Endings And Beginnings Kick Off Summer For K-Pop’s Dreamcatcher In 2022

K-Pop — Dreamcatcher Recall

Dreamcatcher wraps up previous activities in more ways than one as they look towards future upcoming tour and performance dates.

The advent of the summer season brings with it a transition to a new phase of the year, and for Dreamcatcher, as it is with many K-Pop groups, things are no different. With many groups returning to the touring road in 2022, it was only inevitable that we would see Dreamcatcher, a group that has been doing just that since its debut, do so as well. But before hitting the road for Spain and then North America, Dreamcatcher wrapped up a few things, reflected on recent events, and moved to prepare for their next, no-doubt amazing stage. Here’s what we learned and saw last week from the group!

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SuA dropped in for her usual appearance on SBS Wendy’s Young Street this week, where her, Wendy, and Taehyun discussed some of the reasons to dislike summer the most, with sweating, mosquito’s and the rainy season being among the choices. Funny stories were exchanged about sweat-related performance occurrences as well as some of the worst things about mosquito bites. As always, a good time was had by all — but in a sudden announcement, it was stated that this “corner” of Young Street would be ending after the week of the 29th, apparently meaning that SuA’s guest gig may be coming to an end after more than a year of work. Fans expressed disappointment and dismay over the breakup of the trio, dubbed the “Tension” trio for their high energy and loud, humorous moments, but looked forward to the last episode with the three with anticipation.

With SuA heading out on tour for at least a month and idol radio gigs sometimes not lasting forever, it seems sensible that this is a time and a place to wrap up what I think has been great for SuA, as she was able to put herself out there, show people her boundless energy and bright personality, and by extension be able to signal boost Dreamcatcher through SBS radio’s frequent airplay of their discography. There’s a chance a “second season” of appearances by SuA might happen in the future, and the door was certainly left open for that, but for now, it’s good to take heart that this was a valuable set of work for Dreamcatcher’s main dancer, and that we’re likely not to hear the last of her on the radio in South Korea.

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Speaking of SuA, she dropped in pretty briefly to vLive this week to talk a bit about the group’s recent trip to Germany for KPOP.Flex, a couple of funny stories from her roommate experience with Handong, including being afraid of Handong’s talking in her sleep, and how she felt seeing the vast sea of fans, robes, and lightsticks in the Frankfurt stadium crowd. It was certainly a sneak preview of what Dreamcatcher might get to experience traveling this summer, and one that SuA won’t soon forget.

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And speaking of that experience, SBS was able to broadcast a highlights performance of both days of KPOP.Flex content including Dreamcatcher’s performance of “MAISON” and their special stage cover of Blackpink’s “Kill This Love”. A global stream is set to follow today with paid tickets per a collaboration with SBS, KPOP.Flex, and Doors, allowing fans to see a high-quality, professional feed of Dreamcatcher’s stages during the weekend. The concert experience, I’m sure, is one the group and its fans won’t soon forget.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHBrdKdM734[/embed][embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vt26_2cZgSA[/embed]

Continuing in the vein of past/current activities, the official Dreamcatcher channel uploaded two more Dreamcatcher’s Notes about MAISON promotions, covering Show! Music Core, and Inkigayo (the latter with a new appearance of Dreamcatcher in suits, always fun to see) as well as their 2nd ever music show win on SBS MTV’s The Show, conquering a long-sought after hurdle in the group’s five-year career. Though they always exude bright, happy energy, these Notes, in particular, seemed to accentuate that, whether that is in anticipation of delicious food, clowning around with Love Shake, and of course, preparing some fun activities for their encore stage in advance of potentially winning. In addition to these, a new Naver Post from the official Dreamcatcher account, revealed a bunch of new high-quality pictures from behind-the-scenes at their Apocalypse: Save Us mini-concert over a month ago.

Promotions for music shows seemed to go by quickly in this era, but it’s pretty clear that they’ll always be memorable not just for the wins but also due to everything they’ve achieved during this most recent comeback (including recently hitting 1.5 million subscribers on YouTube).

[embed]https://twitter.com/RollingStoneIN/status/1528732375072796672[/embed][embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnLys-M_lKM[/embed]

Those achievements and more were recognized by two highly-visible brand names over the past week as well. Both Rolling Stone in India and iHeartRadio in America released interviews with the group, talking about not only their recent comeback with “MAISON” but also quite a deep dive on them as artists and how they feel they’ve evolved in five years, both as Dreamcatcher members and personally. Both of these interviews were extremely insightful and I was pleased by the research and homework done on the group beforehand (including a nice little note that Divyansha Dongre, author of the Rolling Stone India article, came across my work in this space when doing research — much appreciated!). Oftentimes, while interviews with K-Pop artists are fun to watch and read about, we get very few detailed questions, and there were plenty of those in both bits of content (and in the case of iHeartRadio, only part one of it). It’s really cool to see more brands recognize and work with the group.

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As always, though, the group looks to the future along with a summer of new performances and achievements. The aforementioned folks at iHeartRadio had Dreamcatcher pick some tracks to celebrate Asian-American and Pacific Islander month through a customized playlist, while their cover-image appearance on Spotify EQUAL Korea’s playlist celebrating woman artists is in rotation in New York on one of the digital screens. While small things, they continue to highlight Dreamcatcher ever-so-slightly expanding their brand awareness and reputation through work with recognized outlets.

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Summer 2022 for Dreamcatcher, however, is going to be all about the performances and reconnecting with their fans offline after two years of online-only gigs due to the pandemic. In South Korea, they’ll be making their return to the annual Dream Concert, where they’ll be among a plethora of artists performing their best tracks. Last year’s Dream Concert was moved to online-only, so this year, hopefully, will be the “for reals” return to audiences that Dreamcatcher and all the other artists no doubt are looking forward to.

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Aside from that, the US leg of the Apocalypse: Save Us World Tour is now a North American leg, with Mexico City in Mexico being added as a date for late July. There’s a package of benefits for those willing to plunk down more cash, similar to the hi-wave package that MyMusicTaste is offering to other stops on the tour, though more tied to the venue itself. The fact that we have an addition after the initial announcement has given hope to some other fans that other stops might be added, and while that remains to be seen, just the fact that Dreamcatcher is known enough globally to do things like sell out the 3,200+ Mexico City venue so fast a new section has to be added are nice to see. For a group that started out touring and performing for a couple hundred to performing for a few thousand (still not massive but definitely respectable), that has to be a good boost for the group as well as a sign of their sustained popularity internationally, especially as we’ll get to see how popular when they perform in Barccelona at Primavera Sound next weekend.

Dreamcatcher is in for an exciting summer, starting off with a trip to Barcelona before gearing up to be on the road for late June and into July. As always you can count on me to recap everything that happens for this summer and beyond for Dreamcatcher, so feel free to clap, subscribe, and signal boost if you like what you’re reading. I’ll see you all here again next week!