Watch out Ottawa.
Super band BTS is coming this Friday.
While BTS has never graced a concert stage here in the nation’s capital (Toronto or Montreal is likely the closest they’ll ever get), their new album Proof will hit Ottawa like an atomic bomb at the end of this week. Fans and retailers alike are bracing for a stampede of unbridled consumerism that will make the Cabbage Patch Kids craze of the 80’s look like a teddy bear picnic.
Proof will land this Friday in various physical versions, ranging in price from thirty dollars to over a hundred depending which edition tickles your fancy. The Pinecrest Indigo location is hosting a midnight launch for Proof, re-opening the store at 10 PM on Thursday and selling the new release at 12:01 AM on the dot.
In the two hours leading up to the album’s release, fans will be able to take part in BTS sing-alongs, dance parties, trivia (with prizes) and craft making until the magic hour rolls around. Indigo will offer the compact edition for $34.99 and the standard for $100.99 Cdn.
You could be forgiven for thinking that BTS’s popularity may have slowed over the last few years. After all, they were a musical juggernaut pre-COVID, appearing everywhere and headlining sold out global tours. But while the pandemic may have put all that on hold (along with the rest of the world), the Korean power players are back. It turns out not even a world-wide pandemic could derail them.Â
They’ve spent 2022 smashing records (the group or its members currently lay claim to 25 Guinness world records ) and cleaning up at award shows (BTS lead all musical acts at the recent Billboard Music awards, winning three top honours amid six nominations). They are a force to reckon with on social media, with tens of millions of followers and a fanbase named the BTS Army for its size, persistence and passionate loyalty.
BTS has sold well over 20 million physical albums and more than 74 million with digital sales factored in. They have sold over 800,000 this year alone without releasing any new music until now (they released the new single Butter in 2021 but Proof is their first album since 2020). These kind of numbers are rarely (if ever) seen in the digital music age, looking more like sales figures from the nineties CD boom. Conservative estimates are already pegging Proof’s anticipated sales somewhere in the stratosphere.Â
The group will perform songs from the 48 track anthology album on their Youtube channel Monday, June 16. While they will likely go on tour sometime later in 2022 or 2023 to promote Proof, no dates or cities have been announced yet.
Fans hoping to attend Indigo Pinecrest’s midnight launch can sign up at TicketScene here (while there’s still room) and pre-orders for Proof can be made at Indigo’s website here.Â
Image via www.hollywoodreproter.com
