Sigur Ros. Boston 5/14/06

Sunday May 14th was perhaps the worst possible day for an “outdoor” concert ever. First Sigur Rós is not exactly an outdoor kind of band. They seem so much more at home playing in an old opera house or theatre. The Bank of America Pavilion (as it is currently called) doesn’t fit. Add to the fact that the venue wasn’t right, to the fact that the band was playing on Mother’s Day Sunday. Sunday’s are never good days for concerts. If you’ve never been to the Pavilion I’ll let you know about some of the venues lesser points. First, it is right on Boston harbor. Second, it is open on the sides to the elements. Third, the roof leaks. Fourth you have to leave the protection of the leaky roof anytime you wish to use the restroom, or go buy a coffee or hot chocolate to vainly attempt to raise your core body temperature as you slowly succumb to hypothermia. I almost forgot to mention Sunday the 14th was during the height of the flooding northern New England was experiencing, so the concert was occurring during a constant downpour.

It was cold when I got to the venue, I think it was upper 40s – mid 50s, and rainy. I was hoping that being in the 6th row I would feel some sort of residual heat from the stage. I assumed the band would get some sort of large space heater. They didn’t. I’m not going to tell you about the opener, Amiina. I don’t like their music, and don’t feel the desire to chronicle their highly repetitive set. Every time I see them it’s the same thing. Sigur Ros started as they always do, behind a curtain starting with Takk… and Glosoli. I have disliked the whole curtain thing since the beginning, and this show really made me hate it. The way the stage was set up didn’t lend itself to the curtain falling or rising at the end of Glosoli, so the band was forced to have a stagehand run across the stage left to right pulling the curtain to the side. To spare you any suspense the same thing happened in reverse at the end of the show.

The show was almost entirely free of any technical mishaps. During the second half of Sæglópur Kjartan lost something underneath his keyboard setup. It didn’t affect the song in any way, but it was entertaining to watch Kjartan and two tech’s scramble about under the keyboard. The band only played ONE song off Agætis Byrjun, and that was Olsen Olsen. I would love for the crowd to sing along to the end of this song, but I just can’t fathom the crowd ever giving into such tom foolery. Other than that they played four of the 8 songs off of ( ), and nine songs from Takk… which as great. The two songs they didn’t play are me two least favorite. Two of the songs off of ( ) I had never heard before so that that was a real treat, not to mention this was the first time I’d seen them play more than one song during the encore.

I wasn’t the only one that was cold during the show. The band were all wearing fingerless gloves, and overcoats (except Orri). It was funny, all the guys had nice overcoats to wear that looked really nice, except Jonsi, he looked like he bought his coat at the dingiest thrift store in Boston. Kjartan looked really cold, being seated and whatnot. While playing track 7 from ( ) he was really getting into the rhythm of the song, and stomping his feet along to the song. I don’t know if this was because he was cold, or just liked to stomp about during the song.

I wish the band had done something special for this show, it was their last North American show and whatnot. They could have played a couple of extra songs or something. The crowd really wanted it. At the end the band did their usual curtain call, only to be called back out two more times for a total of three curtain calls. The crowd wouldn’t stop, even after the house lights had gone up. The band didn’t give in though, all we got was a human pyramid.

1. takk...
2. glósóli
3. sæglópur
4. njósnavélin
5. e-bow
6. gong
7. andvari
8. hoppípolla
9. með bloðnasir
10. svo hljótt
11. heysátan
12. olsen olsen
13. smaskifa
---------------
14. dauðlagið
15. popplagið