(L-R) Soobin, Huening Kai, Beomgyu, Yeonjun and Taehyun of TOMORROW X TOGETHER aka TXT attend the ... [+]
Tomorrow X Together made music history in 2023 by becoming the first k-pop group to headline Lollapalooza at Grant Park, but the festival isn’t their first time on that stage. The band first performed at the festival during their 2022 Act: Lovesick tour and it was a performance that prompted some anxiety. Despite a succession of sold-out concerts in major US cities—and much love from their loyal fans—members Yeonjun, Soobin, Beomgyu, Taehyun, and HueningKai worried that the diverse festival crowd might not be as enthusiastic.
“It was the biggest stage that we’ve been on, and it was in front of the biggest crowd,” said Beomgyu during a recent Zoom interview. “So, I think that was the time that we were more nervous than excited.”
“There’s a definite difference and different charms to having our own concerts and performing at Lollapalooza,” said Taehyun. “For our own concerts, it's just full of our own fans, MOAs. But when we perform at Lollapalooza, there’s this whole general bunch of music fans, so we have to persuade them with our music. That’s what made us a little more nervous.”
They didn’t need to be nervous. The band’s high-octane musical performance and gravity-defying choreography were a success. That 2022 performance and the rest of the Act: Lovesick tour is the focus of the Disney+ music documentary Tomorrow X Together: Our Lost Summer.
The music documentary is called The Lost Summer because the band, which successfully debuted in 2019, was eager to tour when the pandemic struck.
“During the pandemic we couldn’t meet our fans in person,” said Taehyun. “We couldn’t go on tours. So the documentary is the process of us getting back the summer that we lost because of the pandemic.”
They really longed to go on tour because it was a chance to connect with their fans and they were determined to perform so well on the 2022 tour that it made up for that lost summer.
“Concerts mean so much to me,” said Heuningkai. “It’s the point of contact for us to meet our fans in person, and it’s the time that we have, the longest time we have together with our fans, and we can show them a lot of things. Concerts are just indispensable for our profession, being idol groups and a boy band.”
The concert tour, which lasted two months, included performances in New York, Chicago, Atlanta, San Francisco, Houston, Dallas, and Los Angeles. Each concert was different, defined in part by the audience.
“I think all the different cities and their audiences have different vibes,” said Yeonjun. “For example, in one city they would be really passionate and in one city they would like to dance to our songs. So it was a lot of fun for us to watch different types of fans in different cities.”
The concerts may be fun, but they also involve endless hours of hard work. Not only had the band rehearsed for six months before the concerts, they continued to rehearse throughout the tour, fine-tuning their electric performances. The documentary shows how hard the band works to entertain their audiences, but also how much each member derives from interacting with those audiences, whether they are dedicated MOA fans or music lovers who might never have listened to a k-pop song.
Tomorrow X Together was eager to go on tour after the pandemic delayed interacting with fans.
“I think all of our five members grew so much,” said Taehyun. “They become more mature and professional and now they know how to enjoy themselves more on the stage.
The band released their fifth EP, The Name Chapter: Temptation, in January 2023 and in March launched their Act: Sweet Mirage tour, which has already taken them to Japan, Taipei and Singapore and US cities such as Washington DC, San Antonio and Los Angeles.
“We are on our second tour right now,” said Taehyun. “We visited some cities already. After Lollapalooza we will have some more cities to visit and then we’ll have more time to pour into our next album.”
Tomorrow X Together: Our Lost Summer not only offers memorable snapshots of the Act: Lovesick tour, from tiring rehearsals to occasional sightseeing, but provides some insight into the band’s dreams and their strong sense of responsibility to their fans. It also highlights their teamwork, which is evident in both their coordinated choreography and how well they care for each other. It’s teamwork that has been building since they began training together seven years ago.
“ I think there's no end to building teamwork,” said Taehyun. “It just gets better and better, better as we have more time together. As for our teamwork now, I think it took seven years. Because we’ve been together for seven years.”
Their motivational chant before a show plays on the band’s name. Let’s be together tomorrow as well, they say to each other, but also to their fans. With Tomorrow X Together: Our Lost Summer fans a chance to go on tour with the band, to share in their hopes and savor the emotional rewards of their hard work and dedication.
The documentary airs on Disney+.
