SuperM, new K-Pop super-group, announces 'We Are the Future' debut recording and tour; here are all the dates

The 10-city tour, which will follow Friday’s release of SuperM’s debut ‘mini-album,’ will stop in San Diego, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Atlanta and Vancouver

San Diego Union-Tribune

Oct. 2, 2019 10:57 AM PT

SuperM, the new “super-group” that teams members of such top K-Pop acts as SHINee, EXO and NCT 127, has announced its debut tour and first “mini-album.”

The 10-city North American “We Are the Future” tour will open Nov. 11 in Texas at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth and conclude in Canada on Feb. 6 at Vancouver’s Pepsi Live at Rogers Arena. It includes three California concerts: Jan. 30 at San Diego’s Viejas Arena, Feb. 1 in Los Angeles at The Forum and Feb. 2 at San Jose’s SAP Center.

All 10 tour dates appear below, along with ticket information. To preview the tour, the group will do a free show Saturday in front of the iconic Capitol Records Tower in Hollywood.

Five of SuperM’s seven members are veterans of established K-Pop groups from South Korea: SHINee’s Taeminl; EXO’s Baekhyun and Kai; and NCT 127’s Taeyong and Mark. SuperM’s lineup is completed by Ten and Lucas, who are both members of the Chinese-based group WayV.

Between them with their own groups, the seven members of SuperM have sold more than 14 million “adjusted albums” — a tally that combines streaming and song downloads with traditional physical album sales — and have a combined total of nearly 4 billion online video views worldwide.

Their concerts with their respective groups have drawn an estimated 7 million people around the world. Those numbers underscore the appeal of K-Pop, short for Korean pop, a wholesome blend of Western dance-pop, electronica, hip-hop and R&B with such Korean pop music styles as trot.

The “We Are The Future” tour is designed to position SuperM as rivals to the K-Pop throne currently shared by Blackpink and BTS. Whether it succeeds in that quest or not, SuperM’s upcoming debut tour is unusual in a number of ways.

The tour’s announcement precedes Friday’s release of SuperM’s first recording, a five-song EP titled “The 1st Mini Album ‘SuperM’.” It is rare for any act in any pop genre to announce a debut tour, let alone in large arenas, before having released any recordings.

This suggests that SuperM — or, more specifically, its managers, agents, record companies and concert promoters — are banking on ticket sales being driven by the past achievements of SuperM’s members in the groups with which they rose to fame.

Also unusual is the fact that SuperM’s first tour will be in North America, a move predicated on expanding the audience for K-Pop here. Not coincidentally, SuperM was put together by Los Angeles-based Capitol Records — the home of Katy Perry — and Seoul-based powerhouse SM Entertainment, which is billing the group as “The Avengers of K-Pop.”

“This is a total new formation of a group and artist, and also a totally new form for the business. We’re maintaining their (previous) groups, their solo careers, and on top of this we have this ‘Avengers’ group to pull them together,” Chris Lee of SM Entertainment told Forbes magazine in August.

“We want to create a synergy between their groups, them as solo acts, and the SuperM group to create a big wave in this K-Pop industry.”

Tickets for Super M’s “We Are the Future” tour, which is being produced by Live Nation, go on sale Saturday at 10 a.m. local time. Ticket prices for the San Diego concert at Viejas Arena range from $50 to $175, plus service charges, with VIP packages priced at $225, plus service fees, and will be available at ticketmaster.com.