Dave is…
At Sigur Ros at the United Palace Theater.
Yeah, Jonsi is singing into his pick-ups
Sigur Ros – Popplagið (Live at United Palace Theater 9/17/08)
Sigur Ros is a strange band and United Palace is a strange venue but they are both also extraordinarily beautiful and interesting so lemme do my best to explain them, specially for those of you who have started the sample track and are now going “WTF”.
First a little bout UPT. I’ve discussed it before (I saw Panic twice here in April) but it’s worth describing again, especially cause thanks to Ryan Muir’s sublime photos (which I stole, along with the setlist from Brooklyn Vegan) you can actually see what I am talking about.
The Theater, on 175th and Broadway, so really far enough north to be considered the Arctic for most of us, was built for vaudeville and movies in 1930 and was the third largest auditorium in the US when it opened.
According to the AIA Guide to New York City (via Wikipedia) it is in the “Cambodian neo-Classical” style and according to David Dunlap (also via Wikipedia) it is “Byzantine-Romanesque-Indo-Hundu-Sino-Moorish-Persian-Eclectic-Rococo-Deco”. I like that. Rococo-Deco sounds awesome.
And it looks awesome, though admittedly intensely garish at times and strange at others.
In the ‘60’s it was purchased by Reverend Ike and his Christ United Church and if the old school marquees are telling the truth ol’ Rev Ike still preaches there on Sundays.
As you can see whatever you want to call it it makes for a hell of a place to see a show and whoever books it has done a great job of selecting bands that would fit the venue including Arcade Fire, Neil Young and now Sigur Ros.
Now follow me on this as I try to explain Sigur Ros, again with much assistance from Wikipedia. Just a quick disclaimer, Bjork is often used when attempting to describe them cause they are both exceptionally strange and from Iceland however Bjork is fucking terrible and these guys are amazing.
They are an Icelandic post-rock band big on melodic, classical and minimalist elements and best known for their “ethereal sound and lead singer Jonsi Birgisson’s falsetto voice.” I might argue that they are equally as well known for the fact that Jonsi Birgisson (a rock star name if I ever heard one) sings everything in a made up language known as Hopelandic. This fake language consists of nonsense syllables which resemble the phonology of the regular Icelandic language. I know, I know. It’s ridiculous. I guess the idea is the listener is supposed to come up with their own meanings, which for at least one album they could then write into the blank pages of the album booklet where lyrics would normally be written.
There other signature is the way Jonsi plays his guitar with a cello bow and heavily accentuated reverb. Seriously that’s the best explanation I can give, just listen to the song, every song sounds pretty much like that. I mean I love them and I until this show I don’t think I could’ve put a name with a single song. In part that’s cause my favorite album of theirs “( )” (yeah the title is a pair of empty parenthesis) doesn’t have track titles. They are just Tracks 1-whatever. And the other albums which do have titles are all in Hopelandic which doesn’t make it any easier to connect them, again especially when all the tunes sound at least to me pretty similar.
They are not only huge with hipsters but actually are pretty revered amongst musicians, I first heard of them when reading an interview with Jerry Joseph (who frequently works with Widespread Panic) that talked about how he cried the first time he saw them it was so beautiful. Jay and I saw them at the Theater at the Garden a few years back and while neither of us cried we did enjoy the show a lot.
Sigur Ros due to its style has concerts that best resemble classical performances with silent rapt audiences and the absolute necessity of chairs. This show was kicking off their North American tour and is their first tour in a number of years to not feature their string or horn sections, it was just the stripped down four man core band.
Dsan took this picture of me admiring the atrium
Still they managed to create a full sound and it was a really sweet show. It was also nice cause there was a whole crew going, something far too rare these days. Me, Jay, Cate, Rob, John, Sarah, Dsan, Leroy, Justin, and Gush all met up at Dsan’s and went up there and it was a lot of fun getting to go out with them. I have been trying to be better about not coming off as a ghost to my friends this year.
Really the only downsides to the show were the fact that there is no AC there which wasn’t a problem when I was on the floor for Panic but way in the back of the balcony it got pretty toasty and the fact that United Palace is f$%*&#ing on 175th which required a long ass subway ride down and then another one over to get home to Queens. Still way better than dicking around in the library avoiding my ConLaw homework.
setlist:
svefn g englar
glósóli
ný batterí
fljótavik
við spilum endalaust
hoppípolla
með blóðnasir
svo hljótt
heysátan
viðrar vel til loftárása
inní mér syngur vitleysingur
sæglópur
hafssól
gobbledigook
all alright (there only English language song on their newest album which just came out)
popplagið
All credit for photos as I said goes to Ryan Muir (and Dsan). Setlist thanks to BrooklynVegan.com. The show was recorded and is available thanks to NYCTaper. Download it HERE.