Sigur Rós concert
Last Friday, I went up to Berkeley with my friend Nick and a new friend Joey for the Sigur Rós show at the Greek Theatre. Readers will already know that I enjoy this band quite a bit. For those that don’t know, they are an Icelandic band with a sound that is hard to describe easily. Nonetheless, it has resonated and I was greatly looking forward to this concert, as it was the first time seeing them live.
We drove up and met up some of Nick’s high school friends who are at Berkeley now for dinner, then walked up into campus. Berkeley is lucky — the Greek Theatre is a popular Bay Area venue for fairly big bands (Radiohead and Death Cab plays here), and it’s literally in the middle of campus. Like, across the street from undergraduate dorms. The university holds functions here. It’s an open-air Greek amphitheatre (see what they did there? — Greg) with high stadium seating around a pit area.
The opening act was another Icelandic band named Parachutes with a similar style to Sigur Rós. The show finally started at around 9pm, and the band played a great selection of songs from all four of their albums, including some of my favorites like Ný batterí, Hoppípolla + Með Blóðnasir, Sæglópur, Glósóli, Inní mér syngur vitleysingur, Gobbledigook, and Popplagið (also called Untitled 8). I did wish that their friends Amiina and a brass band could have joined them — it makes some of their songs truly shine.
photo credit: CommandZed
photo credit: JessBees
But the best moment came at the end - it was threatening to rain the entire evening but hadn’t. The band came out for their encore and started Popplagið. This is a song that builds and builds intensity until finally going berserk at the end. Halfway through it, it starts to drizzle, and the rain kept building too. By the time the band went insane with Jónsi’s e-bow going nuts, it was pouring and everyone was going crazy. Though I think the rain kept the band from playing (the stage was getting wet), it was an awesome way to end the show. Someone fortunately captured this on film (thanks mytigerluck):
After the show, I went up to Oakland with Nick to meet up with the other Nick at his girlfriend’s house. She was having people over and generously let us crash at their place. Next up: the MP3 experiment!