sigur ros - seattle - 2012

what is there to say after you spend two hours slipping and swaying between the melodies and beats of one of the most viscerally experiential bands? left in my hands, rattling restless in my head, keeping me awake long past my bedtime are the colors, the sounds, the harmonies that arrested my spirit.

individual moments stand out in perfect focus and flawless clarity: that golden silence they wedged into the middle of a song, shocking us all into breathless surprise, holding it long past you'd expect it, longer still until a clap broke out hesitantly {as we shook our heads to silence the offender}. a sold out audience's worth of collective anticipation lengthening the seconds even further, then further still to the very edge of our capacity to be patient, to not breathe. and still they made us wait. it was almost too much. my breathing returned loud and excited, squirming and full in those final moments of waiting. then payoff, the surge of sound immediately following jonsi's microphoned inhale was one of countless moments of glory.

countless.

others include:

the soft valtari greens of the opening song's visuals.
the hazy ship floating hauntingly across the projection screen.
the filament lights on stage.
jonsi's gentle curl of hand, encouraging us to sing along.
singing along.
the lines and shapes inside my closed eyes as the light danced through my eyelids, refusing to be shut out.
the excitement of hearing the opening sounds of a well-loved song {svefn-g-englar}, almost too good to be true, and the affirmation from one of my concert mates*, the one who is so good at answering my unvoiced questions.
the smiles passed around between my neighbors.
the colors. the colors. the colors. even if they were just sounds parading around as a color.
the final song at the end, untitled #8, that always starts off deceivingly slow until it builds, and builds, and builds beyond one's capacity to take in the sheer volume of sound and lights and noise and harmony pressed into us, until the spirit cries out to participate. the cheers erupting from the crowd around us were not a distraction but purely a primal reflex, an extension of what was happening on stage. a response to the unspoken realization that the vessels of our bodies cannot hold all that they give at the end of this one song. we must explode, release, even if it's just a rhythmic tapping of my hand across my heart. even if it's just a burst of noise from my neighbor's gut. the spirit cries out to participate. the spirit cries out: participate.

the band always comes out at the end to clap their hands warmly back at us, link arms, and then bow. the sweetest part of a bittersweet goodbye. sigur ros, please don't take four years to come back to us. please.


*music friend #1, joining me here almost exactly 4 years, two trips and six shows later {only six??? i guess we have shared quite a few others even if we weren't both at the same show at the same time including atoms for peace, sigur ros, bon iver, modselektor, radiohead...}.

 

setlist:


ekki múkk
varúð
ný batterí
i gær
vaka
sæglópur
svefn-g-englar
viðrar vel til loftárása
hoppípolla
olsen olsen
festival
hafsól

encore:

dauðalogn
popplagið {untitled 8}