Sigur Ros at the Chicago Theater 9/21
I wish I could have taken pictures inside the theater because it is truly beautiful. The only way I can think of describing it is one word: velvety. I haven’t been there since seeing Nick Cave (who btw is the best person to listen to on a rainy day) a couple of years ago.
Alas, pictures inside are not allowed.
ANIMA:
Anima are four Icelandic woman who after their set played with Sigur Ros, which definitely made for a fuller and even more magical sound. The vocals of their set were very limited ut the instrumentation made up for it-at times I would even describe it as haunting. There were strings, singing saw, and of course a ibook. At times, it reminded both of us as a Mum without vocals. It was a nice sort of wavelength listening to them and the perfect thing to lead up to hearing and seeing Sigur Ros. For more info on ANIMA
SIGUR ROS:
I’ve never been to Iceland but when I imagine it, I think of a stark Ansel Adams photograph. It’s clear Sigur Ros has an idea of how to create a perception based on vision. The band played their first and last song behind a thin filmy curtain which cast their shadows differently as the light moved. At first, I wondered if they would play their entire set like this. When the curtain was lifted, the light was angled just so to make the lead singer very tall like a an immobile statue towering over us as he played his guitar like a cello. After a few songs, a screen came down from behind and short films were played to the music. At times, it appeared as nebulous forms and at other times strange dolls and a man jumping up and down on a tramoline. It was video footage meant to arise emotion then tell a story and it fit well. The best of their set was a set of birds on a wire that all flew away at the end.
On a personal note, I kept thinking back to the first time I heard Sigur Ros. I was attenting university at the time. It was before their ep came out in the states and a friend of mine at the time, Jill, (who later moved to San Fran) had brought that over along with the first Coldplay album. I remember being awed by Sigur Ros immediately. Hearing especially their older songs brought me back to that time and also the times we listened to the ep on the bus between Buffalo and Chicago when Cinchel and I were looking for an apartment here. It’s funny how music has a way of doing this to you-making you remember sometimes even when you don’t mean to. It just sort of happens.
And with Sigur Ros, because half of it is in Icelandic and half in a made up language, I’m not sure what the exact lyrics are at any given time and yet, I still feel like we are all speaking the same language.