Dreamcatcher Kicks Off 2022 World Tour With Energy And Love For Long-Missed Fans
K-Pop — Dreamcatcher Recall
K-Pop’s resident rock/pop girl group officially returned to the solo concert stage in Northeast USA armed with a larger discography and fanbase.
After three years, Dreamcatcher finally returned to the touring stage, and everyone involved, from the fans to the staff to no doubt Dreamcatcher themselves, couldn’t be happier to do so. The onset of the global pandemic, one that’s still ongoing today, took away from fans many things, but in the K-Pop sphere, tours to far-flung places to perform in front of fans and meet them were one of the most obvious. In Dreamcatcher’s case, this hit a bit harder, as they’ve been built as a touring group from the beginning, and while the last three years have seen them adapt through online concerts and fancalls, there’s no substitute for being in an offline setting with fans in front of you.
As such, Dreamcatcher was obviously quite happy and emotional to see fans again, and the feeling was mutual. With two shows kicking off the North American leg of their “Apocalypse: Save Us 2022 Dreamcatcher World Tour” in New York City, New York, and Reading, Pennsylvania, let’s take a look at some fun highlights of Dreamcatcher’s comeback to traveling tour shows.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uvb0qWTJPhA[/embed]
New York City’s Palladium Times Square theatre was Dreamcatcher’s first stop, and their tour kicked off with a heady sense of emotion and energy as the group came out to perform and dance to 2020’s “Can’t Get You Out Of My Mind”. An appropriate song to start things, as fans were not far from Dreamcatcher’s thoughts over the past three years, and vice versa. While the 2,200-person sold-out venue was quite the close-quarters audience, the setting created a sense of intimacy and coziness that Dreamcatcher had long missed, with Jiu, in particular, tearing up slightly at seeing international fans after so long of a layoff.
Over two and a half hours, the setlist for the tour, which fans had long speculated about and anticipated, was revealed. The songs in question, which are likely not to deviate too much throughout the tour, included the following:
- Intro: Save Us (Apocalypse: Save Us, 2022)
- Can’t Get You Out Of My Mind (Dystopia: Lose Myself, 2020)
- Black or White (Dystopia: The Tree of Language, 2020)
- Red Sun (Dystopia: The Tree of Language, 2020)
- BEcause (Summer Holiday, 2021)
- Always (Apocalypse: Save Us, 2022)
- Jazz Bar (Dystopia: The Tree of Language, 2020)
- Locked Inside a Door (Apocalypse: Save Us, 2022)
- Wake Up (Prequel, 2017)
- Tension (English ver.) (Dystopia: The Tree of Language, 2020)
- Break The Wall (Dystopia: Lose Myself, 2020)
- MAISON (Apocalypse: Save Us, 2022)
- Odd Eye (Dystopia: Road to Utopia, 2021)
- In The Frozen (Dystopia: The Tree of Language, 2020)
- Silent Night (Raid of Dream, 2019)
- Scream (Dystopia: The Tree of Language, 2020)
- Deja Vu (Raid of Dream, 2019)
- BOCA (Dystopia: Lose Myself, 2020)
- 4Memory (Dystopia: Road to Utopia, 2021)
- Together (Apocalypse: Save Us, 2022) (substituted by Mayday (Escape the ERA, 2018 in Reading, Pennsylvania)
- Starlight (Apocalypse: Save Us, 2022)
- New Days (Dystopia: Road to Utopia, 2021)
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIKQUxYJ6zg[/embed]
The result of this appears to be a setlist focused squarely on the later part of their discography that’s come out since their last tour, which is no surprise. Many of these songs have never been performed in front of a live audience, and certainly never for a live, international one, so it makes sense to highlight these. That’s not to say there weren’t hints of the earlier discography, as old favorites “Wake Up” and (in Pennsylvania) “Mayday” made appearances, but we’re likely to see mostly recent songs, with the interesting stat line being:
- Title tracks: 6
- B-sides/Non-title tracks: 16
- By year: 2017 (1), 2018 (0/1 in PA), 2019 (2), 2020 (9), 2021 (4), 2022 (6/5 in PA)
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9r2L9lh9QA[/embed][embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-MFSv4BsVlE[/embed]
But there will likely be some variance in the speaking segments of the concert, as fans found out during the two shows in New York City and Reading. The solo song medley, highlighting each member’s solo song from their latest “Apocalypse: Save Us” album, provided plenty of opportunity for each member to show off their singing and dancing skill, but also to include other members in their presentation, with both cities having different takes. For example, during SuA’s “No Dot” segment, in New York it was Yoohyeon showcasing how she’s practiced hard to duplicate the hip movement from the chorus that SuA came up with, while in Reading, it was Dami and Siyeon that proved that any member of Dreamcatcher is capable of conveying the mood of the song. It’ll be interesting to see these segments evolve and change throughout the tour, and we’ll no doubt see some memorable moments from these moving forward. Adding to that will be the fact that it appears each stop will have different styling and unique outfits, as New York City and Reading had different fashion on display.
[embed]https://youtube.com/shorts/Q7RDQepuHuI?feature=share[/embed]
As if that wasn’t enough, New York City’s fans got to experience something new as well — Dreamcatcher turning into temporary phone thieves and grabbing a few from the audience to take footage of themselves and each other. This was great not just to see some fun unfiltered footage of the members but just for the interaction factor. I doubt the fans who had their phones picked up by Dreamcatcher will forget any time soon that they got to see first-hand how well-practiced the members are at self-cameras and concert shots. We didn’t really see this in Reading, likely due to safety reasons and the distance from the front row, but it’s nice to see this is in the toolbelt of Dreamcatcher’s efforts to interact with and create cool moments with fans if desired.
Continuing in the memories vein, Dreamcatcher made a few with a small number of lucky fans as they kicked off one of three fansign opportunities, starting with New York City. Fifty winning fans who were chosen at random from those purchasing copies of Apocalypse: Save Us normal version from the MyMusicTaste event page will get to meet the group in New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles, and New York Cty’s seemed to go off without a hitch. There’s a great thread made by Reddit user DrLejos on the /r/dreamcatcher subreddit of their fansign experience and it’s a great read on how personal the experience was for them and how they felt, which really is the intent. If you were one of the lucky fans reading this for Chicago and Los Angeles, be sure to review the event page and the tips from someone who’s attended before, and hopefully you’ll have a great experience as well.
[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CowRTDlxbWg[/embed]
Finally, on the home front, even though Dreamcatcher is away and on tour, the content drip continues, with a new Naver post of high-quality behind-the-scenes photos of “MAISON” promotions, and the next solo special clip to be released, this time of Siyeon’s “Entrancing”. Even though “MAISON” promotions and the unique styling from each solo song are a bit in the rear view mirror, all this media reminds me that those promotions have been the best for Dreamcatcher yet, and that’s not just because of the two music show wins the group was finally able to notch. The presence of solo songs, the start of a new storytelling trilogy, an album which highlights their evolution of artists, and more — all of these combined to create a really great start to 2022 for Dreamcatcher, and being on tour this summer will obviously add to that.
Dreamcatcher’s World Tour has just gotten started, and we’ll have three more shows, including the one I’m attending personally, coming up this week. Be on the lookout for a full dedicated summary of my own return to watching Dreamcatcher live since 2019, and for their performance, next week. Until then, let’s keep on supporting Dreamcatcher during their first tour back!
