Margaret Court Arena, Melbourne
August 13, 2022
I have no idea what Sigur Ros' songs are about. I don't know the words to them - hell, I barely know any of the titles.
Maybe this makes me a bad fan. Or maybe it's acceptable because I don't speak Icelandic (or their made-up language of Hopelandic for that matter).
But I don't care because Sigur Ros' music moves me in a way that no other band does. To me, it's the most beautiful music I've ever heard a "rock band" make. In fact, seeing Sigur Ros live is a somewhat jarring experience because it reminds you that this beautiful music is actually made by living breathing humans and not in fact created by sticking a microphone on an Icelandic glacier and recording the sound it makes as it slides slowly across the landscape.
Not that the band betrayed their humanity in any real way. The only time frontman Jonsi spoke to the crowd was 19 songs into their 20-song set, when he thanked us for coming. The rest of the time, he looked like a sorcerer, hunched over his guitar, wielding a bow like some kind of magical staff, eliciting phantasmagorical sounds from his instrument.
But as jarring as it is, and as inhuman as they seemed, seeing Sigur Ros live is thing of beauty. The songs hit as a wave of emotion, without silly things like words and meaning getting in the way. It may as well be instrumental, with Jonsi's voice just another instrument.
Their set was split in two with an intermission, where brave souls dared to line up for fresh drinks, only to mostly miss Glósóli kicking off set two. With no new album from the band in a decade, they leant into their big albums and their "hits", with half the gig dedicated to tracks from () and Takk. Two new tracks - apparently titled Gold 2 and Gold 4 - got an airing, as did a couple of b-sides. It all sounded great.
The darkness of Kveikur was a highlight, as was all-time favourite Svefn-g-englar, but really there were no dud tracks. The grandeur, the beauty, the utterly indecipherable epicness of it all was breathtaking. I'm sure everyone present had their personal moments, where the songs spoke to them in a tongue they didn't understand (seriously, how many Icelandic speakers were there likely to be in a gig in Melbourne? A dozen? 20?).
But that's the beauty of Sigur Ros. Surely I'm not the only one who feels like their music speaks to them unlike any other band's, despite not understanding a single bloody word of it?
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