Post-Crossroads Content, Check-Ins, And Surprises Continue During Dreamcatcher’s Break

K-Pop — Dreamcatcher Recall

K-Pop’s most well-known rock/pop group might be taking a rest, but the content doesn’t stop from them in early April 2021.

We’re in the midst of a much-needed and deserved rest for Dreamcatcher’s hard-working members, but as is custom when it comes to this group, there’s still no dearth of content when it comes to keeping them present in the minds of their fans. Some of that was certainly expected, given the group and company’s pattern of content releases, but this past week also had a couple of nice little surprises as well — all while Dreamcatcher continued to check in with fans over social media platforms. Let’s take a look at what happened!

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xgNQKTy9-AM[/embed][embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HJqlM7J7R-c[/embed]

As expected, we got a behind-the-scenes video for Crossroads, but what was a nice surprise was that it was divided into two parts, one for each night of the concert series, for a grand total of almost 30 more minutes of backstage footage.

In part 1, among other things, we got to see yet more birthday surprises for Handong (including roommate Gahyeon humorously noping out of getting Handong a house or a car as a gift), Dreamcatcher comparing themselves to Disney princesses in their elegant dresses for part of the Utopia stage, Siyeon still managing to be endearingly comedic even when dressed so nicely, and Handong sending a message back to her parents after her emotional reaction to their surprise birthday and support message during the concert. Part 2 gave us a look into those great sub-unit stages and the work that went into performing them, JiU ransacking the other members’ middle extensions to create the biggest lightstick ever, and the members clowning each other over their happy crying during both pre-recorded segments and after the concert, along with much more.

While as always we got a ton of fun/candid moments and a lot of insight into the work and time it takes to put something like Crossroads together, I think it’s worth dwelling on the parts where Dreamcatcher talks about (and kind of makes fun of themselves for) being emotional and crying. It’s important to note that while Dreamcatcher is being a bit funny by calling it a “dark chapter” and a bit of “embarrassing video”, it also feels very genuine.

Whether it came from Yoohyeon weeping as she read her thanks to the members or Siyeon and Gahyeon as they cried tears of thankful joy after the concert, it’s cathartic rather than sad — just an outpouring of feeling in the context of all the work and challenges overcome to make something happen. Cynics might tell you that we only see what the camera shows us in the K-Pop industry, but I would contend, aside from saying that what Dreamcatcher shows to us feels very much true to themselves, that no matter what happens when the cameras are rolling, it isn’t easy to be an idol in the K-Pop industry. It takes from all accounts years of work and success isn’t guaranteed — so for Dreamcatcher to be as successful as they are, given all they’ve been through, is significant. Still, even though many fans might see it as I do, it was nice to see Dreamcatcher making light of it a bit to reassure fans that nothing sad was behind all that emotion.

[embed]https://www.vlive.tv/post/1-22178873[/embed][embed]https://www.vlive.tv/post/1-22178873[/embed][embed]https://www.vlive.tv/post/1-22178873[/embed]

Aside from these videos, we got more vLive check-ins from some of Dreamcatcher during this past week. Gahyeon talked about she’s been at home resting up as the CEO let them know to take a full rest and how she’s been having fun playing mobile game Cookie Run Kingdom, JiU chatted about getting older and feeling that and fought through some odd lag with the vLive chat (even going so far as to lightly hit the phone — remind me never to make her mad), and Yoohyeon gave out some life advice, talked about the emotion of that letter-writing video, and showed off her dog Pie being cute as usual. Even though they don’t have to take the time to talk with fans during their break or post thing to platforms like Weverse, Dreamcatcher doing this anyway is nice of them. Personally, I’m glad they are enjoying their time off and taking the time to rest.

We also got the expected update to the Gaon charts for the month of March, which showed Dreamcatcher still in the top 5 with 126,614 sales. Taking this with the 91,000+ on Hanteo that Dreamcatcher racked up sales-wise, “Road to Utopia” continues to be Dreamcatcher’s most successful comeback yet. While we may see them drop from the top 5 on Gaon in the next month or so, the mere fact that they’ve been up here this long with one-fourth of the year over is impressive.

But this past week wasn’t without some surprises as well. The first was the long-awaited news that Dreamcatcher official Robes were going on sale for pre-order from April 8th — 15th, 2021. We’d first heard about robes way back in January, when the lightstick news also dropped, but delays in what likely was production had pushed back being able to order them to this past week. In a nice nod to 1st generation fanclub members, pre-ordering the robe would also carry a 10% discount and have another platform to order them on besides the official Dreamcatcher store. When pre-orders opened, there were a few bumps in the road with some technical issues with MelOn ticket, the chosen platform for 1st generation fanclub members to buy their robes, but these were quickly resolved, and combined with more robust infrastructure on the official store, most people who’ve wanted their robes to go with their lightsticks have swept one up. As of this writing, Dreamcatcher Robe (ver. 1) is still available on the official Dreamcatcher store, so if you’re interested, be sure to grab one before they’re all gone (note that signing up on the store with an account is required)!

Of course, if you’re not familiar with how the robes look after all this, you can always take a look back at 2017’s “Fly High” special stage on The Show. The logo is different but you get to take a look at them in action:

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFa4BN-n17Q[/embed]

There was a great deal of excitement from the members at being able to see InSomnia armed with both robes and lightsticks when live concerts become a thing once more, so it’ll certainly be quite the sight when that is able to happen again.

[embed]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9UxVkTfkVg[/embed]

The other surprise of the week was no less of a welcome one — the release of the official music video for Dreamcatcher’s recent title track for their latest Japanese release, “Eclipse”. After release on the 24th, it was assumed by fans that due to just how busy Dreamcatcher was that we were likely not to get an official video for the song. That we saw one this week was a nice bonus for fans who have been jamming out to Dreamcatcher’s first anime opening song performance. While this video wasn’t a traditional music video in the sense of having it be fully produced, it does the job pretty well for what they had. Scenes from the “King’s Raid” anime play out interspersed with footage from the behind-the-scenes footage for the jacket creation and recording of “Eclipse” from Dreamcatcher. After years of fanmade creations where different anime series were set to various Dreamcatcher songs in an attempt to show how well-suited their music was to the medium, having an official anime series music video was yet another milestone checked off on Dreamcatcher’s list of achievements. Along with Eclipse debuting at number 8 on the Oricon Weekly Anime Singles chart, Dreamcatcher continues to make modest gains in their secondary Japanese market.

Aside from all of that, here are some other miscellaneous bits of news from the past week (courtesy of contributing subscribers on Reddit’s /r/dreamcatcher):

• Yoohyeon and Siyeon will be participating in SBS’s “Song of Hope” campaign, last sung in 1999 in the way of a monetary crisis in Asia, now re-visited as a means to provide inspiration to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Dreamcatcher was interviewed by Brazilian event organizer Highway Star, who collaborated with them to organize their first South American concert tour. I highly recommend reading this (even if you have to do it with Google Translate or Papago) as it is insightful and interesting as far as questions go.
• “Odd Eye” surpassed 35 million views on YouTube, continuing its run as Dreamcatcher’s 2nd most-viewed music video (first still remains “BOCA” which appears to be maintaining its lead).

After Dreamcatcher finishes up with their break, I’m sure we’ll be seeing much more from the group, but until then, we obviously have no worries about any content coming our way. I’ll be back next week to cover what will no doubt be more news from the Dreamcatcher front!