When Suga kicked off his tour in April, it was a glimmer of hope for fans dismayed by the prospect of not seeing BTS live till 2025. The seven-member group is on hiatus as they complete military enlistment and release solo work, and this is the first solo tour by any member.
When Suga took the stage on June 25 at Jamsil Indoor Stadium, Seoul, for purportedly the last show of histour, it was not as a fiery spark part of a shimmering seven. It was Min Yoongi and his artistry alone which had to speak for itself. By the end of the show, it is clear that Suga has no qualms doing exactly that. He is a superstar in his own right, a rapper, a producer who knows his music and a lyricist clear about his narrative and message. The same musicality underscoring his work as a BTS member has always emerged in his fierce solo rap and production work.
He is at ease in the various roles his concert demands of him. In the ominous and hard-hitting titles ‘Haegeum’ and ‘Daechwita’, we see Korean beats and instruments overlaid with confident lyricism, opening the concert on a percussively driven high.
Suga/Agust D/Min Yoongi, in one of his stage outfits. | Photo Credit: BTS official Twitter (@bts_bighit)
Rapping intensely and commanding the stage with vigour, Suga channels unhinged passion on stage, equal parts elegant virtuoso and gritty emo rapper. You see the glimmerings of his Agust D characters — strongmen to be humbled.
The wild swagger flows on in ‘Agust D’— wild, reckless, arrogant— completely at home in Agust D’s wild multiverse of madness woven through three bodies of work— two mixtapes and his first solo album. The swagger continues with “Give It To Me,” before he pauses for a breath and an introduction.
In his Agust D trilogy, Suga the BTS member explores the depths of his life as Min Yoongi through the lens of his fiery alter ego Agust D. He flows in and out of narrative and life, weaving complex tales of trauma, loss, pain, fear, mental illness, struggle and the perennial duality of the artist/man and musician/idol. As a performer too, Suga is fond of his themes and metaphors; the concert is a self-contained world, an emotional expression caught in time and space through succinct storytelling and searing music.
Suga performs during a tour stop in Japan. | Photo Credit: @agustd/Instagram
Suga, and BTS, have never shied from their Korean roots; here, glimpses are seen in Korean instruments, and in the inlays in his mic and guitar, reminiscent of a pattern used by BTS forKorean festival Chuseok merch.
This guitar is well-known to fans with signs and wishes from the remaining BTS members. It has its own role to play as Suga settles on a stool,now in his alt singer-songwriter persona. He croons and strums along to ‘Seesaw’ (acoustic version) a song of an imbalanced love, sung in gritty tones tinged with a core of gentleness fans have come to expect from the Daegu rapper. The theme of love flows on with ‘SDL’, a smooth R&B ballad.
He moves on to ‘People’ and ‘People Pt2’ (ft. IU) gentle harmonious musings on the nature of people, love and life — realism laced not with resignation or regret, but acceptance.
Suga then makes a smooth return to intensity, with a rousing rendition of ‘Moonlight’, followed up by ‘Burn it’ (ft. Max.) While the concert opened with the ambience of rain, here fireballs and the red glow of the ARMY bombs transform the arena into a fierce zone out of a Hong Kong film.
In the second act, bookended by cinematic visual narratives from the grander ‘Agust D cinematic universe’, as fans would have it, Suga returns with ‘Interlude: Shadow’, musing on the nature of ambitionand always being in the public eye. BTS rap line fans would delight at the next songs to take the stage — ‘Cypher Pt. 3’, ‘Cypher Pt. 4’, ‘UGH’ and fan favourite ‘Ddaeng.’ Then follows a drill outing in ‘HUH?’ (ft. J-hope)— sans J-hope, now enlisted in the military.
Poster for the final dates of the tour. | Photo Credit: BigHit Music official Twitter (@BIGHIT_MUSIC)
Veins of BTS run throughout — the narrative videos that fill the breaks are interwoven with shots from the ‘Most Beautiful Moment of Life’ phase of BTS’ musical journey, a bittersweetseries of songs and stories set against the backdrop of angsty youth— at one point video-Suga holds a YK lighter from this realm.
As Suga catches his breath, he shouts out his “brothers” — bandmates Jimin, Jungkook and Taehyung aka V, blending into the crowd like another trio of fans. As he moves to a piano, adorned by a whiskey decanter, the crowd settles into the BTS fanchant. The reason — the next song is Suga’s version of “Life Goes On,” BTS’ song from the 2020 album BE, accompanied by piano.
It is now time for the most tender part of the evening. A clip plays on the screen of Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto at the piano, playing as Suga listens, in a touching tribute to the composer, who passed away this year. Their glorious ballad ‘Snooze’ (ft. Ryuichi Sakamato and Kim Woosung of The Rose) is a musical balm to the ears. Up next is ‘Polar Night’, cynical melodic rap ode to a horrible world — “It is all dirty,” Sugapoints out.
This segues into the bars of ‘Amygdala’, a melodic rap song threaded through with emotionality, my personal favourite of the show. “I don’t know your name,” he sings, perhaps to past trauma or how it creeps up on him. “My amygdala, save me,” he begs, in a raw song about his struggles with mental health, about which he is often vocal. A bike crash that weakened his shoulder, a friend’s death, addiction — it all bleeds into the song.
Throughout the set, performance, pieces of the stage are lifted, bit by bit, as if to leave nothing behind but the man and his music. By now, Suga is left on a small square on fire — a lonely flame-embattled presence. He ends the song lying on the ground, capturing effectively the exhaustion and black despair of mental trauma.
Suga lies on the stage during an earlier performance in Bangkok. | Photo Credit: @agustd/Instagram
Yoongi is a consummate musician, but there’s also the side that endears him to fans — searing honesty and stage charm. After a rendition of ‘Dday’, Suga is playful when the audience demands an encore — although he has insisted at least four times that it is his last show — pretending not to hear them — “What? No? Pardon?”
We have all been duped — Suga unveils a garish poster for encore shows on August 4-6 at the KSPO dome. After deafening cheers the crowd transforms into twinkling blue lights as Suga sings ‘Intro: Never Mind’, a paean to running, without pause, to catch a dream.
Screengrab of announcement of dates for encore concert at KSPO dome
Then the last song, titled ‘The Last’. “Selling ourselves or not you all say…It’s not that we couldn’t do it, but that we didn’t want to, s***”, Suga ends, walking away without even a glance back.
Why does the end seem abrupt, a semicolon, nota full stop? Why did Psy not guest at this show, like the previous one? How did Jungkook, who yelled “Well done!” towards the show’s end, get his mic? But Dday is over, I admit, as the show title and the last fan comments fill the screen of my live stream.
The world of Agust D and the tour of Suga the musician is both immersive and addictive. As Suga, the musician and rapper, walks off the stage, he leaves a lasting imprint of his musicality, of music performed both well and sincerely. On this tour, Suga contains multitudes, quite literally. If the VCR clips showcase more Sugas than I can keep track of— in line with his recurring motif of killing old selves to emerge anew— the man himself slips into different roles— singer, rapper, pianist, and guitarist; performer, friendly entertainer, large than life presence.
He is in his element, a confident rockstar with nothing to prove, and he knows it. This is his stage, these are his people. But at its heart, he is just a man with his music, stripped of all the trappings of BTS’s glitzy pop star presence. Whether he raps Daegu’s small underground scene or at Wembley, surrounded by thousands, Suga is a musician, and his tour is a testament to his artistry. He has the air of a man with music always on his mind. One wonders if plucked of his notes and chords, he would be himself at all.
Good thing we don’t have to find out. The Agust D/Suga Dday tour returns for three encore shows on August 4,5, and 6 at the KSPO Dome in Seoul.
