I wondered if, like Filipinos, Koreans from all walks of life would stop in their tracks for a communal moment during which even crime would cease. As it turned out, life didn’t come to a stop in Seoul, though the northern part, which comprises the historic center of the metropolis, was cordoned off. Only about 20,000—the very lucky few, relatively speaking—could actually attend, but the world—the Netflix-subscribing portion of it, at least—communed with those in Gwanghwamun Square. Saturday night, as our dentists’ receptionist told my wife in thrilled tones, was “a once-in-a-lifetime event.” BTS was back, after a hiatus of three years to fulfill their military service.

Koreans took pains to explain to the world—and perhaps each other—what all the fuss was about. The YouTube channel Korea, Properly, which is a reliable and thoughtful guide to all things ROK, provocatively proclaimed, “This Shouldn’t Be Allowed … But It Is.” The square, after all, is the historic center of a nation almost erased by colonialism, whose royal palace was disfigured by a Japanese governor-general’s palace that was demolished at the turn of the 21st century. His conclusion? “Placing BTS here at Gwanghwamun Square is not random. It’s intentional. It sends a message. This is who we are today. Not just history, not just tradition, but modern Korea. This is the moment where pop culture becomes national identity. Where a city doesn’t separate culture from history but layers them together. That’s why this feels so unusual. Because in most places there’s a clear boundary. Politics stays here. Culture stays there. But here it overlaps … It’s a signal of how far Korean culture has come.”

The Seoul-based journalist Raphael Rashid (@koryodynasty) tweeted a thread along similarly thoughtful lines. The massive logistics—“South Korea presidential office, interior ministry, police agency, culture ministry, and city hall have all mobilized for a single pop concert. Emergency inspections were ordered. Subway stations were set to bypass stops entirely, 6,500 police deployed across central Seoul”—were the manifestations of what, he says, “has become a fully fledged national project, and the location tells you everything.” On one hand, despite intense lobbying by the public, the BTS members weren’t given an exemption from military service; on the other hand, South Korea “has endured a presidential impeachment, political paralysis, prolonged economic difficulty. This is finally something new and positive in a world full of negative news.”

No coincidence, then, that the BTS comeback concert marks the release of their newest album, titled “Arirang,” which the journo reminded his readers is “Korea’s unofficial national anthem, sung through Japanese colonial rule, through national division, through protest.” Yet this prestige project came in for its fair share of criticism—of the cost, of the resources, the public inconvenience, of the 10-minute press filming limit, even of the Netflix deal—all of which underline another aspect, which is the freedom of debate and discussion in South Korea.

Watching the event after it was livestreamed, what struck me most were two things. The first was the regimentation of it all: literally legions of fans, regimented in box-like zones, all wielding—and waving—their eungwonbong: “cheering” or “support” sticks, programmed and controlled during concerts to blink and flash in different colors in sync with the ongoing concert. They have official chants, too, and are hailed as the army by members of the band.

But it’s more than an army; it’s a collective, and it’s that collective, communal experience that brought to mind the other thing that struck me, after I remarked to my wife that I was unmoved by the music. It’s not so much about the music, she suggested, as it is about being there, with the singers. And she further suggested it could be the reason why you don’t really hear covers of their songs. Detached from the personalities of the performers, and their seven different approaches–their seven permutations—that appeal both to the individual and the whole, mesmerized by how utterly conjoined everyone is with each other and the whole, no cover can recapture it, and by being unable to do so, it becomes–not musically, but emotionally—worthless.

If it’s an Army, it’s a crusading one. These group dynamics predated K-pop, as North Korea might remind us: recently, Jonathan Cheng, in Korean Messiah, chronicled the evangelical Christian origins of Kim Il-sung, who used its methods as foundations of his dynastic dictatorship, while Euny Hong’s “The Birth of Korean Cool: How One Nation Is Conquering the World Through Pop Culture,” is essential reading on how South Korea’s government meticulously generated the soft power it now wields. My interest in this all began with our Inquirer Briefing, which was eventually published on Feb. 5, 2017, under the title, “Once you K-Pop you can’t stop!” and an observation by our staff, Millennial K-pop aficionados: “Japan’s JPOP is inward-looking, Korea’s KPOP embraces the world, that’s why it’s so powerful.”