JYJ discusses their Europe tour + their wish for recognition in Korea

Source + Photos: Osen 1, 2, 3
credit : allkpop

On October 29th, JYJ became the first Korean artist to hold their own concert in Spain. 3,000 fans from all over Europe made the journey to Barcelona to cheer on their beloved idols and take part in a dream coming true.

JYJ held a press conference with both the Korean and Spanish press, answering questions about their limited appearances in Korea as well as their hopes for their European tour.

Reporters asked, “Although you’re promoting in various parts of Asia, the Americas, and Europe, even in places where Korean singers aren’t well known, it seems that we have the hardest time seeing you perform in Korea. Do you have any wishes about being able to promote without restrictions?”

Yoochun replied, “To be honest, I don’t think broadcast appearances are something we should think about… If I had a wish, it would be to be treated fairly. Although I know we can’t do anything about the fact that we’re missing from charts and such… From one perspective, those things are the results and repayment for our Korean fans who buy and listen to our album, so for those results to be missing – it’s upsetting. I wish things like our album sales and other numerical figures that represent the amount of love we’re receiving from the public could be recognized.”


The members also discussed the reasons they chose Spain and Germany as locations for their first Europe tour.

Junsu stated, “Although it’d be nice if we could tour all of Europe, we aren’t able to do that yet… We started receiving love calls from various European cities since last year, but we weren’t sure how far our influence had reached, so rather than coming up with irrational figures, we decided to pick countries that would be easy for fans to gather at… The best locations were Spain for Western Europe, and Germany for North and Eastern Europe. If a second Europe tour is possible, we’d like to perform in more countries.”

When asked whether they had anything special planned for the concert in Spain the next day, Jaejoong replied, “We’ve worked on some passionate performances and acrobatics with a famous local choreographer, Rafa Mendez.” Jaejoong also added that they plan to show themselves as who they are, rather than putting on a different front just for the Europe venture.

He stated, “This Barcelona concert will have about 3,000 audience members. Although it’s small, we think that the majority of the audience will be of JYJ mania fans. Instead of seeing something that got reinterpreted to fit Spain or Europe, I think that they may want something more authentic and ‘Korean’. That’s why even though this is our first European concert, we don’t feel a pressure that’s any different from the usual.”

Junsu agreed, “The order of performance also hasn’t been changed too much from the earlier tour in the Americas… We are coming as K-Pop and Hallyu singers, so I think that there will be a lot of fans who want to see our way of holding concerts. We didn’t try to make a special change. We will try to show ourselves as we are.”

In addition to their concert in Spain, the members were also invited to perform at the Spain Manga Festival. The boys will now move on to Berlin, Germany, for their concert on November 6th.