You can just call me Ms. WYEP
Last night I had the rather enjoyable experience of seeing Sigur Ros live at the Byham Theatre. Sigur Ros are from Iceland and I think they're one of those really divisive bands. Anyone you talk to either really loves them or flies into psychotic rages at the mere mention of their name. Of course, that just might be a characteristic of the circle in which I travel because everyone I know is absolutely out of their fucking minds. 🙂
Anyway, I really liked the show. It was an odd time, though. Sigur Ros' music isn't exactly condusive to dancing or going buck wild…it's more of a sit-in-your-seat-and-let-your-emotions-and-memories-take-hold-of-you kind of deal…Of course, I just made it sound like a Lifetime Television for Women movie. Oh, well.
I think many people would be inclined to call them the Icelandic Radiohead and I suppose there's an element of truth to that statement. Sigur Ros seem to have just skipped right over Pablo Honey and The Bends and gone straight to the weirder sonic experiments on OK Computer through Amnesiac. (And another thing, I don't know when it became “deck” to hate Radiohead but you can all bite me.)
But the main thing that I came out of the show thinking is that, way more so than on their albums, you can really see that they go just completely balls-out trying to make as many different sounds as they can. However, it doesn't result in a cacophony of garbage. It's actually quite beautiful. The lead singer has this somewhat creepy high voice and spent much of the show screaming stuff like, “AWAAAAAOOOOOOOOO” and “EWWWWYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOOO” It felt a little overly emotional at times but I think Iceland will do that to a person. I remember seeing some show one time that talked about the drinking problems and depression of people up there due to the weather. I'm pretty sure it's one of those regions that spends half of the year in darkness. I could be wrong, though. Maybe that was Greenland…no, isn't Greenland just like a frozen tundra? I remember hearing that the Vikings discovered them both and named Iceland Iceland to confuse people into going to frozen Greenland, thereby keeping nice little Iceland to themselves. Those Vikings were devilish, weren't they?
Of course, this being Pittsburgh, there were a few hecklers. One guy ran up to the stage and held a sign up to show the band. No idea what it said…the bass player just sort of looked at it and gave him a “Okay, please leave me the fuck alone” grin. Then a guy sitting directly behind me and to my left screamed, “ALCOA GO HOME!” At first, no one could understand him so he repeated, “ALCOA GO HOME! LEAVE ICELAND ALONE!” Someone told him to shut up, ala Michael Moore at the Oscars. I thought it was kind of a dumb moment to start a protest that might, at best, sound quite condescending. If only Bjork had been there. She could have smashed in that guy's head with a safety deposit box. Bjork = rock.
But I spent some time with Bradford, who I hadn't seen in ages, and his ever-present companion Molly, who's looking more and more like a tackle box every time I see her. Molly, I seen the needle and damage done, you know? Give the piercings a break. But I find myself not as annoyed by her behavior as I have been in the past. I think, like most people, she just hates the boyfriend and tends to take that out on me. Because, you know, a woman is nothing more than her man. Misogynists.
Well, my son seems intent on doing harm to himself so I have to go intervene. I'm also going to CMU later to talk to some guy at Human Resources about getting a job there. Military Industrial Complex, be damned. I want their bomb-ass health insurance. My baby needs shots.
Later
