I had the most wonderful time at the Jónsi concert. It was so much.
I sat with my wife on the right side balcony. It was a very good view of the stage even if it was off to the side a bit.
The opening act was a one man band called Death Vessel. He sang in a falsetto that reminded me of Melisa Etherege. The guitar playing was in a classical style but in a modern way of playing. The guitar itself was interesting. It was a steel string arch-top or classic style guitar. His playing was very good. It was enjoyable but not quite to my tastes. I was very surprised to find that the guy had vinyl albums for sale. It raised my respect for the guy a bit.
There was a brief intermission between the one man band and the heart of the concert. This is when we stopped at the table. There were some cool shirts and albums but I have never been one to get any of that stuff. My wife decided that she wanted a tote bag. It was a very cool bag. The graphic was that of paint runs. It appeared that the paint runs were hand made but the logo in the lower corner was probably silk screened.
I don’t remember everything that happened and if anybody can fill in gaps that would be very helpful. Thanks.
The show opened with 2 very quiet songs that were fantastic. The visuals that went with this were very simple but elegant. It appeared as though it was a graphic of paper printed with animals on it. Then this paper started to burn (don’t worry it is just a graphic). After the burn it was revealed to be butterflies behind the paper. It was just amazing and that was just the beginning!
The grey curtain dropped to reveal the rest of the stage the way I had seen in the preview information on the jonsi.com web site. I thought that I was jipped because the big stage set wasn’t there on the first two songs. I did not say anything but I was embarrassed for myself for thinking this.
The next video set was a bout a dear and a wolf. The wolf tracked the dear and began chase. Just before the wolf caught the dear the dear turned around and started charging the wolf. Just before they crashed into each other the dear turned into an owl and flew off. All of the video for this part was in black and white. As it started it was an average fall day and as the video progressed it became a winter blizzard (the black background became white).
There was another video that showed all the screens filling with water. It was unique in its own sort of way. It started with water running down the screens so that it looked like windows. But then the water started filling up at the bottom of the screens.
The next songs showed a plant starting to grow. The plant then flowered a few times. Then there was this beautiful red, orange and yellow humming bird that started getting nectar from the flower. Then suddenly there was so many hummingbirds that one couldn’t even count. It was an explosion of hummingbirds in the various red hues. It was beautiful.
There was another rainstorm that progressed into a snow storm for the next song. I did not think that this was so spectacular but still impressive considering how and why the graphics were created.
The next few songs incorporated graphics of colored smoke. It came in yellow, green and blue. The smoke looked so real and the colors were so vivid. This was yet another beautiful display from the set designer company.
There was an encore of a couple of songs.
The first had a really fin graphic of ants crawling across the screens. At first it was just the ants. Then they started carrying items. The first items were the normal items that you would see an ant carry; leaf parts and small rocks. Then they started carrying some odd things. They carried pieces of paper (with music on them), screws (point side straight up) and even a soda can. The very end of the video was very cute. It showed a can being rolled across the screen with an ant walking backward on the top of the can.
The last song was some really fantastic and realistic thunder storm. Lightning flashes and huge thunder sounds. There were heavy dark rainclouds that scrolled across the screens. At the end of the song the rain storm abated and little patches of light peaked through the clouds. All in all the video truly set the whole concert apart from any other that I have seen before.
On to the music. This is the set list. I don’t really want to do a song by song review here but I do want to point out some beautiful things that happened musically.
1. stars in still water
2. hengilás
3. icicle sleeves
4. kolniður
5. tornado
6. sinking friendships
7. saint naive
8. k12
9. go do
10. boy lilikoi
11. new piano song
12. around us
13. animal arithmetic
14. grow till tall
I remember that the first 2 songs were very quiet songs. It was very peaceful in nature. Not much in the way of drums at all but the first song used a xylophone. The drummer played the instrument with a pair of violin bows. It was a very beautiful sound coming from the instrument.
The drummer was absolutely fantastic through out this whole concert. So many different symbols used in perfect ways all the way through the concert. He also had exquisite use of silences.
I though that it was very cute the way that the bass keyboard was placed in a suitcase. The bassist was good. He not only played the bass guitar but also the keyboard in the suitcase and another instrument that had lights on it. I could only assume that the latter instrument was some kind of bass frequency emitter. He blended with the music so well. He was almost transparent in his playing as was the guitarist when playing the guitar. They were both flawless when playing these instruments. The guitarist also played the piano on some songs.
The xylophone was played by a few of the musicians. They seemed to switch around instruments depending on the song.
The concert was wonderful, beautiful, colorful, elemental and animalistic and amazing. I can’t recommend enough that everyone should see this group play these songs at least once!
I would like to add that if you are interested in listening to a concert there are some free downloads to have at Victory Rose blog
Signing off
No comments:
Post a Comment