Before the Sigur Ros concert last night, I hadn’t been to a real concert in years. I usually don’t keep up with who’s on tour, who’s coming to town, etc., really, I guess, because there are so few artists at this stage in my life who intrigue me to that extent.
However, Sigur Ros is one of those artists. I am on their email list, and I did take note when they said they’d be coming to Fort Worth. So I had been very excited and looking forward to this show.
But I was actually a little un-impressed, up until like the second- or third-to-the-last song. I just could not get into it for some reason… I guess, being on the front row, I was a little self-conscious of getting too excited and making a fool out of meself. Just seemed like the people around me were not easily getting into it, losing their self-consciousness, too.
Isn’t that weird? The way self-conscious discomfort is contagious? If the people around you are uneasy and acting weird because they’re self-conscious, you start feeling that way, too, even if you weren’t feeling that way before?
Anyway, I finally did start feeling looser, more into it, as they started jamming, started getting loud. I mean, it really seemed like the band wasn’re really into it. Yeah. I didn’t want to say that, but it just seemed like, like maybe the stage was too big or something. Like they just couldn’t get it together. And the stage was big. Too big, I think. Really.
I mean, when we first went in we sat on the left side of the orchestra section (the floor)– stage right, that is. Talked to the usher, an old man who didn’t know who Sigur Ros was, but who said his two teenage sons would probably be jealous if they knew he was working this show. Anyway, the keyboards were set up in front of us, way over on stage right. And this brings up another dividing/separating thing, and I’m a keyboard freak: keyboards are BIG. They get in the way. They block energy between the player and the people in front of the player. They separate the player from the rest of the band. A guitar is small— it doesn’t do that.
Anyway, so way over stage right, the keyboards are set up.
So we got up and walked around the beautiful venue some— and the Bass Hall there in Ft. Worth is extremely gorgeous. When we came back, there were people in “our seats.” But the nice old usher man told us we’d been in the wrong seats— we were actually way on the other side of the stage, far stage left. “Well cool,” I thought. “We got to see the stage from one side; now we’ll get to see it from the other side.”
And we did. On this side of the stage were the drums. Kinda a small set, but two kick drums, and also an electric piano with some kind of electronic keyboard on top of it.
But the separation was large. Yes, the bassist (Georg Holm) and guitarist/singer (Jonsi Birgisson) were both in between the keys and drums, and it still seemed like it was too much space… There was one song in which they played all close together, in like a string-quartet semicircle, sitting in chairs, playing small instruments, like acoustic guitars (Heysatan). And that one really did work the best up until that point in the show. In fact, that may have been the number that turned it around for me.
Society and Greed vs. Sigur Ros Fans and Compassion.
But, real quick, I want to compliment my concert-mates, my fellow Sigur Ros fans: before the show I was talking with the people around me, and we were all very happy to have first- and second-row seats. We described to each other how we were hitting “Reload” in our browsers the morning the tickets went on sale, and how mysterious it was to not know where our seats were (the system did not inform us upon purchase).
I told them that I had debated purchasing the maximum of 8 tickets, even though I only needed two. A couple of the others said the same thing, “but,” added the guy sitting behind M, “seeing Sigur Ros shouldn’t be about being rich!”
“Exactly!” everybody else responded.
I said, “I could have made a lot of money, but then none of you guys would be here.”
The guy behind me to our left said, “Yeah, I saw tickets today on eBay selling for $600.00!”
Very good people. I mean, that’s what it’s all about! This is the solution to our society’s problems today! If everyone thought, felt, and acted this way, the world would be so much a better place. My fellow Sigur Ros fans know the same thing: greed is wrong. No ifs, ands or buts about it.
I mean, as our society is right now, money rules everything: global corporations, NGOs like the World Bank, governments (most notably, since I’m an American, the US government), etc. [I just saw a car in the 1994 Art Car Parade of Houston that had this painted on its side: “what we have is government for and by the corporations.”] Of course, our economic system (capitalism) is totally based on the assumption that greed is the primary human motivation. The only other economic system (socialism) has been demonstrated to only succomb to corruption, in which the people in power just become more greedy, too. Darnit!
That’s why we need a governance system in which anyone who wants to be in a position of power should not be allowed to hold that position.
Amina: Icelandic for “Sexy”
Back to the concert… This morning I transferred the audio files from the little Olympus recorder onto my Mac Mini; I’d like to edit them into individual songs, and then re-live the concert.
Amina was really cool— very cute young girls who seemed to be very natural musicians, kinda just jamming and tweaking live; very informal, fresh. It was very cute— and, yes M— sexy the way they’d look at each other every once in a while and giggle, like they weren’t taking it very seriously. Like they’ve been doing this together for years, like they grew up playing together, and they’re still having fun creating music together. Sweet.
Sigur Ros: Icelandic for “Human”
So. Sigur Ros. I don’t want to blame the band. I mean, the concert was cool. It was nice. The music itself sounded good. Even the beginning was very good— it’s just that I wasn’t getting into it like I’d hoped. That could be mainly because I’ve had such high hopes for such a long time. Also, it could have something to do with my own discomfort, that whole stupid self-consciousness thing, that whole stupid group-infecting self-consciousness. Shoot, that could even have infected the band, too, in such an intimate venue as the Bass Hall.
Another thing that I liked: the sixth song they played was “Gong”, track eight from Takk… Well, Amina began the song with their strings, which is soon followed by some nice plucked electric guitar arpeggios. But the guitarist had some technical problems with the rig stage right, and three or four stage-hands scampered over there to help, but to no avail. Amina, meanwhile kept playing their ostinato introit, but after a couple minutes of no guitar, they finally faded slowly away. Really tasteful, actually.
So the singer/leader, Jonsi Birgisson, told them all to go on to the next song, the beautiful “Andvari,” track nine of Takk… The performance, too, was very beautiful, ending in the long passage of strings. And afterwards they went right back into Gong, and it, too was very nice.
I bring up the technical problem because it made the band all the more human to me. I mean, I too have had technical difficulties with my own music-making gear. I mean like, all the time! And seeing that it happens to even Sigur Ros, on the last night of their US tour makes me connect with them more. Very cool. And just to see how they handled it— the girls continued playing (“the show must go on!”), then faded with class and taste. And the singer, too, started doing his classic electric guitar bowing to add his bit to the intro. They all kept looking back to see if there was any progress, which there never was. No Rolling Stones’ fourteen extra backup amplifiers, no redundant technologies just in case. Cool. Human. Normal.
More Good Stuff:
• the video. The lighting and atmospherics. The way it all wenttogether. Tight, effective.
• The encore, “Popplagid,” the last track on ( ). They just fucking blew the doors off the place. Ended their US tour with a huge bang.
• The post-encore silly-stringing of the crew by the band members. Yeah, after Popplagid, the band, along with Amina, came out on stage, then invited up the entire crew for a big bow. It was great. It really looked like they were all very happy. It looked like they all knew each other well, like perhaps they grew up together, went to school together, knew each others’ families. It just seemed like they were really happy to have completed a successful run of shows that they all threw together there out of the ice and lichen of Iceland, and blew their brand of fresh, cool, Arctic air everywhere they went. “Cool.”
• The drummer. Orri Pall Dyrason. He just kicked ass. Very sensitive. There were times when I could only see him playing, his touch was so subtle. That is very unusual in a drummer; most of them just want to fucking slam all the time. Not this one. Not that he was a wussy, either. He fucking rocked the place on several songs, including most of all, the end of the encore, Popplagid. Simply orgasmic!
• The incredible 15-seconds of complete silence and stillness at the climax of “Heysatan,” the final track on Takk… Incredible to just be hanging there, the whole theatre on edge, for what seemed like forever, until, finally, the singer inhaled into the microphone, that simple, so familiar sound that is the epitome of intimacy, like hearing your lover’s ecstatic breath in your ear during intense lovemaking. And then they all come in together, gently yet firmly finishing the song. Divine.
So. There it is. I’ve posted some photos (and may post some movies) I shot with my digital camera. I forgot my earplugs, unfortunately, as we sat right in front of some speakers. M commented on that, too. It was only really bad a couple times: after the first number, the guitarist did a bowing screaming electric guitar noise thing that was really grating; and the second time was when he did the same thing in the midst of another number. Those were the only plug-your-ears-with-your-fingers moments.
Overall, a really eventful and memorable evening of magic and charm.
