Watch BTS Perform ‘Dynamite’ and More, Live on NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert
Like everyone else, BTS and NPR have been forced to pivot during the pandemic — and for their first performance on NPR’s “Tiny Desk” concert series, the K-pop superstars performed from the record store VINYL & PLASTIC in BTS’s hometown of Seoul.
The group drew more than half a million viewers for the premiere of the concert, which saw them tearing through three songs accompanied by a live band, including their current hit single “Dynamite.” The group also performed the 2016 hit “Save Me” and “Spring Day,” released the following year, doing their best to remain seated while singing.
“It reminds me of when we were on tour with the band,” the group’s Jimin said during a brief interview. “Those were some great times.”
“It’s been the roughest summer ever, but we know that spring will come,” RM added.
The show has long been a popular destination for artists, but more so since coronavirus lockdown put all tours on hold — Billie Eilish, Harry Styles and Norah Jones have performed on the series in recent weeks, albeit from home rather than the pre-pandemic location of NPR offices.
Earlier this week, the group performed their new single “Dynamite” — the group’s first fully English-language song — on “America’s Got Talent.” Despite their global superstardom, the song is the group’s first significant radio hit in the U.S. BTS’ release of “Dynamite,” their first English-language single, has sparked a 300% increase in the number of people listening to the K-pop group for the first time on Spotify, the platform revealed on Thursday (Sept. 17).
Already a hit at radio, where the song saw more than 8,000 spins between Sept. 4 and Sept. 10, per Alpha Media, and on YouTube where the official video shattered records in its first 24 hours by logging more than 100 million views, the English-language track also set a new Spotify record by receiving 12.6 million streams within the first day of its Aug. 21 release. Since then, it’s been added to more than 3.5 million playlists.
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