setlist
vaka
svefn-g-englar
fyrsta
samskeyti
olsen olsen
popplagið (the pop song)
paul mcallister
firstly, i can't help but say a few words about the shockingly bad v2002 festival. the v festivals are the most atrocious festivals i have ever had the misfortune to attend. putting aside the constant stream of corporate sponsors that are consistently rammed down your throat, the sound quality on all the stages is appalling. sigur rós were playing the nme (second) stage. i'm not sure if this was the case for all stages, but the bands on the nme stage hardly get any soundchecks, resulting in constant technical problems throughout the sets. this was the case for all bands that i saw, not just sigur rós.
so, rant over. on to the sigur rós set itself. it kicked off set with vaka. possibly not the wisest choice to begin with at a festival, but it was generally pretty well received. the sound quality was fairly good although there were numerous technical problems which were a constant annoyance to the band.
next up was svefn-g-englar. given that it was a festival, it was fairly inevitable that they'd play this, although its not one of my live favourites at all. at the first sound of the submarine ping the crowd burst into applause. they clapped again when jónsi started singing and then yet again when jónsi raised his guitar to his mouth and sang into it (this was much to the amusement of the band). unfortunately, the sound quality was still poor, and by this time almost every single amplifier on stage had been replaced. jónsi was also having problems with his microphone.
fyrsta and samskeyti were a little bit flat, although the technical problems were easing somewhat. the set only really got going for the last two songs. an incendiary olsen olsen preceeded a storming version of popplagid. these last two songs really got the crowd going and the band left the stage to rapturous applause. walking away from the stage, i overheard several conversations all along the lines of "that band was awesome! that last song was incredible!". jónsi came out to say hello afterwards, only to be overwhelmed with autograph hunters and people wanting photos with him. as i said to him, he'll better start getting used to this rockstar lifestyle.
