Sigur Rós at Latitude Festival
July 23rd, 2008
As the last noise from a band I didn’t care about faded away, we made our way closer to the stage and an altogether more ethereal sound pulsed out gently through the speakers, which I later recognised as ‘Straumnes’. Big balloons were blown up above the stage and pulsed with yellow light. In the crowd a Japanese flag and a flag with ‘Whale Meat Again’ written on it were whipped through the air—I hope they appreciate esoteric English humour. Other members of the crowd were completely oblivious to what they were going to see. For me it was like the dream I had the night before of seeing them in my back garden–in a way it was my back garden, as the concert was only 20 minutes away from my house by car.
They opened with ‘Svefn-g-englar’ and Jónsi destroyed the first of many cello bows, resorting to bashing it against the guitar when it was completely frayed. He wore a buckled tunic with a glittering shoulder decoration and pheasant feathers sticking out from his collar. The only words he said, probably taken from research into Suffolk greetings, were something along the lines of ‘How is everyone, you alright?’ For most of the concert he stood perfectly erect, apart from when he was destroying cello bows. The only attempt at audience participation was when he asked for the audience to sing along with ‘Meo Blóðnasir’, a series of ‘Woah woah woahs’.
After ‘Svefn-g-englar’ he calmly walked over to the xylophone and played ‘Sé lest’. The feeling was that of watching a band who had their ideal sound in their head and were concentrating on translating it into the air. They could have easily left the audience cold, were it not for the silver brass band that came marching onto the stage. Though I should have known it was coming, I was still taken completely by surprise.
I’m pretty certain the order of the next songs went ‘Glósóli’, ‘Saeglopur’, ‘Hoppipolla’. They definitely didn’t play Hoppipolla after Glósósli, as I remember telling my friend in error that they would find the next song familiar as Hoppipolla, from the BBC idents, is after Glósóli in the album. Jónsi joined Kjartan Sveinsson on the keyboard and the big screen showed the two playing in rapt concentration, as well as Kjartan’s Dickensian beard and moustache, complete with tapered ends.
Jónsi introduced the next songs as being from their new album. The red glow of Takk… was replaced with multicolour lights and the balloons started to flash alternately. The female string section Amiina, who according to the Times were dressed like ‘Victorians’ (if you call jumper dresses and lamé leggings Victorian) replaced their violins with big drums and they kicked off the lighter-hearted part of the concert with ‘Inní mér syngur vitleysingur’. A single member of the silver brass band provided the ‘La La Las’ in ‘Gobbledigook’ and it reached a crescendo with two pressurised canons shooting confetti into the air. Everyone on stage looked genuinely pleased with the effect. Then I think then they played ‘Við spilum endalaust’ which led into ‘Festival’–which was a must really.
I remember that they also definitely played ‘Hafsól’ as the big screen showed Georg Holm tapping a drum stick against the bridge of his guitar for the buzzing drum effect. With ‘Popplagið’ I knew it was the end of the concert. I put my camera firmly in my bag and stood there without blinking for the entire song. Sodden Suffolk wasn’t quite Reykjavik, but Orri Páll Dýrason pounded away on the drums and I saw Georg throw his guitar into the drum at the end.