Usually, when a band can’t keep the audience’s attention on its members, it’s a bad sign.
At last night’s ethereal, other-worldly Sigur Rós show at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House, it reflected a next-level production that felt out of this reality.
The show – originally scheduled for the smaller Paramount Theater venue – met the band’s promise of a prompt 8:30 p.m. start time. Unlike past performances, the three Icelandic members came to Denver with no support act for their latest tour, a career first. The show also lacked their characteristic string and brass sections in favor of a more intimate venue space and production.
Judging by the blissed-out audience, no one listening or watching the stage felt the slightest absence.
The first set was a slow burn in the best way, as the evening began with a swath of galaxy-esque light effects pouring off the stage, submerging the audience in the ambiance.
Frontman Jón Þór “Jónsi” Birgisson crooned in captivating falsetto through the first set, touching on the favorites of old while adding a new twist to the arrangements. Slumped in the shadows behind the varying spotlights and LED light strips over projection screens – at times depicting grandiose landscapes and at others abstract birds on a wire – Birgisson bowed his electric guitar into wave after crescendoing wave.
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The nearly packed house sat still and captivated throughout the relaxed numbers, coming to attention as drummer Orri Páll Dýrason cracked the air with resounding percussion in time with the aggressive flash of stage lights, lightening against the dark, basal thrum of the band’s instrumentation. Though at times Dýrason struck a half beat off of the choreographed light cue or dropped a beat, his quick correction made for a barely perceptible blip.
Spellbound under Birgisson’s entrancing chanting – ranging from lyrics in Icelandic to the band’s fabricated “hopelandic” dialect – listeners watched as the light show continued its slow crawl over the venue’s walls, ceilings and other faithful patrons.
When the music swelled — and with it, the room — Sigur Rós played with the border of uncomfortably loud before retreating into their concisely executed post-rock ebb.
In the second set, the trio turned up everything up a notch both in sound and light elements.
Starting off mid stage behind a series of LED screens, it wasn’t immediately clear where they were playing from, further putting an emphasis on the total package of the performance beyond their individual stage presence.
The lack of strings and brass allowed the group to stretch their legs and the set wider, bringing in a layered aesthetic that slowly peeled away as the set neared its end.
In the space between the chords of one song and another, the room swayed with the movement of audience members who had risen to the feet and a heavy, anticipatory silence of the next note.
When the last finally came ringing against the high walls of the opera house, the wave broke into an eruption of applause as the trio bowed and departed into the world from whence they came.
