Q: You attended the 2023 S/S Milan collection show as Gucci’s global ambassador. Was there anything memorable for you about the collection? Any look or item that you liked?

IU: The moment I entered, I felt that the showcase venue was small and cosy. There weren’t many seats either. Then in the middle of the show, a partition wall in the centre of the stage was lifted and I realised that it was like a decalcomanie and there was another show on the other side. The twin models who were walking on their side of the stage met in the middle and held hands as they walked. Whether visually or symbolically, it was an interesting performance. I like overalls and this season, there were overalls! I wonder if they have it in my size? I got excited.

Q: During the ‘Twinsburg’ collection this time, 68 pairs of twins appeared on stage. The mother of the creative director, Alessandro Michele, is a twin so it came from his own personal experiences. I think artists need to have the ability to not bypass little experiences in their lives or miss out on the opposite side of the lives they have become accustomed to and turn that into art. I think the way you tell stories through your music and the unique way you express yourself through your lyrics is an example of that. How do you convert your daily experiences into music? Do you observe or make notes or think on the flip side?

IU: I’ve actually been making fewer notes than before. I still write in my diary, but I’m not as obsessive about writing in it anymore. It’s like, ‘The words to remain shall remain, or else just forget them.’ It’s been awhile since the days when I tried hard to cling on to thoughts that are worth becoming items. (But when I work on my full-length albums with more tracks, I’m clearly going to cling on reluctantly again.) Nowadays, there are many artists that write lyrics by themselves that have character. I’m also the type to stick my flag (TL note: stake my claim) on mainly themes I’m good at writing and can hang on to for a long time. I’m hooked on ‘patterns’ and ‘rules’ these days. I’m gradually starting to realise that I’m someone who lives with many rules in my daily life. I get stressed when something falls out of place too. I wonder if I’ll be able to infuse such ideas in my music in future.

Q: We did the ‘Vogue’ cover photoshoot in the house of a Milan collector. It was a house filled with pictures and antique furniture, right? What’s your house filled with? Are you surrounded by them now as well?

IU: As I receive this question and look around me, I realise that I do have a number of pictures in my house here and there. I mostly spend my time in my room and in my room in particular, I have many pictures gifted to me by friends or my fans who drew them by themselves. There are pictures amazingly drawn on canvas and many sketches from my friend’s studio. Perhaps it’s because I have zero talent in drawing, when someone gifts me with a meaningful piece of art, I feel really touched. It contains the affection, time and effort of that person. The pieces that are really precious to me are gathered at one corner of my room. During my concert this time, there was a section that reproduced that part of my room too.

Q: Other than 2020 and 2021 when Covid-19 was severe, you’ve been putting on solo concerts every year since 2012. What does it mean to you to be able to have face-to-face concerts with your fans?

IU: It’s a celebration party with my fans after a year of farming. It’s difficult to replace a concert with another event. The fans who come for my concerts will clearly know what I mean.

Q: Your first solo concert in 2012 was ‘Real Fantasy’ right? Do you still remember what your first concert was like?

IU: I don’t remember it vividly, but of course I still remember it. I did a nationwide tour for my first concert. From gathering concert audience, to maintaining my condition, putting things in action, to ensuring that the tension stays up during my concert each week instead of weakening, I was at a loss about everything and felt scared. I blamed the producer a little then for not guiding me on what to do and asking so much of me from the start, but after my concert this time, I thought to myself, “Thank you for raising me to be strong” and contacted the producer separately too. What’s encouraging for me is that my parents who came to watch my first concert 10 years ago and said, “The stage seems too big for you to fill on your own” back then, told me this time. “The stage that extends beyond 100m does not look big at all.”

Q: The concert you had in September was really amazing. You were the first Korean female solo singer to have a concert at Jamsil Olympic Stadium, right? With about 90 people on stage, about 1300 staff making preparations together and about 80,000 fans in the audience. I’m curious about your overall thoughts on the concert.

IU: I felt, ‘I enjoy the stage more than I thought. Things really work when many people put their hearts together. I’m working with some really amazing people. I have a really great life.’

Q: In the teaser video on your ‘dlwlrma’ YouTube channel, you said, “I want to leave a mark in concert history.” Did you manage to achieve what you hoped for?

IU: Yes.

Q: Director Jo Hyunwoo who worked with you from the 2017 ‘Palette’ concert to the 2019 ‘Love, poem’ concert, as well as the 2022 ‘The Golden Hour: Under the Orange Sun’ concert, shared his thoughts on what a ‘perfect concert’ means to him. Usually when IU starts singing, the audience becomes quiet and only participate actively during the sing-along parts, but during your Philippines concert, the audience cheered so loudly that you couldn’t hear the music in your in-ears. You responded that, ‘A perfect concert means differently to different people. That was a perfect concert in a new way.’ In what way was the concert this time perfect?

IU: Despite the 3 year gap, not only me, but I felt that everyone was clear about their roles. At each position, it had to be that person. This concert was not a tour and there were only two days, but if I had the chance to go back again to that day, I would not have been able to make it any better.

Q: How did you feel when you fell asleep the night before your concert? How about after the concert?

IU: It was raining a lot the night before the concert and we didn’t manage to complete the run-through rehearsal, so I went back after work that day with an unsettling feeling. My backup singer who could tell how I felt sent me an image of ‘You can do it ability’, so I thought to myself, ‘That’s right, I’ve done everything I can. It’ll work out somehow’ and posted that image on my Instagram story before lying down in my bed. After the last day of the concert, I went for the after party. They didn’t make it obvious the whole time, but perhaps because the staff mostly felt pressured by the large scale of the concert, many of them were crying. Telling each other that they did well, it was the best, thank you for working together. Exchanging words with each other, I felt a surge of love for mankind that night. I got home late at night and read the concert reviews and felt overwhelmed with emotions which was something I had not felt in quite awhile. I think out of the concerts I had done, it was the concert with the highest level of audience satisfaction. That itself was enough to compensate for everything.

Q: This concert was described as a “musical or Olympics opening ceremony”. In particular, the highlight was the hundreds of drones that formed a picture in the sky. What’s the stage equipment or effect that you were most into? On the contrary, was there anything you had to compromise for practical reasons?

IU: From the performance perspective, I think it would have to be the hot air balloon that went up as I sang ‘strawberry moon’. It’s something that the concert director insisted on strongly since the first meeting. A few months before the concert, together with a few key staff members, I went on a trip to Buyeo for a test run and that was how much we anticipated the hot air balloon performance. It would move depending on the wind direction, so it was very much weather-dependent and I thought I didn’t have a fear of heights at all, but once it went up by more than 10m, I couldn’t sing and whenever it wobbled due to the wind, my heart sank. As I was close to the fire, it was really hot to ride it in summer too. The director expressed his concerns (with a firm expression I had never seen from him in the many years we have worked together) ‘Just. Believe. In. It.’ I’m glad I did. The audience really liked it. What I had to compromise with was time, of course. From when the title of the concert, ‘Golden Hour’, was confirmed, we set the condition that ‘with the sunset as the background, we had to start the concert at 7pm sharp without missing a beat’. But for an outdoor concert, we couldn’t drag it too late into the night. So it was a shorter concert than what I used to do and we prepared for a runtime of 3 hours.

Q: What was a great hurdle for you for this concert and how did you overcome it? On the contrary, what was the most exciting part?

IU: The biggest hurdle was myself. Since a year ago, my ear has been giving me some issues. If I sweat a lot or produce loud sounds for a long period of time, a muscle in my ear rattles and opens up and sound seems to echo loudly inside. As I was preparing for my concert, I trained myself well and made great improvements, but it had been awhile since I stood on stage and on top of that, it was the biggest stage in singing career, so many complicated thoughts were running through my mind. I just kept practising. If my ear opened up, sounds became unclear to me, so I was cautious about singing loudly and afraid to do so. Even if it sounded weird to me, I would just sing it out aloud first and record that and listen to it again, trying to find a way to control it. As I kept doing that, I started to regain my confidence gradually. It can get worse if I go too overboard, but for now, I’m safe. Aside from my condition, the moment I decided to do a concert, I tormented myself and struggled with thoughts like, ‘Would I be able to fill such a large stadium?’ Whenever I had weak thoughts, I remember telling myself, ‘Hey, this is the Olympic Stadium, even if you can’t eat (handle) it, it’s a Go’ to make myself bolder.

Q: After your encore stage, ‘Love poem’, you said, “There’s an issue with my ear, so I nervously prepared for this concert. I could barely hear properly today, but I could sense the support from all of you.” You must have been taken aback when you first heard the diagnosis of your condition. How did you feel back then and how are you accepting it right now?

IU: After hearing the diagnosis, I was firstly glad that it wasn’t an issue with my hearing per se. Since my job requires me to use my voice a lot, although I was at a loss of what to do, I think it was a chance for me to have more humble feelings about my health and this job that I love. When none of the worst case scenarios I imagined happened and I managed to pull off my concert successfully, I’ll never be able to forget how thankful I felt at that point in time. After the articles went out, I was contacted by many people. I even received messages from seniors that I did not have their contacts. There were more people around me with this condition than I had thought. As we use our ears and throat a lot, many singers revealed that they faced the same issue and shared their encouragement and their own tips with me. I also helped those who asked me for help as much as I could. From the perspective of someone who stands on stage, the bond of sympathy and support that we shared gave me the reassurance that I would be able to recover quickly. That was another episode that I was overwhelmed with a love for mankind recently.

Q: During your ‘The Golden Hour: Under the Orange Sun’ concert recently, you started off by singing ‘eight’ without any accompaniment. You’ve mentioned before that it’s a song you want to sing during sunset and something you’ve been planning for a long time”, but what was the reason that you decided your opening for the concert to be this way?

IU: ‘eight’ was a song that I released when I was 28, during a time of Covid-19 blues and a sense of powerlessness myself, when I was tired with everything. As I couldn’t have face-to-face concerts during that time, I wasn’t able to gain strength from the audience. So when the field of performing arts started to become active again, I felt that if I were to hold my concert, I would have to sing ‘eight’ as the first song powerfully and mark an end to the times I felt tired of everything. It’s the only song that has never changed its position the whole time we were deciding the setlist.