Sigur Rós
Saw them live tonight. Words fail me...
The best I can do is something between a religious experience and an aural orgasm. And I mean that second one dead literally I actually though I was literally, physically going to reach climax right there in my seat just from the intensity of the music. I have been to a lot of incredible concerts in my life, but I really think that in some ways this outdid them all.
The funny thing is, they broke every rule of what one would normally think makes for a good concert. No opening band, no encore, no splashy visual effects. Most of the songs were not from the album that made them famous over here. Svefn-G-Englar, which is the nearest thing they have to a hit single, was dropped into the middle of the set almost randomly, not at the end where most bands would have put it. They never talked to the audience at all, not one word (then again, I don't know if any of them speak English). They barely even interacted with each other. At one point Jónsi was actually sitting on the floor of the stage with his back to the audience, hunched over his guitar in an almost fetal position. You couldn't get much less audience-focussed if you tried. But in a weird way their total focus on the sound just seemed to increase the intensity of the music.
It started really slow and mellow, but gradually built in intensity to the point where by the last song I was clutching the edge of the balcony in front of me (we were in the front row of the top balcony) so hard my shoulders ached afterwards, and I kept alternating between hyperventilating and forgetting to breathe altogether.
The only down sides were that Princess Cyn hurt her ankle and couldn't make it (though Palemistress came at the last minute so her ticket didn't go to waste), and that the last X-large of the nice black and silver T-shirts got sold while I was trying to decide whether I could really justify spending $32 on a shirt (decision: yes, I could but it was too late by then!).
Anyway... you all thought I was obsessed with this band before? Ha! Not compared to how fanatical I've just become. If you ever, ever have the chance to see them live, any of you do it. Absolutely. You must.
The best I can do is something between a religious experience and an aural orgasm. And I mean that second one dead literally I actually though I was literally, physically going to reach climax right there in my seat just from the intensity of the music. I have been to a lot of incredible concerts in my life, but I really think that in some ways this outdid them all.
The funny thing is, they broke every rule of what one would normally think makes for a good concert. No opening band, no encore, no splashy visual effects. Most of the songs were not from the album that made them famous over here. Svefn-G-Englar, which is the nearest thing they have to a hit single, was dropped into the middle of the set almost randomly, not at the end where most bands would have put it. They never talked to the audience at all, not one word (then again, I don't know if any of them speak English). They barely even interacted with each other. At one point Jónsi was actually sitting on the floor of the stage with his back to the audience, hunched over his guitar in an almost fetal position. You couldn't get much less audience-focussed if you tried. But in a weird way their total focus on the sound just seemed to increase the intensity of the music.
It started really slow and mellow, but gradually built in intensity to the point where by the last song I was clutching the edge of the balcony in front of me (we were in the front row of the top balcony) so hard my shoulders ached afterwards, and I kept alternating between hyperventilating and forgetting to breathe altogether.
The only down sides were that Princess Cyn hurt her ankle and couldn't make it (though Palemistress came at the last minute so her ticket didn't go to waste), and that the last X-large of the nice black and silver T-shirts got sold while I was trying to decide whether I could really justify spending $32 on a shirt (decision: yes, I could but it was too late by then!).
Anyway... you all thought I was obsessed with this band before? Ha! Not compared to how fanatical I've just become. If you ever, ever have the chance to see them live, any of you do it. Absolutely. You must.