KODA

Zzzzmm… very good concert. Sigur Rós were wonderful, Amina were excellent, and there were some really neat tracks in the setlist that I hadn’t heard for a long time. There were also some fun mixups and surprises that made the night special. I got to talk to the lights guy and meet the sound people before the show, which was really nice.

It seemed that Sigur brought back a few of their more gloomy, melancholic songs instead of the extreme happiness in the last concert – though they played those songs with an energy I hadn’t heard before. It was especially funny to hear the first encore, “Dauðalagið,” just after this morning reading john of management’s tour diary:

“when the band played daudalagid at a soundcheck in tokyo they gave up before the end, pondering later why their songs were so bloody long… go figure.”

… the studio version of that track is 13 minutes long. But hey, they made it through it tonight! And it was spectacular.

Everything was quite loud. The mix was kind of so-so, with a lot of bass but not much complexity that I could hear. It might have been where we were sitting, near the side and just under the balcony. It was pretty crazy to hear (and feel) so much raw sound in the venue, with it’s classical-styled sculptures and very upper-class “refined” image. In the beginning, Amina played their songs wonderfully, though I was wholly dissapointed that people were still coming into the hall throughout their perfomance. Other than a lot of musical chairs (ha ), the crowd was pretty mild though.

Sigur Rós seemed to be really into it though, with Kjarri dancing his legs and everyone really moving with the music. They definitely didn’t hold back in the crescendos either.

This is the second time in two concerts that I’ve seen Jonsi absolutely destroy a bow, quite literally shredding it away through the end of Hafssól. The hair part of the bow (I don’t know what it’s called) was tearing, with an ever growing mass of curly, broken hairs at the end of his bow. I think I may have seen smoke. There could very well have been. Last time, his bow snapped in half. I swear, there’s a very good reason he keeps two on stage!

Hafssól seemed to really give the guys trouble – the vocal harmony was way off in the beginning, with Jonsi and Kjarri both singing their parts with a delay from each other. I was surprised to see Jonsi back off of the harmony and let Kjarri continue it – and even more surprised when they repeated the melody to get in sync, and tried it again successfully.

My friends seemed to really enjoy the show, and I had a great time. Right now, I really need to get some sleep so there’ll still be some life in me come tomorrow. Eh? So it’s tomorrow already. Well, it’s been a wonderfully full day, though now it’s time for rest!

Good night!