Words: Lucy Browne Photos: SM Entertainment

The sun is beginning to set over Wembley and crowds of young fans are excitedly rushing toward the OVO Arena. Anticipation is building for NCT DREAM’s first-ever London show. This K-pop super group is the third subunit of Korean boyband NCT, consisting of MARK, RENJUN, JENO, HAECHAN, JAEMIN, CHENLE and JISUNG.

The group’s nearly 3-hour-long live show The Dream Show 2: In A Dream stays true to its name from the get-go, kicking off with an introduction video showing each of the members gradually waking up from a dream, a theme that is revisited several times throughout. Whether you’ve experienced a K-pop concert before or not, nothing can prepare you for the sheer volume of NCTzen’s (the name of the NCT DREAM fanbase) screams as the seven members take to the stage!

The group very confidently makes their way to the front of the stage to kick off the show with their song ‘Glitch Mode’, an energetic, choreography-heavy number that the crowd goes crazy for. In true K-Pop fashion, this vibrant concert consisted of various outfit changes, going from colourful to casual right through to a monochrome all-white moment, but most notable was when the group burst onto the stage alongside an explosion of confetti to perform their song ‘Saturday Drip’. It might not have been a Saturday, but they certainly had drip, sporting slightly edgier looks than before with leader Mark Lee in a sleeveless, studded leather jacket, and maknae (literally translating to the youngest member) Jisung Park wearing a striking black skeleton jacket.

As the explosive show came to a close the band received an outpour of love from their fans, who were captured on the big screen holding up an array of homemade signs expressing their love and gratitude – a moving sentiment that really captured the strong relationships between the idols and their fan bases. In the moments before the inevitable encore, fans created an ocean of fluorescent green by practicing a crowd wave using their light sticks ready for when the boys re-entered.

Whilst one encore is to be expected, fans were left divided in opinion, unsure whether the show had officially finished, with groups of people flooding out of the arena and others sticking around in anticipation. Luckily these eager fans were not left disappointed as the group ran onto the stage one last time to sing ‘Candy’, their popular remake of H.O.T’s 1996 hit of the same name.

NCT DREAM certainly closed the show with a bang, providing one last memory for their fans who had been waiting so long to see them.