Jónsi brings high drama to Vancouver

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      At the Vogue Theatre on Tuesday, April 6

      Even if you were paying less-than-rapt attention, you couldn’t help but notice the butterflies when Jónsi took to the stage of the Vogue on Tuesday night. Hell, missing them was impossible, this having nothing to do with the fact that, after 16 years fronting Sigur Rós, the angel-voiced singer was making his debut as a solo performer.

      While the tall and pale Icelander seemed to take a while to get comfortable, these butterflies were actually visual in nature. They fluttered into view a couple of songs into the set, during “Hengilás”, numbering two at first, each projected onto the faux-scorched light boxes which doubled as projection screens on either side of the stage. Halfway through the song, as scratchily animated animals bounded across a giant backdrop behind the performers, they suddenly exploded into a small butterfly blizzard that engulfed the boxes, making for the first captivating moment of a night packed with breathtaking eye candy.

      If you wanted high drama—both visually and musically—you were in the right place.

      While it would finish on a blazingly epic note, the night didn’t exactly start out with a bang. Jónsi arrived on-stage quietly in black pants and a military-issue white jacket, this accessorized by a red guitar strap that made him look like Archduke Albert of Austria. Adding a decidedly surreal touch to the ensemble, he also appeared to have the remnants of a shredded rainbow-hued macramé project draped over his left shoulder.

      Without so much as a hello, the singer launched into a sombre, stripped-raw “Stars In Still Water”, accompanying himself on acoustic guitar, his famously eerie voice hitting notes out of reach to mere mortals. Without his long-time bandmates for support, he seemed mildly unsure of himself, standing ramrod straight at the mike for the first part of the show.

      But if he was a pint short of Iggy Pop-like charisma in the beginning, this was more than compensated for by a production that was nothing less than stunning. Designed by a British firm that usually works with opera and modern-dance productions, the show was heavy on animal imagery. During a symphonic “Kolnií°ur”, projected black-and-white owls flew out of nowhere to land on towering gothic trees while grainy wolves chased deer across empty fields. Crudely drawn rabbits and birds appeared to catch fire and burn down to ashes. And that was all in the first 15 minutes.

      Halfway through the night, the stage-to-ceiling backdrop fell away, revealing the ruins of what appeared to be an abandoned factory. Neon-coloured streams of Jackson Pollock-esque paint would run down the postindustrial faí§ade only to disappear seconds later. Snow blizzards would roar in from nowhere, giving you a good idea what Iceland is like 11 months out of the year.

      It’s a testimony to the strength of Jónsi's solo debut, Go, that the songs never got lost in the visual bombardment. Backed by a Road Warrior refugee on drums, a tall blond new-wave twinkie on bass, and a Nuggets-indebted guy that might or might not have been Emo Philips on guitar, Jónsi wrung every bit of baroque beauty out of marvels like “Sinking Friendships”. And, surprise, surprise, he started to look like he was actually having fun once he got to Go’s lighter numbers: the swooping pastoral pop of “Go Do” and the playful postrocker “Boy Lilikoi”.

      By the time things wound down, there was almost too much going on to process, including the fact that the multimedia-overloaded night seemed to be a giant commentary on the rise and fall of man on the planet Earth, this driven home by the army of ants carrying away tin cans, screws, and paper money during “Animal Arithmetic”.

      It all ended monumentally, with Jónsi disappearing backstage, and then reappearing wearing a multicoloured native headdress. With the band making a sound like a hurricane at ground zero, he thrashed around the stage during an epic, distortion-blitzed “Grow Till Tall”, the screen behind him ablaze with lightning flashes and a near-blinding snowstorm. Guaranteed to be remembered as the concert moment of the year, it was a conclusion that was nothing less than pulverizing in the best way. And there wasn’t a butterfly in sight.


      Jónsi performs "Kolnií°ur" at the Vogue Theatre on April 6, 2010.

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