“I love you baby, I’m not a monster.” That’s the line that Taeyang, of the South Korean boy band Big Bang, crooned to an undulating sea of light-stick wielding fans at the Prudential Center, in Newark, the other night. To my immediate left, pressed against the gray iron bars that separated us from the V.I.P. mosh pit, a thirteen-year-old girl in a silver sequin tank and top hat voiced her devotion in squeals and screams. Behind us, two boys in tuxedos elbowed their way up front, armed with flash-ready iPhones. “O.K., do me first,” one instructed the other, as he leaned back against the bars, fingers raised high in the shape of a V. “Get two!” he ordered, before being edged out by a new tide of photo-seekers.
