The house went dark 47 minutes behind schedule, and 30,000 people went quiet. Céline Dion walked out in a black gown, crossed her hands over her face like a prayer, and began to sing the opening notes of “On Ne Change Pas,” accompanied only by pianist Scott Price and four violinists. She had been gone six years.

Saturday night (Sept. 12) was the first of Dion’s 26 Paris nights, a residency that runs into May 2027 at the Plenitude Arena in Nanterre, the largest indoor arena in Europe. More than nine million people had entered the lottery for a shot at purchasing a ticket to see her perform.

Within a few minutes of walking on the stage in Paris, Dion, who hadn’t put on a headlining concert since sharing her stiff-person syndrome diagnosis with the public, broke a promise she’d made to herself: She cried. Moved by the emotion of the moment, she asked the audience if they could hear her heart beating. Among the tens of thousands in attendance were famous guests including Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Aya Nakamura and Thomas Pesquet.

During the concert, Dion revealed how she’s feeling and delivered ballads, blockbusters, and even a dancefloor section in her set. She also performed her 2026 single, the French-language song “Dansons,” live on stage for the very first time.

Below are the nine best moments from the opening night of Dion’s concert residency in Paris. (Plus, see the full 29-song, two-and-a-half hour setlist from the Sept. 12 show here.)

BIGBANG brought its 20th anniversary run, the BIGBANG 2026-2027 World Tour ‘XX : COSMOS,’ to MetLife Stadium for the only East Coast date on the entire trek — and for the trio’s first show in the tri-state area since two nights at Newark’s Prudential Center in October 2015. G-Dragon, Taeyang and Daesung are touring the world together for the first time since 2017, and for the first time as a three-piece, a fact the night never sidestepped but instead absorbed into the celebration.

The set ran through 30 songs across roughly three hours with era-defining K-pop hits (“Fantastic Baby,” “Loser,” “Bang Bang Bang,” “Haru Haru,” “Lies”), solo showcases for each member (who shared their personal affinities for hip-hop, R&B, ballads and even Korea’s traditional trot music), and the live rollout of BIGBANG’s first new single in four years, “BiiiG,” after its official release on Aug. 19 to mark 20 years to the day since the group’s debut.

Behind all of it, YG Entertainment shared that the show came to life via a 23-ton mobile LED structure, a stage by Tony and Olivier Award–winning designer Es Devlin, direction from 2025 Super Bowl Halftime Show creative director Mike Carson, plus a live band led by Wow Jones, whose work spans Usher, Rihanna, Janelle Monáe and Sabrina Carpenter.

From MetLife, ‘XX : COSMOS’ heads across the Atlantic to Paris’ Stade de France and London’s Tottenham Hotspur Stadium for shows on Sept. 19 and 26, respectively, before swinging through Asia and Oceania on the world tour’s 36-show, 19-city run that stretches into February 2027.

From an unhinged “SOBER” performance to the promise to keep going “on and on,” the K-pop legends made their MetLife debut count. Read on for Billboard‘s best moments.

Céline Dion returned to the stage on Saturday night (Sept. 12) after six years away, opening her 26-date Paris residency at the Plenitude Arena in Nanterre. The crowd of 30,000 was the first of more than 480,000 total across Dion’s first 16 dates staged this autumn, with every ticket bought within hours of the sale. The access lottery drew more than nine million people.

Dion hadn’t headlined a concert since publicly sharing her diagnosis of stiff-person syndrome. On Saturday she leaned on the songs that made her a phenomenon in France, a good number of them pulled from D’eux, the Jean-Jacques Goldman-written album that remains the best-selling French-language record ever made. The English blockbusters were there, too. The staging stayed spare on purpose: a large set, no pyrotechnics, everything built to keep the focus on her voice.

The show started 47 minutes late and ran to 11:14 p.m. local time, close to two and a half hours. She opened in tears on “On Ne Change Pas,” dropped into a mirror-ball disco stretch partway through, sang the opera aria “La Wally” under falling snow, and pulled a gospel choir around her before the “Pour Que Tu M’aimes Encore” sing-along everyone was waiting for. She debuted “Dansons,” her 2026 Goldman-written comeback single, and took “All by Myself” a cappella.

Michelle Obama, Oprah Winfrey, Aya Nakamura and Thomas Pesquet were among the guests in the room.

The night’s biggest gamble was the turn onto the dance floor. “I Feel Love,” “Sweet Dreams” and a reworked “I’m Alive” showed a looser, more playful Dion than the balladeer many had come expecting.

Thinking about catching the Paris residency? Here’s Dion’s full setlist from opening night.