We knew from the moment we heard the words "no flash" that all of our pictures were going to look like this...such are the perils of shooting digital. Not being able to get very close to the stage didn't help, either. This is the best of our pictures. Sorry. This picture of Jon Thor Birgisson was taken by Linotte77. It was taken at a live show in Hanover, Germany. We borrowed it from Sigur Rós's website so you'd have something to look at besides a blur.

Airplane A leaves Iceland, flying west at X miles per hour. Sigur Rós is on the plane. How fast will they have to travel to reach the United States ahead of their own hype machine?

On this particular evening, it was obvious that Sigur Rós' publicity juggernaut had reached a fever pitch. Over the last few months, we'd observed awareness of the band grow steadily; once merely the source of reverent whispers among like-thinking rock writers, they'd suddenly become The Band to Watch, the focus of a massive label bidding war (ultimately won by MCA) and The Hottest Ticket in Town. We were quietly surprised that there wasn't a crowd of people standing, mouths foaming, in front of the venue, ready and willing to debase themselves for a spare ticket to this sold-out show.

Their music aside, Sigur Rós clearly care about aesthetics. They're known for performing on stages decorated with fresh flowers (victory roses, perhaps?), and for choosing venues that will provide optimal acoustics for their performances (as opposed to shitty indie rock clubs). They're also smart enough to play in rooms with a decent amount of seating. While I won't necessarily lump Sigur Rós in with the whole post-rock crowd, anyone who has seen Tortoise, Godspeed You Black Emperor, etc. will tell you that the experience is significantly enhanced by being able to sit down. There's really no reason to stand up; you can't dance to this music, and swaying around in a trance-like fashion will cause you to (a) look like an idiot and (b) spill your drink on someone. Soaring choruses and thundering melodic peaks are all very well and good, but it sucks to listen to them while standing up. Even as two thirds of your mind is being carried aloft on the wings of angels, the other third is wondering if your legs will hold out for the rest of the show. Do you want to greet each new song with "Oh, fuck, not another one?" after paying $15 for a ticket? Of course you don't. So, to return to my point, a big thumbs up to whoever booked Sigur Rós into the Park West, which was able to provide seats for the majority of the audience. I wish I'd got there in time to find a chair.

Another plus: no opening act. Some time between 7:30 and 8:00, the lights dimmed and the Sigur Rós folks strolled onto the stage. Earlier that day, I'd been searching rather anxiously for my copy of Ágætis byrjun, which I hadn't listened to in a couple of months, so as to be able to recognize more of the songs. No luck. However, "Ný batterí", with which Sigur Rós began their set, was a readily recognizable starting point. Vocalist/guitarist Jon Thor Birgisson, who plays his electric guitar with a bow, provided unintelligible Icelandic lyrics in his trademark girlish falsetto, supported by guitar, bass, keyboards and drums. A string quartet joined them two or three songs into the set, adding a pair of violins, a viola and a cello to the volatile mix. I believe there was a xylophone on stage as well, though it was difficult to tell from the back of the packed house.

Sigur Rós differs from bands like Godspeed You Black Emperor not only by writing actual "songs" as opposed to long-form musical sprawls, but by favoring abrupt musical peaks over long, slow builds. Their climactic moments, when they come, can also far more "pop" oriented -- a modernized take on the sort of grand, orchestral moments found in many over-the-top seventies pop albums. A lot of what Sigur Rós does on stage isn't at all far from the sort of stuff that Pink Floyd was trying to do in the late seventies and early eighties, though they eventually grew too bloated and hamfisted to pull it off with the kind of spontaneity Sigur Rós manages.

The midsection of Sigur Rós' performance sagged a bit. A guest vocalist brought a more traditional singing style to the mix; while this altered the on-stage dynamic a bit, it didn't really raise the energy level. After four songs, most of Sigur Rós' tricks were pretty well played-out, though Birgisson's bowed guitar, which dominated the mix, was always an intriguing focal point. The string section, meanwhile, seemed a little underused, or at least too low in the mix (from where we were standing) to play a significant role in the sonic texture-making.

The audience seemed to have been lulled half-asleep by the gentle music. The comparative lack of Sigur Rós material on the US market made it likely that the majority of them had heard only a few of the better-known songs, which accounts for the smattering of almost relieved applause that greeted known quantities like "Ágætis byrjun" and, if I'm not mistaken, "Svefn-g-englar".

Fortunately, there was a grand conclusion coming. At first I thought it was it was "Staráflur", but I've since come to doubt that (and a few readers have confirmed that it wasn't). In this beautifully pastoral song, the string section finally came into their own -- first with a wonderful sequence of plucked-string accents, and later as they took hold of the song's flow and guided it to a gorgeous, orchestral conclusion. It was a stunningly beautiful moment.

"Okay," I said to myself. "Now I get it." As something of a Sigur Rós skeptic, I hadn't really been all that impressed with the band until this final moment. The last five minutes practically justified the ticket price on their own.

This high point was clearly the set's conclusion...but after several minutes of thunderous applause, Sigur Rós returned to the stage. This is the point at which they earned even more of my respect. Chalk it up to Icelandic culture or limited repertoire if you want, but rather than playing another song (and thereby diffusing the impact of the conclusion), the members of Sigur Rós simply took a bow and left the stage. I've never been a fan of obligatory encores, so I was delighted by this.

My aching feet didn't exactly mind, either.

Article and blurry photos by Gæörgè Zåhõrà.