The crowd on Collins Court at the John Wooden Center was a bit different than usual on Saturday night. Instead of being swamped with sweaty, intense pick-up games, the hardwood floors and bleachers were taken over by a more spiritual intensity as Icelandic band Sigur Rós played a short acoustic set and presented their latest concert/documentary film “Heima.”
Lead singer Jón Þór “Jónsi” Birgisson came on to introduce the band, and it was apparent right away that their notorious shyness was not just the stuff of legends. A three-song acoustic set may not seem like an ample amount of time, but with each song clocking in at around 10 minutes, it was a fitting preview of what would come much more forcefully right after they left the stage.
Although short, the set was moving and extraordinary. Sigur Rós’ songs are sung in a mixture of Icelandic and an invented language called Hopelandic, a combination of Icelandic syllables and a tongue that sounds as if it came straight out of a Tolkien story. Even though no one in the audience could understand the words, the emotion and meaning was conveyed through the other dynamic elements ““ the crying of Birgisson’s falsetto, the ethereal tinkling of piano keys and sweeping orchestral strings.
And then the real show began. “Heima” means “at home” or “homeland” in Icelandic, which fit the premise of the film. After a lengthy world tour promoting their 2005 album “Takk,” the band returns to Iceland for a series of free, unpublicized concerts in rural and urban settings. While it’s nearly impossible to imagine anything like this happening in America, the universal connection felt through music and community transcended all language and cultural barriers.
The sequencing of the film was unusual and genre-bending, seamlessly blending documentary-style interviews with concert footage and music video-like theater. The fictional vignettes and stunning nature shots, including backwards-flowing waterfalls and kaleidoscopic colors, all set to the band’s new music, communicated emotion even though we couldn’t understand the language we were hearing.
Occasionally, and not regrettably, there were breaks from straight music that cut to poignant, honest interviews with band members who spoke about the influence of their home settings on their music, their creative process, and the unique power that comes from playing for a curious, unbiased audience.
The audience saw many different parts of Sigur Rós’ heima ““ whether it was a light, joyful scene of a breakfast with friends and family, a utopian, angelic kite-flying outing, or a regal scene of a massive outdoor concert, the dynamism of their country reflected the dynamism of human life itself.
The climax of the movie came when the band played an enormous, electric show in urban ReykjavÃk ““ not just transcending cultural barriers, but tearing them down with ferocity. While the earlier parts of the movie focused on organic beauty and showed people of all ages calmly enjoying the music in rural settings, the ReykjavÃk concert was focused on high-energy, youthful rock’n’roll ““ much more relatable to a college-student audience.
The cultural differences that had been banished during the film by music and visuals were made more obvious again when the lights came back on, as the band fielded questions from the audience in what was billed as a once-in-a-lifetime experience. This “rare” question and answer session was excruciatingly awkward, and it wasn’t helped by the moderator confusing one of the band’s instruments with a type of fish.
A question about what they liked to do to relax resulted in a mocking answer about liking pedicures, and when asked about favorite American music, one answered “Creedence” while another band member said he didn’t like any of it.
But the real question people were asking as they left was, “So how much for a roundtrip ticket to ReykjavÃk?”
““ Devon McReynolds
E-mail McReynolds at dmcreynolds@media.ucla.edu.