★★★★
Review: Dream Reborn World Tour 2024. Tour consists of 37 dates, across North and South America, the Asia Pacific region and Europe and the UK. Find details here.
The European leg of DRP Ian’s Dream Reborn World Tour 2024 kicked off at the OVO Wembley Arena on Sunday night. I have been a fan of DPR Ian since his debut album in 2021. Starting out as a K-pop trainee in 2012, DPR Ian struggled against the strictures of the K-pop trainee system. After his boy band C-Clown disbanded, DPR Ian and three friends, set up their own entertainment company, Dream Perfect Regime, or DPR for short.
It was under his own label, with complete artistic freedom, that he released his debut album – to widespread critical and fan acclaim. DPR Ian’s music is heavily influenced by R&B, hip hop, American indie and emo bands – and this musical influence, mixed with the iron discipline that he learned as a K-pop trainee, has created a unique sound, and experience.
While DPR Ian is not traditionally K-pop – as he is Korean Australian and because of his background in the K-pop industry, he has been embraced by K-pop fans as one of their own.
K-pop fans are notoriously active – both politically and in interacting with their idols – so any K-pop concert is a special experience – partly due to the dedication of the fans. And this was certainly the case with the Dream Reborn World Tour 2024 – with friendly fans coming from all over the UK and Europe – and dressing up in DPR Ian’s moody and dark aesthetic.
In this tour, DPR Ian was supported by DJ DPR Arctic and DPR Cream. Artic played an extraordinary 20 minute set of infectious rave music. We were in the standing section close to the front of the stage, and the atmosphere was of an incredible, intimate underground rave. I’m not quite sure whether that excitement would have translated to the seats further away. After the DJ set, DPR Cream performed for around half an hour.
Cream’s performance is the reason I have taken off one star. While he looks the part and the studio recordings of his songs are great – his live singing (even with autotune) is so out of tune it is unacceptable. It was only toward the end of his set that the sound engineers were able to use auto-tune to compensate for what was essentially a tone deaf performance. I’ve checked some of his other performances on this tour (on YouTube) and I can hear that autotune is turned up to the max on all his performances.
DPR Ian performed the final set, which lasted around one hour and thirty minutes. This was an absolute audio and visual feast. The staging was fabulous with giant screens showing DPR Ian’s cinematic vision for each song - creating an immersive experience that blurred the line between a live concert and a visual art installation. DPR Ian played all of his most popular hits, including Don’t Go Insane, Miss Understood, Merry Go, and Scaredy Cat. The live versions of these songs were fantastic and DPR Ian’s voice was smooth and rich.
DPR Ian knows how to create an atmosphere – and his performance enthralled the audience. There were some aspects of the concert that I thought were unnecessary – like the dancers, who I found a bit wacky – but nothing detracted from the power of DPR’s performance. It’s worth mentioning that K-pop fans are generally polite and civilised – so I felt quite confident to buy tickets in the standing section right in front of the stage. I do think that those standing in front of the stage probably got a better experience of the concert than those that bought seated tickets. This was one of the best fun concerts I’ve been to – so if you get a chance to go – jump at it!
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