The worldwide phenomenon that is the K-pop boy band BTS took over the Rose Bowl on Saturday to kick off its 2019 stadium tour, and if there were any doubts that the group was up for the biggest stages in the world, well, you’ve not been paying attention, have you?

BTS might seem like an overnight sensation if you only noticed them over the last year or two as they started popping up on awards shows, such as the Billboard Music Awards last week – winning for top group and best social media artist – or “Saturday Night Live” a month before that.

But they’ve been working hard and dreaming bigger for years, as RM, the de facto leader of the group told the sold-out crowd near the end of the two-and-a-half-hour spectacle at the Pasadena stadium where they’ll return for a second show on Sunday.

“This is the most important night in my life,” RM said, noting that when the band played the KCON festival at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 2014, part of a group show of mostly unknown K-pop bands at the time, his biggest dream was to headline Staples Center, which BTS accomplished four times in September.

“As time passes, many years and many moments later, I’ll definitely think of this moment,” he said.

It’s not necessary to say that the fans who packed the Rose Bowl had a good time over the course of the 24 songs BTS performed on Saturday: The almost non-stop explosions of fireworks, flames and confetti throughout the night made for an apt visualization of minds being blown.

To help make sense of the show let’s break it all down starting with …

The spectacle of it all: It wasn’t dark yet when stagehands pulled sheets off giant Roman pedestals and triggered the inflation of giant metallic-silver jaguars for a set that would have made Kanye’s ego envious.

The seven BTS’ers – RM, Jin, Suga, J-Hope, Jimin, V, and Jungkook – opened the night with “Dionysus,” one of four tracks off the April release “Map of the Soul: Persona,” all dressed in white and backed by a troupe of 30 or more male dancers.

So yeah, they had the stadium scale down pat, and throughout the night demonstrated it again and again.

For his solo performance on “Euphoria” – each performer got a spotlight performance alone in the show – Jungkook hooked onto a cable that “flew” him like a crooning angel dressed head-to-toe in pink over the field and fans below. For his solo on “Trivia: Love,” RM created visuals out of thin air and special effects created a la Marvel’s Doctor Strange, whom he later referenced.

The personal touches: We’ve not mentioned the obvious yet – each member of BTS is physically beautiful in his own way, and for a crowd that was majority female and young, that resulted in a whole lotta screaming. But the guys aren’t cookie-cutter cute, either, and especially on the upbeat songs where they get to dance and rap and jump and goof around, their individual sides shined through.

“Boy With Luv,” the recent single that broke the internet – with 74 million views of the video in the first 24 hours after its April 12 release, it set a record for an opening day – they individually engaged the fans while moving from the main stage to the huge center platform and along the ramp that connected the two.

And when each singer or rapper got his solo performance, each showed a bit of what makes him special: Jimin’s lovely dancing on “Serendipity,” and later, more evocative dancing from V, who arrived appeared on stage on a bed, rising to perform “Singularity.”

A big finale: The K-pop recipe used by BTS blends together R&B, hip-hop and a dash of electronic dance music, which translates into a nice variety of styles.

On the moodier love songs, imagine there are seven princes dressed in luxurious jewel-toned silks and velvet, living together in a castle but too heartbroken and sad to go out to the party. That’s the vibe of “Fake Love,” the 2018 single that became BTS’s first Top 10 hit in the United States, and a highlight of the set on Saturday.

It was performed in the faster remix version, and that’s probably best for a big outdoor show, which scheduled its biggest bangers for the key points in the set. “Mic Drop,” a single that BTS collaborated on with EDM star Steve Aoki, closed out the main set in a rush of energy.

And “Anpanman” opened the encore in similar fashion, the uptempo number performed on the center stage, now filled with bounce house-style inflatables, including a giant slide to the top of which various guys would climb and leap off, singing all the while.

After “So What” and “Make It Right,” each guy took a turn thanking the audience, some in English, some in Korean through a translator, a sweet bond-building moment with the BTS Army, as their fans are called.

And then, as a giant crystal moon floated along cables over the field, sending off sparkles like an interplanetary disco ball, the guys sang “Mikrokosmos,” another of the new record’s tracks, and with another endless round waving to and from the audience, fireworks lighting up the night over the Rose Bowl yet again, they were gone.

BTS

When: Saturday, May 4. Also Sunday, May 5

Where: Rose Bowl, Pasadena