My ears are ringing

Last night with Anna to see Sigur Rós. Here is a picture somebody took who was sitting much farther from the stage. We were in row B, which was the second row, which was, wow, really close. Thanks to Anna for the birthday present!

Doing a search on Flickr for Sigur Rós will net you many more pictures, most of them from the weekend's Coachella music fest. It looks like whoever was in row B at Coachella got a lot better view due to the daylight. (By contrast, here is what the stage show looked like.) Also -- and I noticed this from this morning's NYT piece on Coachella -- the band performed with a brass section there, while at the Marin Civic Ctr last night there was only the female string/percussion squadron chiming in (literally) and also opening for S.R.

So, the lead singer guy -- man, he really does sing that high, almost always with a pained expression on his face like he's really squeezing it out. When he's not singing, he plays his electric guitar with a violin bow, producing deep, siren-like waves of sound that quickly develop into noise. At times he strokes back and forth across the guitar strings with an almost masturbatory obsessiveness, like someone who's been jacking off for too long but still thinks he can come if he just manages to eek out the last bit of sensation in a couple of disconnected spots.

If I had to sing two octaves above my natural range and play my guitar with a violin bow, I might make anguished faces too. As for the rest of the band, the bass player had a stereotypical aloofness and the keyboard player seemed a little unsure of himself and especially of his background vocals, which in this live version were minimal.

Here's a very accurate review of the show as it was performed several weeks ago in Austin. That's another thing, these guys have apparently been on tour for months and if I had to do that show four or five times a week for months on end I might be a little grim too.