Svavar Knútur – Comma, Gera; August 7th, 2021
Seeing Svavar Knútur play in Gera last night felt like spending a lovely evening with old friend, sharing memories and telling stories until late a night with good food and good drinks, never once thinking about going home. For two hours he made me laugh, he moved me to tears, shared his songs and feelings with me and nourished my soul. For those two hours, nothing else mattered.
The last time I had tickets to see Svavar was in March last year and it was one of many tours lost to Covid. There was an online show or two and I had checked his website occasionally, but I hadn’t known he was coming back to Germany until my friend Conny posted about it on Instagram. Since my other plans for the weekend had fallen through and this would give me the opportunity to finally meet Conny in real life after months of communicating online, I spontaneously decided to go to Gera for the show.
It was a long trip from Nijmegen, but eventually I got there and saw the venue the moment I walked out of the train station. It also started raining right then and I was glad to find out that we’d be seated under umbrellas for the concert. First I needed o find my hotel though and get some food. That done it was time to leave for the venue. It was a cozy beer garden filled with couches in front of a nice stage. They even let me in a little early and I picked the best seat in the house.
Conny dropped by and said hello, all excited because she would sing with Svavar later. We chatted for a while before the show as the couches slowly filled with people. Around 8 the concert started with someone from the venue stepping up on stage and joking it was only raining because it would feel the guest from Iceland more comfortable. Svavar added that Icelandic summer was like this minus ten degrees. 😀
He started the concert speaking German, then apologized for being so bad at it. It was really funny, but makes no sense if I translate it. He settled for speaking English with us. Definitely easier to understand than Icelandic. 😉 He introduced the first song ‘Fagurt er í Fjörðum’ as being an old Icelandic song about the duality of life. It was beautiful. Afterwards he mentioned that his grandmother had taught him the song. He wanted to sing a lot of Icelandic songs and mused about how the structure of a language influences its music and thus it was his gift to us to sing in his native language. Differences in languages and therefore, people was a recurring theme that night.
After the lovely ‘Morgunn’ he sung us Brahms’ ‘In stiller Nacht’ to show us how beautiful German songs can be if the inherent melody of the language is embraced. Case in point, it sounded great. 🙂 He spoke about being stuck in Iceland for 20 month and wanting to get in shape for the tour in Germany so he played small towns in Iceland for six weeks. Considering how small some of those villages were, he had a huge audience of ten percent of the population “if this was Berlin I would be bigger than Obama”. ‘Wanderlust’ followed and was the first song I sang along to. I really felt it too.
Svavar seemed unusually talkative that night, which is saying a lot about someone who always tells stories. Maybe it was just me not being used to it any more. Either way, I loved it and laughed out loud many times. I might have even learned a few things. 😉 For example he talked about how Icelanders are disorganized and that it’s due to how chaotic Iceland is. That, in turn is reflected in their language and we learned that the Icelandic word for “plan” means “intention”. He concluded that it is hard for anyone to think outside the structure of their language and that we should just accept each other’s differences and embrace who we are. “Icelanders are like dark Italians” – chaotic and melancholic.
‘Undir Birkitré’ was sung beautifully. It suited me to have so many Icelandic songs in the setlist. It felt right and included a great sing-along of “lalala” that means nothing in Icelandic or German. Svavar then talked about his parents and how he is a mixture of both of their traits. He explained what people from the East fjords are like and how his mom embodies that. There was so much love in his words. <3 Next was ‘Tiger and Bear’ the song about friendship and always a favorite of mine. Everyone should a friendship like the one between Tiger and Bear in their lives.
‘The Curtain’ was introduced as a song about missing the ones you love when you are away from them and how you start seeing them in everything. I had not heard it for a long time and was happy to have it on the setlist. THe last song before the break was ‘Ölduslóð’. But first we learned the history of the Icelandic word “Peysa” (sweater) and the Icelandic word for elephant (fíll). Apparently Icelanders have loved shopping since Viking times – Svavar the educator. He also talked about friendship being more interesting than love, because love is very narrow in its definition, then even threw in some marriage statistics. ‘Ölduslóð’ of course is about a friendship that is hard. I finally understood why the song is called “the way of the waves”.
During the break I bought one of Svavar’s new T-Shirts, then went back and chatted with Conny a bit more before he stepped back on the stage.
The second half of the show started with jokes about playing for small audiences and the “Story of Fire Saga” movie. He had promised us more upbeat songs, but started with a sas one about the ocean that involved death, based on a poem explaining how he loves the ocean coming alive in the song. It did indeed sound like ocean waves. <3 Svavar spoke about his father’s death and how he needed time to work through it. ‘Clementine’, the next song, was his first stop into the pain. It was a great version too. ‘Vetrarsól’ was next and he explained how when it is darkest we sometimes need just a little bit of light like one candle you can see from a long way away in the night. Once again we all sang along.
Svavar invited Conny to join him on stage and they briefly discussed the order of songs. They started with ‘Emotional Anorexic’ and I could not help but shed a few tears. Conny did a beautiful job with the harmony singing. <3 ‘While the World burns’ was next and he explained how it is actually a happy song, because it portraits love like it should be, short and to the point. From there he got to the volcano that saved all of Iceland from going crazy with boredom in March. Yes, it was impressive indeed. The song was brilliant of course and I loved hearing them sing together. Their final duet was the happier ‘Baby, will you marry me’ to which he explained why it is actually not as happy as it sounds, but rather about a broken relationship. It sounds happy though 😉 and again Conny did a great job on it. Getting to hear her sing with Svavar really made me happy.
Next, we learned how the Icelandic word for happy means “thick skin” so it’s something stable instead of something that can easily change. So anything like things going wrong or sadness is like “snow on my fur”. That is a nice way of looking at it. He continued with telling us how everyone loves to hate January and why he really likes it. Hence the song ‘Janúar’, about new beginnings. Afterwards he talked about rather having a community than a fan base and played a new song, called ‘November’. It was amazing and very cinematic, I fell in love with it right away. <3
Before the show was over, Svavar gave us one more lesson about Icelanders, then ended with ‘The Hurting’, really rocking out. It has been one of my favorites ever since I first heard it and it made me so very happy to get to hear it. He barely had a chance to leave the stage before we cheered him back.
First he played the beginning of ‘Atemlos’, making everyone laugh, then talked about Abba at length, especially pointing out how their lyrics are all sad and melancholic, but Swedish songs always sound cheerful, because the music is always in major keys. He gave us a few examples and it was hilarious. Telling us how the song he wanted to play was in the movie ‘Mamma Mia’ he really got into his admiration for Pierce Brosnan and made me roar with laughter. Then he played ‘When all is said and done’ and unexpectedly moved me to tears. The magic of Svavar Knútur – from laughter to tears in two minutes. :’)
The final song of the night was ‘Halfway down the Stairs’ into ‘True Love will find you in the end’. It was the best possible conclusion of the evening. Such a great tune. Leading up to it, he gave us an example of the song from the Muppet Show he wasn’t gonna play, including a very visual explanation of the you tube video for it. 😀 The show truly ended on a high note. <3
We went to the merch stand and chatted a little about the past year. Svavar was rally “tiefenentspannt” about it. The dictionary tels me it should translate to “deeply and soundly relaxed” but that doesn’t quite cover it so I’m leaving the German word for you there. Anyway, he told us how much he had enjoyed staying home with his family and how much fun they’d had together. It made me happy to know that it wasn’t a hard year for everyone. 🙂 Finally it was time for final hugs and goodbyes. This was amazing. See you again in September!
Setlist
Fagurt er í Fjörðum (Látra-Björg)
Morgúnn
In Stiller Nacht (Brahms)
Undir Birkitré
Tiger and Bear
The Curtain
Ölduslóð
“Song about the ocean”
Clementine
Vetrarsól
Emotional Anorexic
While the World burns
Baby, will you marry me?
Janúar
November
The Hurting
When all is said and done (Abba)
Halfway down the Stairs/True Love will find you in the end