Seoul’s KSPO Dome is bathed in red light and hushed in silence. It’s midway through the fourth and final night of IU’s residency at the venue tonight (March 10) and a pin-drop, reverent quietness covers the arena. As time lingers on, the stillness is haphazardly disrupted as select fans shout things back and forth to each other across the cavernous space until it’s completely dispelled when one crowd member ignites a grateful chant of “고마워” (goamwo) or thank you.
There’s plenty to thank IU for tonight. Her performance feels like a privilege to watch from the very first moment, such is her creativity and adaptability – and that’s before we’ve even witnessed a generous double encore to end the night. The singer-songwriter has long been renowned as one of Korea’s premier showstoppers, known for the little flourishes she uses to elevate her songs on stage, and tonight feels like the next evolution of that live artistry.
KSPO Dome is far smaller than other venues she can – and has – easily sell out in Korea, but she doesn’t let the more intimate surroundings diminish her imaginative streak. Rather than do an arena show the standard way – the stage at one end of the room, audience in front of it – IU has plumped for putting her platform right in the middle. The 360-degree view is both equalising and welcoming – it feels like no one seat can be much better than another, and breaks down the barriers between fan and artist.
It also allows her to create something immersive instead of just running some expensive graphics and videos on the big screens. They cover the whole stage, which has moving blocks and becomes new worlds depending on what’s on it and the amount of smoke covering it at any one time. Before ‘Celebrity’, a young girl runs out on stage, clutching an LED candle to her chest, darting through the dry ice.
After weathering an imaginary storm, the stage is flooded with watery imagery as if she’s entered Atlantis; later, it becomes a twinkling field of stars, with one glittery path emerging between her at one end and IU at the other. During ‘Obliviate’, the venue gets as close to a smoky jazz bar as possible, the lights on stage and in the crowd turned golden yellow, digital candles flickering on the sides of the raised platforms IU and her dancers perform on.
The whole night is world-class, from the production to IU’s presence and phenomenal vocals. If the star has been encouraging her fans to fill up on life and their desires of late – as in recent song ‘Shopper’ – then this show is the physical embodiment of that. The main set is broken into four sections, each named after a different superlative emotion, as if the singer is urging us to feel it all.
It starts with “hypnotic” – a mix of some of IU’s most infectious songs, from ‘The Winning’’s ‘Holssi’ to the ever-bright and bold ‘BBIBBI’. “Energetic” follows, the performer and her live band delivering spirited versions of ‘Blueming’ and ‘Coin’, while she takes us deep into swoonsome territory for the “romantic” portion. Although she sounds stunning throughout, this section is where we’re able to truly appreciate that powerful voice.
Dancing is kept to a minimum here as IU serenades the room with the beautiful likes of ‘Friday’ and ‘Strawberry Moon’, making space in each for the crowd to get their singalong moment. It’s just one way the star makes tonight feel like a warm gathering of long-lost friends. In each of the many times she addresses the audience at length, she speaks at ease, laughing and joking while remaining sincere in the promises she makes. During ‘I Stan U’, she turns the tables on the lightstick-waving throng around her, clutching her own yellow and pink baton that she reveals is custom-made in honour of her fanbase, Uaenas.
Midway through the night, she even takes the time to introduce a new friend to the crowd. Across her Seoul residency, IU has brought out other artists for a guest spot, highlighting younger groups NewJeans, RIIZE and LE SSERAFIM. Tonight, though, she invites an old pal to join her – Park Bo-gum. “Bo-gum is a really good friend of mine in real life,” she tells us, singing his praises as “not a singer, but he sings as well as one” before his short performance. Before she leaves the stage to let him have his moment, she notes that this is a special introduction – one best friend meeting her other best friends.
Later, a VCR nods to the wider ‘H.E.R.’ dates forming IU’s first world tour, opening with her reading a letter containing all the dates to come – or so it seems. At the end of the video, she makes a big announcement – she will return to the stadium stage she belongs on in September when she becomes the first Korean female artist to headline her own concert at Seoul’s World Cup Stadium.
The reaction to the news is goosebump-inducingly loud and a fitting way to kick off the “ecstatic” segment of the set. The buoyant excitement of the moment feeds into ‘Shopper’, which feels as explosive as the bursts of streamers and confetti that punctuate it. ‘Above The Time’ accelerates the giddiness even more thanks to the exuberance of IU’s dance crew, while ‘Love Wins All’ – on the face of it, not a natural fit for ecstasy – is seeped in towering passion.
Before IU leaves the stage to prepare for the encores, she makes a vow to Uaenas. “I will sing until I get tired,” she promises, and she goes above and beyond her word. After a three-song initial return, she reappears for a more spontaneous finale in which fans can shout their requests at her. The previous nights of the tour have seen her fulfil a handful of those pleas; tonight, she gets in 11 if you count snippets and singular choruses. Each time the crowd roars with enthusiasm for a song like ‘Red Queen’ or ‘Ending Scene’, she looks bemused, as if she’s surprised people know or care for these deeper cuts.
There’s a danger with such endings that they can feel anticlimactic compared to the expertly executed euphoria of the main show. For some of these unrehearsed tracks, IU’s dancers run out to join her in a way that feels natural and less choreographed than the rest of the set, creating a distinction between the two parts that helps the concert wind down gently rather than abruptly. If the main set was a masterclass in pop perfection then this epilogue feels like an impromptu after-party among friends – relaxed and playful.
Next, IU will take the ‘H.E.R.’ tour around the world, finally giving her the real moment in the global spotlight she deserves. If the rest of the dates are anything like tonight, those cities and countries are in for a treat like no other, an experience that should have them begging IU to come back time and time again.
IU played:
‘Holssi’
‘Jam Jam’
‘Ah puh’
‘BBIBBI’
‘Obliviate’
‘Celebrity’
‘Blueming’
‘Coin’
‘Eight’
‘Hold My Hand’
‘I Stan U’
‘Havana’
‘Meaning Of You’
‘Friday’
‘Strawberry Moon’
‘Through The Night’
‘Shopper’
‘Above The Time’
‘You&I’
‘Love Wins All’
‘Shh..’
‘Twenty-three’
‘Holssi (reprise)’
‘Ice Flower’
‘Red Queen’
‘Love of B’
‘Ending Scene’
‘Winter Sleep’
‘Someday’
‘The Red Shoes’
‘Last Night Story’
‘You Know’
‘Shopper’
‘Epilogue’
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