From the Salmon

My first Sigur Rós concert in April 2003 was one of the most magical and moving I’ve ever seen.

As we sat in our seats Saturday night and took in the gilded art deco grandeur of Oakland’s Paramount Theatre, we wondered whether such a transcendent experience could be repeated. We hoped that, with a powerful new album of material to perform, the quartet from Iceland would be up to the challenge.

But before we could get our answers, the women from Amina took the stage. We had seen them previously only as the striking string quartet that filled out Sigur Rós’ sound so beautifully in 2003. But on their own, they were a delightful surprise.

At first, they performed very much as expected, launching into an intricate and lush string arrangement. From there, things got sublimely quirky. For the rest of the set, the four ladies flitted from instrument to instrument, laying down the building blocks for some astonishing musical edifices. And what instruments! Xylophones and organs and bells. Harps and music boxes and vocal percussion. They even built one of their songs around the resonance of a wet finger on the rims of crystal water goblets. And for the final two pieces, one of the women hiked up her skirt and clamped a handsaw between her knees, alternately attacking it with a bow and a mallet to produce unexpected fragile melodies.

Amina’s set was so captivating that, for a few moments, I completely forgot about the main reason we were there. I would see a full set of theirs in a heartbeat.

After a short intermission in which I unsuccessfully tried to track down the EP that Amina promised they were selling in the lobby, my anticipation for the rest of the concert began to build.

When I returned to my seat, a gossamer curtain was draped between us and the stage. The lights dimmed in the theatre, and the introductory track from Takk... raised my pulse a few notches. The band silently took the stage and picked up where the album track left off, launching into “Glósóli.” As the slow march began to build momentum, the backlit musicians loomed larger than life on the gauzy screen. When Jónsi’s extraordinary falsetto emerged from the flickering shadows, my wife and I glanced at each other knowingly. It was about to happen all over again.

For the next two hours, I would fall deeper and deeper under their spell. The sheer barrier ascended, and an e-bow cacophony resolved into Georg’s tender bass introduction for “Ný Batterí.” The crashing crescendos of “Sæglópur” melted into the soaring sweetness of “Vaka.”

At times, Jónsi seemed to pull back a bit from his vocals. His voice definitely warmed up as the concert progressed, but it gave the first few songs a surprisingly frail and vulnerable quality.

As song bled into song, the applause between them seemed at times almost jarringly inappropriate. Then again, so did sitting quietly in my seat. The audience on the whole was genuinely respectful and appreciative throughout the show, even during the 30 seconds or so of silence in the middle of “Viðrar vel til loftárása.”

Once again, the highlight of the night was “Hafssól.” Even though I knew what was coming, it still floored me. Georg began by beating out the foundational bass line with a drumstick. Jónsi and Kjartan’s voices rang out clearly over Orri’s brushed cymbals. Amina’s plucked strings heightened the rhythmic tension. As the song swelled towards its thundering conclusion, Jónsi reduced his bow to a frayed stub as he pounded on his guitar, Amina attacked their own strings with a similar intensity, and Georg and Orri began to spur each other to faster and more frenzied tempos. And then, out of the bombast and tumult, Kjartan’s penny whistle emerged and sustained as a singular beacon in the subsiding storm. Even the second time, it was nothing short of mindblowing.

I remembered to breathe again, only to receive the biggest surprise of the night as the band eased into the quieter “Smáskífa,” a transformation of “Vaka” that they had released as the b-side tracks on the “Vaka” single. It brought the set to a tranquil conclusion, and the musicians slowly left the stage one by one.

Sigur Rós rewarded our standing ovation with an encore, finishing off the night with a performance of “Popplagið .” The diaphanous drapery descended once again, and the shadows towered as a flickering video display added to the pounding delirium of one final crescendo.

Several minutes of equally thunderous applause would bring the bands back out for two curtain calls. But the music was done.

And once again, after merely sitting in our seats for a few hours of music, we walked out euphoric and utterly exhausted.