Sigur Rós live at the Woods at Fontanel.
Photo by Nick Thornton.
At some point during the display of vibrant lights and rapturous sounds that define the experience of seeing Sigur Rós live, it dawned on me that they are the only band I know of with such widespread acclaim whose lyrics are unintelligible to the vast majority of their fan base. This is, in part, because a large portion of the words that singer/bowed guitar player Jónsi Birgisson uses are actually a made-up dialect of self-described “gibberish vocals that fits to the music” which he refers to as Volenska, or “Hopelandic.” The lyrics that are not in this fantasy language are in the band’s native tongue, Icelandic, which is equally beautiful yet unintelligible to the foreign ear.
The ambiguity of the lyrics opens a whole new door for listeners, though, allowing them to not only focus more on the musicality of the songs, but also to interpret them on a much more personal level than lyric-driven songs might allow. This was evidenced by the silence that swept the crowd as the band took the stage at the Woods Amphitheater at Fontanel on Sept. 27 and set us, their Nashville audience, off on this musical journey with the song “Yfirborð,” from their latest album, Kveikur, released earlier this year. The live string section that backed the band and the drone of Birgisson’s bowed guitar carried us into a musical fantasy land as his falsetto vocals chimed in to guide the way.
The whole set, collectively, was much like one of the band’s songs, starting quietly and slowly then meandering through many sonic peaks and valleys along the way. The lighting and staging were a perfect complement to the music, creating as many different colorscapes and visual wonderlands for the eyes as the music did for the ears. Some of the songs were new to most of the audience, as the band introduced other recently released tracks like “Hrafntinna” and “Kveikur,” while others like “Glósóli” and “Sæglópur” took us back to the days when we fell in love with the band’s beautiful gibberish so many years ago. Actually, the only words I understood from the stage the whole night were Birgisson’s brief greeting after the couple of songs and his thanking us for showing up towards the end of the set. The band wrapped up the show with the epic song “Popplagið,” dancing into it with gently picked strings and brushed drums and then escalating into a cathartic barrage of screaming guitars and powerful, offset rhythms that would make even the most loyal of metalheads nod along to the beat.
While I’m not even completely sure I can pronounce the band’s name correctly, much less any of the song titles, and I have no idea what the songs mean to the band members themselves, I do know that to the people that love Sigur Rós they are one of the most special bands around today. They connect with their audience on a completely different level than any other band, and exemplify the notion that music crosses all boundaries, brings people together, and speaks through to the human spirit in ways that words simply have no capacity to do.
Check out the band’s website or YouTube channel for more.
