“The Tonight Show” Hosts First BTS “IONIQ” Comeback Stage And It’s Not What Fans Were Expecting

BTS has seven new members.

BTS had a collaboration with Hyundai in 2020 to help promote the Hyundai IONIQ, an electric vehicle line-up brand that focuses on both the economy and a sustainable lifestyle.

In order to promote the new line of vehicles, BTS released the song “IONIQ” in partnership with Hyundai.

| Hyundai/Hyundai.com

Although the song was a commercial, it actually was still very personal to the BTS members, with each of them focusing on their own individual experiences and conveying them in the song.

And the song was pretty popular, with famous dancer Aiki creating the TikTok dance challenge.

@aiki_kr

제가 현대자동차와 콜라보로 만든 안무를 BTS도 함께 해주었어요!🕶🖤 dc by me.#hyundai #bts

♬ I’m On It (Remix) – Hyundai x BTS

Aiki doing the “IONIQ” challenge | @aiki_kr/TikTok 

Which the BTS members also recorded themselves doing.

@hyundai_worldwide

#광고 Join our #Move4Gen1 challenge now! #BTS #CarbonNeutrality #Hyundai #ExpectingGen1

♬ I’m On It (Remix) – Hyundai x BTS

BTS doing the “IONIQ” challenge | @hyundai_worldwide/TikTok 

But Aiki and BTS weren’t the only ones to dance to this upbeat song. In 2021, Hyundai arranged for another promotional video in which BTS met robots from Boston Dynamics.

Boston Dynamics is an American engineering company that has gone viral in mainstream media for its impressive dancing robots.

BTS meeting Spot the robot from Boston Dynamics | HyundaiWoldwide/YouTube 

These robots almost look like they’re created with CGI as they are programmed to dance to popular songs. And BTS watched them excitedly, laughing at all the different moves the robots could pull off.

Including V having a pushup battle with one.

| HyundaiWoldwide/YouTube 

And a robot mirroring J-Hope‘s impressive dance moves.

| HyundaiWoldwide/YouTube 

And in the video that Hyundai released, the robots also put on a specially choreographed dance to BTS’s “IONIQ.”

| HyundaiWoldwide/YouTube 

The members were definitely impressed, and the dance is even more impressive when you consider how long it takes the engineers and programmers to be able to not only come up with the choreography but to program the robots to execute the moves with such synchronicity.

| HyundaiWoldwide/YouTube 

And although the video was released in June of 2021…

The Boston Dynamics robots just made their comeback stage performance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon.

Although the robots were missing a lot of their members, as they had initially performed the choreography for BTS with seven members to match BTS’s, the three robots that performed still showed off their unique moves and synchronicity.

The robots dancing to “IONIQ” | The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon/YouTube 

And, of course, BTS fans were not only surprised by the unexpected performance but took the opportunity to make lots of jokes.

| The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon/YouTube 

Like how the robot version of the performance isn’t what they meant when they wanted a stage.

And many made mentions of how this meant that “IONIQ” had a comeback stage before the fan-favorite “Louder Than Bombs.”

But ultimately, fans were impressed with the performance. And mentioned how the song, with its meaningful lyrics and all, doesn’t even seem like a commercial.

You can watch the full clip from the show here.

As well as the first version of the performance here.

BTS