photos by paul roylance
photos by shaun baker
setlist
vaka
fyrsta
samskeyti
ný batterí
njósnavélin
svefn-g-englar
salka
hafssól
(encore)
von
popplagið
declan fleming
in retrospect, i am probably a sigur ròs toddler. i was only introduced to
them eighteen months ago and even then i can't say i fell in love with them immediately
or cried at my first listen of Àgætis byrjun. indeed i'm probably the
sort of person a dido fan would find offensive, as in sigur ròs terms i only
happened upon them "after eminem did a sample".
however i am a believer in quality as well as quantity and before long i fell in love with them and suckled all that the great sow of ftp could feed me. i desperately wanted to see them live. as a regular visitor to the ".co.uk" site i noticed they were due to play at bristol, at my university (and not for the first time either). i found myself squealing like a little boyband groupie and in the excitement spilled 3 days work down my lab coat.
needless to say i was more than a little excited when i turned up at the anson rooms early last night. i grabbed myself a suitably central spot and settled in while a confused minority cheered as the technicians came on to tune up. the band walked on to "intro" and as expected began with the first part of ( ). the tour so far has clearly not cost jonsi vocally - he was definitely on form and soared like a bird. the visuals, almost non-existent at first, developed into an abstract warm palette suggestive of a sunrise. interestingly i did note that with all the songs played throughout from ( ), there were strong facial images which developed through each song getting more distinct each time. fyrsta had a small girl heavily blurred in negative, which developed into a girl (this time in positive but with little saturation) with wind flowing through her hair, possibly on a train. unfortunately the poor acoustics of the anson rooms let down the band during fyrsta as the bass caused certain parts of the room to resonate spoiling the song slightly. it was still good enough to restore my faith in the song, as i'm still not sold on the album version. samskeyti began as an almost perfect duplicate of the album with disco balls showing that simplicity normally gives the best results. as the song developed, more visuals of a similar ilk were discernable and jonsi decided to disappear for a while and lay on the ground obscured by the (unnecessarily!) tall people in front of me. the wave of sound that followed was unlike any i'd ever heard (although i should say "noticed" as it does seem to be much, much weaker on the album). washing over all, it consumed us. my ears were distorting but i felt no pain and had no residual tinnitus after the gig. it was a unique experience.
as the applause died, everyone but jonsi put down their instruments and waited as he unleashed the most devastating abuse on both his bow and guitar; i honestly didn't think he was going to make it to the end of the set, but upon completion there was a short pause before the answer to all my prayers came in a simple bass line. goggi led the way into ný batterí. i was slightly disappointed at the muted tone of the bass but then things are not always possible to replicate live as they are recorded and i will die a happy man all the same. the now familiar humanist visuals returned with the start of njósnavélin, which sounded as perfect as ever. by the time they had finished i was so enthused that at the first sign of approaching sonar bleeps i started the rapturous reception that i knew svefn-g-englar would receive with or without me. the song lived up to expectations and while it has never been my favourite, i feel better now that i am no longer a "singingintotheguitar virgin". i could see by the stunned faces around me that the climax blew everyone away.
as most weren't expecting it, salka came and went without too much appreciation - i seemed to notice a lot more people treading on plastic glasses left right and centre. i think i'll need a few more listens to say anything either way except that it sounds like it could snugly fit in anywhere before the break on ( ).
i was slightly confused when goggi began a sort of 'col legno' with what looked like a drumstick. somehow i had omitted haffsol from my collection. needless to say i was left breathless by the time they finished but cannot say anything except it was vastly better than the copy i have since acquired from the website ... then again, it would be! by the end of the song, the band were clearly having difficulties as jonsi exchanged a few words with goggi and a technician came on to do some emergency duck taping on the drums whilst the amina girls did their stuff. once everything was temporarily sorted, the strings flowed so smoothly and effortlessly into von from near chaos that i thought i was getting déjà vu at first. both haffsol and von continued the non-humanist visual theme of the tracks not on ( ) by displaying electricity pylons amongst other things. von was not well received by the bristol crowd perhaps surprisingly and some people even began laughing and messing around during the quieter parts of the song. i don't know whether it was due to this or otherwise, but the song did not capture my imagination. or maybe it was because i was more worried about the fact that some woman had just used the back of my neck as a windbreak to light her cigarette and in doing so - singed my hair. all the same, i'm sure i've heard better renditions.
any disappointment was blown aside by the highlight of the gig. after a few more
exchanges between everyone apart from kjarten (who was tucked away in the corner),
jonsi broke into a banshee like wail that led into popplagið. to be honest, i
don't know if there were any visuals and i don't care. i stood there transfixed as
the familiar crescendo rose and orri poured his heart into those instruments slowly
dieing before him. it was a truly religious experience and as the backlighting (that
had cursed any photo opportunities throughout) grew and grew, it left jonsi standing
alone, messiah-like, surrounded by blinding energy. the sheer power of the song swamped
everyone around, leaving me with a sense of falling that i have been unable to get
out of my head all day. i still can't concentrate even as i write this. the sensory
experience i had last night has left me scarred for life and i will never be able
to listen to that song again without having the whole of last night come flooding
back to me ... and let's face it - that has to be a good thing.
(declan fleming)
paul roylance
some bulleted reflections on the bristol gig (but what was going on in my heart ú
thatçs another story):
in the country of the blind (does this sound familiar?) the one-eyed man is king.
tiresias -> homer -> one or two inbetweeners -> thom -> jónsi
içm calling it in parenthesisç. how about you?
something about this music is uncannily old ú in the sense of its quite un-self-consciously referring to an apparently seamless interface (içm talking iceland here) between the unchanged-for-five-hundred-years incantatory performances of the edda chanters and the laptop/internet savvy of this current generation of reykjavikian music makers. that frisson we all experience listening to jónsi is the closest weçre probably going to get to the experience of standing at the gate to the underworld in the presence of some scary shaman whoçs simultaneously invoking and placating those even scarier gatekeepers.
how little ú i was thinking - goggi actually does (he must be the least virtuosic bass-player ever) ú but how very effectively he does it! (listen to the early version of hafssól on von to discover how a more evolved bass-line can totally transform a song)
salka reminds me of something. what the fuck is it? (not that it matters in the least ú at my age everything reminds me of something) - so lyrical. a long way down the glacier. crunch-crunch. sun out. warm welcome waiting at home. free as a bird. unexpectedly major key. very nice.
( ) is a portal, of course, a secret orifice ú one of the seven entrances to the underworld (in tantric mode, the yoni, even?) (hey ú if they can play the high pretension card, so can i: yoni / jónsi ú geddit?)
i saw you smile, kjartan. i did. twice. careful, now
maths for sigur r s nerds exercise 55: if 3 cello bows costing £60 each get trashed at each gig and another train leaves baltimore half-an-hour later travelling in the opposite direction, how long will it take for amadeep to disappear into his own golden section? (bitter? moi? what would i do with a trashed bow? signed by all the band? it was a fix, i tell you! a stinky nepotistic fix!)
(one for the trivia nuts) did anyone else spot the use of ný batterí in the 14th episode of 24?
hup! theyçre a well-oiled professional machine now, maçam; when orri had a slight mishap with his bass-drum-pedal (smashed it to shit during hafssól, basically), the others simply jammed for a bit whilst it was fixed (what would the world be without gaffer-tape? ú looser and a lot flappier, basically) ú improvising around something thatçs clearly emergent and new and of an equal loveliness to salka ú and if thereçs a bootleg from last night that includes that moment ú i want it! (içll swap my precious postcard of the northern lights signed by santa himself)
what a storminç finale, that popp! anyone remember a band called the beatles?
èi got blisters on my fingers!î remember? (extra brownie points for naming the track)
(paul roylance)
