Concert Review: Sigur Ros at United Palace

The whole time I was sitting there watching these guys, I was thinking that I needed to remember the three S's to describe them. So now, a week later I'm scratching my head...wtf are the three S's? My own little mnemonic device doesn't even work. Here is my best guess:

Syncopation: Have you ever noticed in Sigur Ros how often it sounds like there really isn't a beat? I think I have it figured out (I was trying way to hard before, and not surprisingly, I was wrong). They very rarely start on the first beat of a measure. So its not like they are writing their songs in seven or something bizarre and unnecessary. Really, they just always start on the second and fourth beats of the measures. I only realized this by watching one of the band members bob his head up and down and obviously, I could be completely wrong. This really lends to the ethereal quality of their sound.

Suspense: There is more suspense in Sigur Ros than anyone I have ever seen. At the show, there was a pause in one song that lasted so long that I seriously wasn't sure if the song was over. Granted, I am not that familiar with all of the albums, but it felt like the pause was well over a minute. And even with their more subtle suspense, they tend to hold their notes, and extend their passages for much longer than a normal band. I think they take a lot of roots in classical and traditional music. Suspense will always attract attention, and their suspense is usually not overt, but subtle, so you find yourself on the edge of the seat, digging your fingernails in. But why? Because they use tonal suspense and rhthmic suspense together. Very cool.

Symbolism: The song that really defined the performance for me is one that I hadn't heard, and couldn't describe. All of the musicians got up and sat together in a cluster and all of the lights in the house went off. As each player began to play his instrument, a single light bulb would light up. In other words, each instrument completed a circuit while it was actively producing sound and when the instrument wasn't being played, the light bulb was off because the circuit was broken. I know this sounds lame: 4 light bulbs turning on and off as the song progressed. But the light bulbs were such a visual representation of the energy of music. They symbolized the levels and depths, as the lights would flicker, the sound would grow and cease. It was beautiful. BTW, this is the song where I realized how heavily they rely on syncopation. Something about being able to see exactly which sound each artist was producing showed me. I was completely in awe of the simplicity, and how their music seems so complicated, but really, it amounts to many many layers of simple music.

At the end when everyone stood for the encore, I felt like they could have played something a little more active to leave us feeling high. But. It was still a very unique experience, completely unlike most of the shows that I see (i.e. sweaty, crowded, dark). They also employ such unique methods of creating sound. The whole thing was quite impressive.

Agreed?


<3 The Elephant