Sigur Rós’ and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra captivate the Adelaide Entertainment Centre for the second night of their orchestral tour.  I entered the venue with only a passing knowledge of the group — but left feeling truly wound up in the transcendental web that only Sigur Ros can weave.

Categorising Sigur Ros as neo-classical’ feels like the closest approximation of a genre label I can offer. It comprises lead vocalist and guitarist Jónsi”, bassist Georg Hólm, and keyboardist Kjartan Sveinsson. This tour marks the band’s first time playing with a full orchestra in Australia, a 41 piece orchestra to be precise. As the band took to the stage, no introduction was needed. Members of the band seemed to be nestled amongst the orchestra in the pit. Just a moment of applause from the audience was necessary to prelude the experience.

In a world of distortion the pure voice and tones of the band feel refreshing. I was struck by how Jonsi’s voice mirrored the timbre and quality of the violin. When the singer and strings meet on a note the two seemed to blend into a unified sound that was indistinguishable. This is reported to have been part of the band’s goal, hoping to be incorporated into the ensemble, rather than just fronting it.

Jónsi’s bowed guitar seemed to glide above the orchestra. The strings guide us tenderly from one flourish to the next. The drums gave the piece rhythm and ground the symphony in its journeys. The lighting for the night was quite subdued, however it seemed to breathe in time with the music. My ear is untrained to the nuances of an orchestra. As soon as I have become attuned to a pattern in the song, a new idea seems to have already developed alongside it.

Before the Show:

Ahead of the show, the band’s bassist Georg Hólm had been interviewed on Three D Radio. Host of the ‘Arts Garden’ James Murphy covered a lot of ground with Georg, speaking about the power of music as a language, making the small feel big, and the bands collaboration with orchestras.

In the interview Georg mused that “music communicates without saying anything… it doesn’t need the vowels and consonants to do it”. He remembers one saying in particular from the Ken Thomas, the bands first producer “just remember that making music is only moving air”. For example the vibrations of a speaker move air and make sound, the movement of air creates emotion.

There is a vast ocean between the intent of the artist and the interpretation of the listener. This is all the more obscure with a band like Sigur Ros where not a single word of English is spoken during the performance. This lack of grounding is refreshing as to my ears, allowing every song to become an instrumental.

Having not been privy to much of the band’s catalogue, this made identifying individual songs quite difficult. I began to distinguish the composition by the feelings they conveyed. There were some that invoked great sadness, a feeling of futility for all the efforts of man-kind. Another with languished harmonies that made me feel as if I was sitting in a church choir. Others were more hopeful, prompting memories of spring, fresh bread, and warmth.

As Georg said, I’ve always liked this idea since I was a kid “of things being very small and very big at the same time”. This was further explained as “whispering these big things”. This was a concept that only made sense after seeing the band live. They have a certain power to focus the audience’s attention and give weight to seemingly minute elements of the composition.

On Conducting:

On the Australian leg of the tour alone the band is playing with 5 different orchestras. Georg cites conductor Rob Ames as the driving force of the bands orchestral collaborations. He has “been the key to making this happen… “he just speaks music”. Members of the band are particularly attuned to the relationship of their music with the orchestral arrangements. They did not “want to have this moat between the Sigur Ros band and the orchestra… it was meant to be us and the orchestra”. The preparation certainly came across on the night. It felt as if every instrument was given room to breathe

A few weeks earlier I had attended the Adelaide Symphony Orchestras performance with Josh Pyke. While the collaboration felt quite grand and enhanced the experience, I felt that they overpowered the songs that I had grown up listening to. In contrast, for Sigur Ros the orchestra serves to elevate and compliment every composition of the band. As summarized by Georg “those two words are supposed to speak to each other… it would be the Sigur Ros orchestra”. The sense of professionalism on the night was palpable. I felt as if the members of the ASO appreciated the people they were working with and triumphed on the occasion.

The final song felt like a breaking of the emotional spell that had been cast on the night. Thumping drums driving a dainty rhythm on the piano, given a sense of urgency by the strings, then subdued by a xylophone and the bowed guitar. The ensemble erupts again with the lead vocals and whole orchestra. Lights washing over the crowd as they rose for an ovation. It was hard not to smile. The orchestra continued to play while the core members walked off stage.  The sounds emitting from the orchestra began to swell, rising to a create a wall of sound, akin to the end of the Beatles ‘a day in the life’. The sound gradually abating and disappearing into an Icelandic abyss.

A lot of the hype around Sigur Ros is that listening to their music is a deeply emotional experience. Concert attendees often report crying and a sense akin to a deep spiritual experience. It’s music that connects with the soul, it has the power to quiet crying children and silence car alarms. I do not think I was truly prepared for the experience. I needed the rest that this music invokes. It made me feel a sense of nostalgia for a place I have never been. This is one gig that will be committed to memory.

Only the Brisbane shows remain for the band (May 27th / 28th). They are in fine form for their tour of Europe later this year.

Written by Joshua Hibovesky.

 

Images supplied by Ashleigh Noordhoek – @ashndhk)

Published 26/5/25