Photo: WENN.com
How do you follow an act like Lady Gaga? Sigur Ros took on the inevitable task last night in London, performing a headline set on the second night of this year's iTunes Festival, the day after Mother Monster opened the month long event at the Camden Roundhouse.
Lady Gaga has titled her new album ARTPOP, but singles such as 'Applause' are about as far from art as work done the Spanish lady who attempted to restore the Elias Garcia Martinez fresco in 2012. Sigur Ros, on the other hand, are perhaps the closest thing we have in modern music to musicians making work that could be considered 'art'. Their only problem is they don't know how to frame the damn thing, however, as their iTunes Festival setlist left a little to be desired.
Review continues below. Watch Sigur Ros' full iTunes show here
Opening with a collection of tracks from 2013 release Kveikur, the Icelandic three-piece (plus percussionists, violinists and a brass section) began with a bang, performing some of the most upbeat tracks of their career, such as singles 'Brennisteinn' and 'Isjaki'. It's never been easy to compare Sigur Ros to other live bands, but on these tracks, they come close to rivalling Muse with their epic, stadium-ready rock sounds.
They quickly followed these with fan-favourites 'Festival' and 'Hoppipolla', which provided the night's most uplifting segement of the show - and felt like the band were drawing to an early close (Gaga performed just eight tunes the previous night). This was merely the show's midway point, however, and therein lay the only flaw to the show.
Sigur Ros and their touring musicians are faultless performers, and there is no denying the quality of their material, but the latter half of the show was made up of sprawling, ambitious album tracks which, while peaking and soaring in all the right places, never felt like the show was gathering pace, or building towards a climax. Valtari standout 'Varud' seemed to make a fine finale, its delicate opening building to a choral, spine-tingling crescendo - but that was then followed by the dark, hardcore sounds of 'Popplagid', closing the show with an explosion of feedback and squealing guitars.
Perhaps it's a cliche to end a show with your best-known tracks, and Sigur Ros have made a career for themselves for thinking outside the box with their timeless sounds, but front-loading their iTunes gig with powerful new tracks and fan favourites seems deliberately obtuse. The performance was flawless, but dwindling numbers inside the Camden Roundhouse as the show progressed proved that maybe even Sigur Ros fans have their limits when it comes to a band refusing to play by the rules.
A glorious show from one of the best live bands on the planet, it just needed a bit of a re-jig.
Sigur Ros' full setlist from their iTunes Festival gig is as below:
Yfirborð
Brennisteinn
Hrafntinna
Ísjaki
Kveikur
Festival
Hoppípolla
Með Blóðnasir
Svefn-g-englar
Glósóli
Vaka
Sæglópur
E-bow
Varúð
Popplagið
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