Sigur Ros’s show at the Greek on Friday was epic and magnificent.

Parachutes, the opener, is another Icelandic band. Their music tread on some of the same ground as Sigur Ros, but was more in line with the full-orchestrated emotional pop of a band like the Stars. The singer’s voice was a bit thin and, at times, out of tune and while their songs had a lot of elements I tend to like, I didn’t find the songs engaging.

Having never seen Sigur Ros before and having bought tickets back in June, I had a lot of time and reason to build this show up in my mind. But I resisted that temptation, because, after all, Sigur Ros is just a band.

When I heard the band was touring as the “original four piece” for the first time in however long, I was a bit disappointed. When I saw Heima, I’d noted a number of the beautiful moments the four piece + strings had made together and I was hoping to hear equally as beautiful moments. In the end, I hardly even noticed the strings weren’t there.

There are shows that are magical and there are shows that are just shows, but are really good. This show started in the just-a-show range and by the end definitely had some specialness to it. During the gorgeously lit first song, where Jonsi et al. were backlit in green, I turned around and saw a couple hundred foot tall shadow version of Jonsi bowing away at his guitar projected on a thousand fans going up the seats on the hillside.

The lighting and sound were really good throughout. The lighting was rarely crazy (though the epilepsy strobes midway were a bit much), but it was appropriate. The sound was mixed well and it sounded huge. While it was loud, there was more to it than that, more space and size.

The band has played a lot at this point and it was obvious. This is certainly a benefit of gradually becoming bigger over 10 years. They were tight but could let loose at will. Their song selection was not always treading on their most well-known songs (they did play Glosoli and Svenf-g-englar), but took the audience through the ups and downs well.

Their dark, single song (“Von”? “Untitled 8″) encore[1] wasn’t enough for the audience and the band had to come out and group bow to quiet people down.

So, you’re probably asking, did it blow my mind? No, I left the same person as I entered, but I was thrilled, entertained and bolstered by the performance.

[1] No, I’m not mentioning the rain that started during the encore…Doh!

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 8th, 2008 at 3:55 pm Posted by adrian in SF bay area, live review. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.