The sun is shining, the air is beautifully warm and the sky is blue. I could and should have worn shorts this morning. The tails of my earbugs are snaking down my chest, sucking sound out of my iPhone and injecting it into my ear canals. That sound is Jónsi’s album Go and my stride is matching the pace of the song which is demanding that I skip and dance down the street. My eyes are darting to and fro as they search for the next scene of the visuals to accompany the beats, whistles and icelandic vocals. Nothing can get me down.
Embracing Jónsi into my personal bubble does not compare to Jónsi embracing me into his musical bubble at the Forum in London. The incredible visuals served to do more than simply accompany the music. They fluttered, burned, ran, blew, cascaded and flew. They transform the music into the exact experience I imagine when I’m in my earbug bubble trundling around London trying to escape from the noise and stress. But better. It was a vast mix of film, animation, set and lighting design. There were hundreds of butterflies, rising floodwater, animals chasing other animals through deep forests before metamorphosing into birds, armies of ants, growing flowers, hummingbirds and storms that ripped the set away. In much the same way that monks took text and turned them into gold leaf tomes of beauty, 59 productions have taken the music and lyrics of Jónsi and embellished them.
If you are a fan of Sigur Ros then I can not recommend the show enough. Go see it when they return to the UK in September.