| Sigur Rós / Siggi Ármann - Denver, Ogden Theatre Saturday 16th November 2002 |
The Ogden is the smallest venue I've seen Sigur Rós play. In London they would normally play one of the venues on the South Bank, but this venue is around the size of the LA2 (or Mean Fiddler as they would have you believe), with a small balcony at the back.
First up however was a solo artist Siggi Ármann. He sat on his own in the middle of the stage with his guitar and played the most beautiful and sparse songs. On some tracks he was joined by members of Sigur Rós, Kjartan Sveinsson on keyboards and backing vocals, and with Orri Páll Dýrason on drums. I still think it's very brave to be on stage solo playing to an audience who have come to see the main band. He must have ploughed through at least ten songs and completely won over the crowd by doing so.
Sigur Rós must have played for at least two hours, and it wasn't until about half way through the set that Jónsi started to use the bow on his guitar. As can be guessed the majority of the set was from the new album '()' but lots of my favourites from past releases were spread throughout.
I think that this was the first time that they've visited Denver, and that showed on the astonished looks on the locals faces throughout the set. As seems usual, not one word was uttered to the audience throughout, but one memorable moment was after a particularly powerful track had ended and the clapping had died down, someone shouted at the top of his voice into the deathly quiet of the venue "that was fucking brilliant!" Well said!
The sound was quite amazing and this was coupled with very clever use of the lights that fitted very well with the huge and moody music being played. No encore was forthcoming, even though the crowd bayed for more even when the lights did eventually go up, but to be honest I don't know how you do an encore after a set as powerful and as strong as they are doing at the moment. They simply all came on stage and bowed as the actors would at the end of a play.
Superb!
skippy
