BTS Impress Their Toughest Audience Yet on ‘Corden’: L.A. Drivers Stuck in Traffic

James Corden helps BTS put on one of their most literal, and most dangerous, performances ever in the latest installment of The Late Late Show’s “Crosswalk Concert” series. 

The clip started with the late-night host trying to pitch the Korean superstars on the idea, noting, sure they’d just played four nights at a massive stadium in Los Angeles, but the crosswalk was definitely “the hottest ticket in town.” Along with the implicit danger that comes with causing even more traffic in L.A., BTS were made to suffer the indignity of having Corden try to teach them choreography.

When the actual concert started, BTS ran through as much of their single “Butter” as they could before the light changed, at which point Corden started trying to hand out concessions — in this case, obviously, sticks of butter — to drivers (“One of us should have told James the song is not literally about butter,” Suga quips). Later, Corden made the group sign liability waivers before “Permission to Dance,” while BTS even managed to wheel out some light pyrotechnics into the street for “Dynamite.” 

BTS’ “Crosswalk Concert” (as well as their more traditional Late Late Show performance last week) will be one of the group’s final appearances this year before they get some time off at the top of 2022. The group’s label, Big Hit, announced the “period of rest” at the beginning of December and it marks BTS’ first major break since 2019. Big Hit did say, however, that BTS will be prepping a new album to mark the start of a new chapter, and a concert in Seoul is in the works for March 2022.