by the cheers of “Min Yoongi,” his Korean name, that rang out throughout the stadium.
Despite him breaking down on stage, the show ended on an uplifting note, with three encore tracks: “D-Day,” “Never Mind,” and “The Last.” And Suga made sure to hop onto a Weverse livestream after the show to reassure the fans that he was alright.
“I’m not really the type to cry,” Suga said during his livestream on Sunday. “But my band members were there, and my seniors came too. Before, I had a dream while watching my seniors. And now I have become someone’s senior. Those 10 years flew past. And that’s when the tears came.”
Fans of Suga will have to wait a while to see him again. The band’s agency, Hybe, released a press release on Monday announcing that he will soon enlist to serve a mandatory military service period of 18 to 21 months. In South Korea, military service is compulsory for physically fit men between 18 and 35 years old.
It is unclear when Suga’s enlistment date will be or what branch of the armed forces he will serve in.
Two other BTS members, Jin and J-Hope, have already enlisted in the military. BTS is slated to reunite in 2025 after all seven of its band members finish serving in the military.
