Nordic people, sports events and a new song

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Svavar Knútur – Filmforum, Bottrop; March 26th, 2025

The second Svavar Knútur show I saw this week was even funnier than the first one. It was a great evening with hilarious stories and a completely different setlist than the previous one. I had such a good time.

To my surprise I made it to Bottrop without any delays and waited at the venue’s bar for more people to show up. Soon, I saw familiar faces and we got in and sat down at the front. I was so tired I was cold, but otherwise I looked forward ton the show.

Svavar started with the same trio of songs he had played in Düsseldorf, one after the other, without interruptions. It was a good start and afterwards he told us about his 15 year project of dealing with grief and how he had finished it this past year. He treated us to a beautiful new song called ‘Lærðu að fljúga’. Wonderful.

We got to hear a bit about his family and the farm where he grew up and how happy they were here on their little farms and near the little village where he went to school. We got ti hear a lovely version of ‘Clementine’ and then its sister song ‘Ástarsaga úr fjöllunum’. He said that many of the people in the room  looked familiar and made fun of his face blindness. From there he moved on to famous actors and a brief rant on how Mads Mikkelsen only gets to play the villain in Hollywood movies, while he has all kinds of roles in Danish films. True that.

I always love it when he plays ‘Lady Winter’ and ‘Hope and Fortune’ – both sngs are very dear to me. This time we also got the story of how ‘Hope and Fortune’ was written over zoom. It was quite funny. Svavar talked about things going wrong in life and how his January was very different from what he had imagined. Thus, he played ‘Isn’t it funny?’ and then ended the first set with a great rendition of ‘November’

Of course set 2 started with ‘Janúar’ and a lovely sing along. It always amazes me how he gets everyone to actually believe they can sing in a language they don’t know and it really works. I love it. 🙂 Svavar joked about Nordic people, starting with claiming that Swedish is the language that sounds the cutest of all the Nordic ones. We got to hear examples of how everything in Danish sounds somewhat harsh, Norwegian happy and Swedish just cute, even when they are trying to rob you or cut you in two with a chainsaw. He gave us examples of course and acted it out too. 😀 It was hilarious. “This song has nothing to do with that,” he ended and played ‘Tiger and Bear’. It made me smile even more.

While he was singing, he remembered a story that made him smile and talked about friends he met the previous days, which lead to speaking about a chess tournament where he played. His impression of nerdy chess players was so funny. Did they want to hear him? No, but they ended up listening anyway. If you want to know why, you’ll have to ask Svavar. ‘Wanderlust’ was the song that followed and another fun sing-along.

Apparently it was a good day for telling stories about sports tournaments, because we now heard about a cross fit tournament, where he played ‘The Hurting’. The funniest part was his detailed description of disbelief on people’s faces when hey recognized that he was not a roadie, but really the singer of this “workout song”. 😀 Of course h still didn’t tell us what ‘The Hurting’ really is about, but some secrets are not meant to be shared. The song is always fantastic and this was no exception.

As a contrast to this rocker, we got a lovely ukulele version of ‘Girl from Vancouver’. It made me so happy. Then someone requested ‘In stiller Nacht’, which was beautiful. After that, he spoke about the rise of right wing parties and described his observation that it happened in Iceland after billionaires started buying houses and raising rents and people had less money to live on. His conclusion was that it is easier to trick people if they are worried and scared. True that. In the end, someone asked for ‘Undir Birkitré’ and he gladly played it for us – what a lovely way to end the show with. <3

The encore was Suede’s ‘The wild ones’ and it was perfect. What a cool cover that was. I loved everything about this nigh and can’t say I was sad about being able to catch an earlier bus than I had planned. I quickly said goodbye and smiled all the way home. See you again in the fall.

Setlist

?
Morgúnn
Refur
Lærðu að fljúga(Learn to fly)
Clementine
Ástarsaga úr fjöllunum
Lady Winter
Hope and Fortune
Isn’t it funny?
November

Janúar
Tiger and Bear
Wanderlust
The Hurting
Girl from Vancouver
In stiller Nacht
Undir Birkitré

The wild ones (Suede cover)

Touring by train, killer sheep and weird dreams

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Svavar Knútur – Weltkunstzimmer, Düsseldorf; March 24th, 2025

It had been a while since my last Svavar Knútur concert, so I was happy to get to see him in Düsseldorf. Weltkunstzimmer turned out to be a great venue and the concert was a lot of fun. Svavar shared lovely songs and stories, making me forget the trains delays on the way there and any other stress I might have been under. It was a wonderful evening.

With roughly one hour delay I made it to Düsseldorf and was relieved to only see one person waiting outside the venue. I knew him too and we had a nice time chatting until the doors opened. The venue was surprisingly big and had some nice lights on stage. If the sound was anywhere as good, it would be amazing.

Svavar kept us waiting until about 20:15 and by the the room was packed. :9 He started with an Icelandic song that I recognized, but could not name, then continued straight into Morgúnn and Refur. Only then did he tale a break for us to clap. It as a great start and the sound was indeed amazing.

He greeted us, thanked us for coming and talked about the venue being a former bakery. He joked about having face-blindness, but still recognizing a lot of us and talking about ways to find out who you are talking too when you meet someone you don’t immediately recognize and how hard it is to watch movies with him. Completely unrelated, he decided to sing a song about trees, described Icelandic forests and mentioned names that sound tree-like. ‘Undir Birkitré’ was lovely and brought us the first sing-along of the evening. 🙂

Svavar talked about sister songs and how the last one and its sister song ‘Yfir hóla og yfir hæðir’ are two of the happiest songs he has ever written. What I learned then is that it is about a place that used to belong to his family, so it is a sad song as well. I always enjoy hearing it. He did some impressions of things and people, to much laughter, then told us how much he enjoys sharing his language with us. From there he went to languages having their own melodies and giving us examples of songs from different regions in the US and how the language melody changes. 😀

How he got from there to playing ‘Lady Winter’, none of us knew, but it was beautiful and so was ‘Hope and Fortune’. In between he spoke about costumes and how he doesn’t want to be flashy, then went on a tangent about touring by train and the decline of German railways, saying he found faith while praying to reach his destination. I feel you! Oh and did you know about Icelandic killer sheep? No? Well, I won’t tell you.During the song I thought about the show in Vienna and how he challenged all of us to sing along to it. 🙂

We then learned about Icelandic survival strategies and how to destroy your enemies without weapons. Beer Fu was mentioned too – it’s a martial art we all should learn. Or Wine Fu maybe. 😉 He mentioned that, if we still believed in old fashioned things like CDs, vinyls and a functioning democracy without oligarchs, we could come see him during the break for two of these three things. 🙂 The set ended with ‘November’ and it was perfect.

After a brief chat during the break, more drinks for everyone and hopefully a lot of merch sold, Svavar returned with ‘Janúar’ and once again managed to get everyone to sing along inIcelandic. It works every time and it is always lovely. Of course he spoke about January and how beautiful it is when the light comes back and shines on the snow in Iceland.

We learned about broccoli songs versus ice cream songs, including different examples of the love songs he hates. It’s hilarious to hear him make up songs on the spot. 😀 He mentioned that the next song was more relevant now than when he wrote it in 2008 and played ‘While the world burns – so true. I loved it. From there we got to break-up songs and examples of how bad they can be. Breakups hurt, but you can learn from them, he told us and played ‘Emotional Anorexic’. I will never be unhappy to hear that song. <3

Svavar talked about traveling alone and how much he likes it, but sometimes he plays with other artists. This lead to showing us how different musicians tend to be, depending on the instrument they play. 😀 The “Song about friendship”, ‘Ölduslóð’, followed. Then he remembered his ukulele and played a great version of ‘Girl from Vancouver’. 🙂

Somehow, he felt the need to talk about aliens that glow in different colors and how they might have similar problems to us. From there, he got back to language and different sounds in different (nordic) languages. He also spoke about dreams, nice ones, weird ones and the ones where you are not sure if it was a dream or really happened. From there we got to Icelandic monsters and the last song – ‘Isn’t it funny?’

For an encore, Svavar played a song, I had never heard him play, Suede’s The Wild Ones’. He told us he had been wanting to ply it for years. He mentioned they saved his life when he was a teenager. I sure can relate to that. It was fantastic. I would have loved more, but I have to admit it was a great way to end the show. See you again soon!

Setlist

?
Morgúnn
Refur
Undir Birkitré
Yfir hóla og yfir hæðir
Lady Winter
Hope and Fortune
November

Janúar
While the world burns
Emotional Anorexic
Ölduslóð
Girl from Vancouver
Isn’t it funny?

The wild ones (Suede cover)