After their successful opening act for the Jonas Brothers’ tour last summer, the South Korean pop group Wonder Girls have gained great popularity and were even endorsed by Perez Hilton. Unfortunately, with the upset of Mimi (Sunmi) quitting the group for academic pursuits and Hae Lim joining as a new member, the girls have somewhat disappeared from the American music scene.
However, news of a comeback has surfaced! The Wonder Girls’ official website recently released tour dates (see below for details) of their upcoming “Wonder World Tour,” which will take place this June in at least nine major cities. They will be performing old hits and their upcoming new single, to be released May 15. As a huge plus to K-pop fans, the popular boy band 2PM will be the opening act for the tour.
The only thing that concerns me is why JYPE (the Wonder Girls’ managing company) decided to feature a Korean boy band as the opener, when they don’t have any English songs or any presence in the American music industry. Of course there’s the fact that 2PM is their labelmate (also under JYPE), and perhaps they have plans for 2PM to break into the American market as well. However, it just seems like an odd marketing tactic since it’ll alienate most of the American teen audience, instead of branching out to a larger demographic in the States—which we thought was their original point of coming to the U.S.
One thing for sure: I’m looking forward to hearing the new song from the Wonder Girls for this tour. Because they seriously need to move on from performing their single “Nobody,” which originally came out in Sept. 2008—it’s beyond old.
Here’s more info about the “Wonder World Tour” from their official website:
“Wonder Girls World Tour 2010” – 9 confirmed cities
Fri, 04-June-2010: Washington DC / Warner Theater
Sat,05-June-2010: Atlanta / Tabernacle
Sun,06-June-2010: New York / Hammerstein
Tue, 08-June-2010: Chicago / House of Blues
Wed, 09-June-2010: Houston / House of Blues
Thr, 10-June-2010: Dallas / House of Blues
Fri, 11-June-2010: Los Angeles / Palladium
Sat, 12-June-2010: Anaheim, CA / House of Blues
Sun, 13-June-2010: San Francisco / The Fillmore
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Hi. Firstly, this June tour is the mini-tour first mentioned in Billboard’s WG article last November. Initially slated for January, it was pushed to February in sync with the original US album release date, then postponed to April after Sunmi’s exit (& Lim re-recording the vocals in March), then canceled outright to give the new lineup more time to gel as performers.LiveNation’s collaboration not only revives the tour, but also allow it to expand from 6 gigs to 20. Regardless, this remains a WG-headlining tour &, of course, they can only do it as a K-pop act for now (& as intended in Jan/Feb). Hence keeping the support acts within the JYP family & booking relatively-small US venues (1K to 3K capacity).
But WG has now timed its Korean comeback in May & together with their likely headlining status for the Korean Music Festival (20,000) & the Dream Concert (40,000), the buzz that is going to carry over to America for their modest US restart is a positive one. If the new single is an international hit, the buzz is going to be propulsive too (especially helpful if WG follows up by opening for somebody & targeting the Jobros crowd again later in the summer).
It’s true that the delays have killed any US momentum gained from last summer. But the peak touring period is precisely during this June-to-August period anyway, so it’s unlikely WG could’ve snagged the teen demographic during the off-peak months (when the kids are not on vacation).
[…] Five-member girl group Wonder Girls, and singers of song “Nobody,” however, did have Toronto on their 2012 world tour, but only American venues on their 2010 world tour. […]