If you’ve been hearing shrieks from Katz’s Delicatessen on the Lower East Side, it’s not because someone tried to pay without their ticket. It’s because Korean-pop supergroup BTS stopped by with Jimmy Fallon to serve up some of New York’s finest pastrami, now with a side of boy-band-induced swooning.
Monday night’s Tonight Show featured a complete BTS takeover, and the takeover wasn’t confined to the walls of 30 Rock; Fallon commandeered a New York City subway train to take BTS to Grand Central Terminal for a stellar performance of their song “ON,†made even more amazing by how they managed to empty out a major transportation hub for the event. Truly, hard to imagine a bigger New York flex than this.
And, of course, what would a trip to New York be without squaring off against Fallon in a series of very silly games he’s dubbed the Subway Olympics? At this point, it should be on the official New York to-do list under “get the pastrami at Katz’s.†And hey, at least if your train was screwed up today, you know it was for a fun reason for once.
For BTS, everything is about their fans. Also, as part of their NYC takeover, the boys answered fan questions while gliding along the subway. The band shared their process for creating music, what they love the most about performing, and, finally, the truth about the black-bean-noodle incident. For years, the ARMY has been guessing about RM’s black-bean-noodle story, an inside joke between the boys that Jimin has been wanting to tell on TV. Thanks to an ARMY with a perfectly timed question, Fallon got to the bottom of it. “It was during our training,†Jimin explained. “We were taking a short break from practice and [RM] said he was going to the restroom, but he’d actually gone to eat black-bean noodles alone while we were all waiting.†In RM’s defense, he says he had a stomachache. And with that, the black-bean-noodle case is (finally) closed. Between this, Slytherin Jimin, and J-Hope’s dancing, the ARMY is eatin’ good tonight. Black-bean noodles for all!