We listened to a few songs as Rita, my mom, drove us to the train station. Apparently, Sigur Ros reminded her more of Ikea than anything else. I guess geographically Iceland and Sweden aren’t too far apart.
It’s always hard to introduce someone to Sigur Ros, and quietly playing a few songs during a quick drive to the train station is probably a poor way to go about it. The ultimate way would be to bring someone to see Sigur Ros live at Massey Hall in Toronto, but unfortunately my dear mum had already made other plans.
Mike Paduano and Katie McDougall and I took advantage of the fact we knew Sigur Ros’ set time to have dinner and visit some friends before taking a cab to Massey Hall. We arrived early and took our seat 8 rows from the front. Massey Hall is tall and narrow with two galleries. The smoke and tungsten lighting made the atmosphere warm and inviting.
I’m not a concert reviewer so I won’t go into too much detail of the actual show. For the most part I was star-struck and in awe of the four dudes from Iceland playing in front of me. These guys are really something. Everything they played sounded far better than any other version I’d ever heard. The music is incredibly their own and all types of people can appreciate it. There was such a large variance in the type of person in the theatre, all brought together by music that’s not even sung in English. It was hard to say what the average age in the crowd was. Everyone was there to enjoy the experience.
I am only familiar with Sigur Ros’ older albums, so it was really enjoyable for me that they played a lot of their really popular tracks. On the other hand, hearing some songs for the very first time, being played live by Sigur Ros was a magnificent treat and made me appreciate them so much more. Every song was heard how it was really meant to be heard… excessively loud, along with impressive visual effects!
Seeing each of the members of the group perform with so much effort was something really cool and new for me. Seeing Jonsi Birgisson singing so hard with his falsetto voice was really crazy. The bassist and drummer were extremely entertaining (and super badass in my opinion.) I only wish we had a better view of the keyboardist, Sveinsson, who was at the far end of the stage and most of the time he was blocked by numerous instruments.
Definitely wish I took more photos to remember the event. The music is still ringing in my ears though, and behind them I’m pretty sure I still have some confetti from the overpowering finale.
It’s hard to listen to digital versions of Sigur Ros after seeing them live, but I think with big enough speakers I’ll be ok… that is until the next time they come to Toronto.
