A review of Sigur Rós at the Greek in Los Angeles
Written for The Union Weekly
By Allan Steiner
Chris Martin, of Coldplay fame, said in an interview with the Brits over at The Daily Telegraph that he feels that Coldplay is the 7th best band in the world. Holding the first and second spots in his opinion are Arcade Fire and Sigur Rós.
It's tough to describe the experience of seeing a Sigur Rós concert. Your heart gets to beating a little faster, you feel the slightest bit dizzy, and depending on your commitment to this whole love metaphor, your hands might start to sweat. Live, the band creates something more than their music: they create a force. At their sold out performance at The Greek on October 2, that force could be felt throughout the close to 6,000 seat venue. Songs that might usually make a person fall asleep had a completely different energy live. With each and every song, the band completely engulfed the listener in a state of awe as they created an atmosphere that was nothing short of ethereal and they did it using fairly common instruments such as a bass, drums, guitar (granted, it was often being played with a violin bow) and a piano. The Greek Theatre was the perfect place to see Sigur Rós. The open-air venue combined with the picturesque scenery that surrounds the Greek Theatre only added to the spectacle. Looking to the back of the theatre, silhouettes of the band lined the trees that line the venue.
This was the group’s first US tour without an accompanying orchestra in seven years so it made identifying the specific elements that go into each song extremely easy. The realization that the seemingly orchestrated music of Sigur Rós is created by only 4 people is amazing on it’s own. The simple pairing of a bass drum with a bass guitar riff creates one of the more extraordinary moments on the band’s latest album, Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust, right when the track “Festival” shifts from a slow, epic piece to an extremely poppy one.
The whole show was held together by a remarkable lighting design scheme that included elements such as a full-sized translucent movie screen. On the screen was everything from abstract videos of shapes to live video of each performer. Behind the screen were big hanging balloons of light. The use of strobe lights, confetti, and timed lighting cues made the already solid show even stronger and added to the beauty of everything.
The groups latest album, which is the punchiest and most energetic of their works, adds a lot to the bands live show. The songs all sound absolutely incredible live and contrast well with the often slow and epic stuff from their previous albums. The enthusiasm in the album also allows for the show to come to a crescendo by the end of the set, which is exactly what it did. The group opened up their set with the epically long and beautiful “Svefn-g-englar” and ended it with the inexplicitly catchy “Gobbledygook.” As the crowd cheered for the band to come out and play more, the sound of people turning to talk to the person next to them was all around and while they were all saying different things, the general consensus seemed to be, “Holy shit can you believe this show?” When the band came back out they played one more song then walked back offstage, but the crowd kept cheering. When they came back out to take a bow and then walked back off stage, the crowd continued to cheer until the band was forced to take to the stage for a second encore.
Let me just step into the first person for a second to say that this was probably the best show I’ve ever seen, and I see a lot of shows. But everything from the audience, to the venue, to the lighting (oh yeah, and the actual performance) was just mind-blowing.
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Topic: Sigur Ros - American Tour 2008 - Los Angeles Stop (Read 7154 times)