Physical Address
304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124
V Goes Cowboy in Texas: Beyoncé Nods, Barbecue Runs and BTS at the Sun Bowl
After BTS' May 2–3 Sun Bowl shows, V surfaced on Instagram trying on a cowboy hat, sharing stadium golf‑cart clips and a BBQ meal captioned 'Mucho picante.' The gestures — a wink to Beyoncé's country moment and simple fan fodder — softened the megashow while the ARIRANG tour presses on.
There was a moment this week where Kim Tae‑hyung — V of BTS — felt exactly like someone riffing on a pop-star costume fantasy. On May 5, a day or two after BTS finished two shows in El Paso, he posted a mirror selfie to his Instagram Story, testing a cowboy hat as if trying on a new role. It was an oddly effortless bit of theater: the hat tilted low, a half‑smile, a camera tilted just enough to catch the brim. The soundtrack in his Story nodded to Beyoncé’s recent country turn, quoting the lyric about Texas and cards.
This ain’t Texas, ain’t no hold ’em/ So lay your cards down, down, down, down.
That small, image‑first moment is the sort of thing fans will run with. V followed with a carousel on his main feed: a short clip of him tooling a golf cart around the stadium with RM, j‑hope, Jin, Jimin, Jung Kook and SUGA in tow; shots from a late‑night restaurant run where he dug into onion rings, mac and cheese and coleslaw. The caption was a single, casual line in Spanish — Mucho picante — which felt like both a joke about food and a wink to the whole Texas mood.
Context matters. BTS played two back‑to‑back nights at the Sun Bowl on May 2 and 3, stops on their global trek behind ARIRANG. The tour launched in April in South Korea, moved through Tokyo, hit Tampa for the group’s first U.S. dates, and then landed in El Paso. From here they’re bound for Mexico City for three shows, and the run stretches into 2027 with a March closer in the Philippines.
Live, the Sun Bowl reaction to those small offstage scenes was obvious: fans cheered for the band’s casual, lived‑in moments as much as for the big theatrical numbers. There’s a difference between seeing a polished set and watching your favorite artist try on a hat and laugh about barbecue. Those images humanize the whole spectacle — they become fodder for fan edits, theory threads, and a thousand late‑night tweets.
It also opens a small cultural conversation. Beyoncé’s recent country pivot — the so‑called ‘Cowboy Carter’ moments — has had everyone rethinking country touches in mainstream pop. V’s cowboy hat snapshot felt less like a costume and more like a seasonal reference, a lighthearted borrow that fans immediately framed as part of a larger pop lexicon. Is it homage? A playful cultural exchange? Fans will decide, quickly.
Onstage, BTS didn’t need the imagery to land. Their set still leans on choreography and the sonic peaks of ARIRANG, but these offstage snippets give the arc some color. The golf cart video, the shared plates, the hat in the mirror — they stitch the megashow back to everyday gestures. That’s part of why people follow artists online as much as in arenas: for the feeling that you caught a private laugh after a stadium’s worth of noise.
For fans in El Paso, and anyone watching the band’s feed, the takeaway was simple and fun: V was in the mood for a Texas joke, a new hat, and very spicy sides. The tour moves on; the images stay. Expect more small moments to punctuate the big production as BTS heads south to Mexico City and beyond.
