Nordklang Festival – St.Gallen; February 11th, 2023
I’d like the small and lovely Nordklang Festival back in 2019 and returned there happily this year to see Svavar Knútur and a few others. It was a wonderful evening with great music.
I started out in the morning and arrived in St. Gallen in the afternoon, found my hotel and rested a bit before going for dinner and onwards to the festival. I had been hoping for snow, but there was none to be found, just weather too warm for February. Still, when I got to the first venue, the Glühwein smelled so nice that I got myself a cup, then found a good seat at the front.
First up where Vivii from Sweden, a trio playing nice pop music. At times there was a bit too much of an electro vibe for me, but loved their singing and especially enjoyed the acoustic songs. They played keyboards and guitar/bass, all three of them singing, some songs alone and some together. It was very enjoyable music overall and a good start to the evening.
Svavar Knútur, my reason for coming to the festival, was next. He introduced himself in perfect German and then proceeded to tell us how bad his German is. Only then he choose English as the middle ground between our good German, his bad German and his perfect Icelandic. He let us know how much he is fascinated by the melodies of different languages and that he wanted to let us hear as much Icelandic as possible, noting that Swiss people never speak about the ocean, whereas water is a common metaphor for emotions in Iceland.
‘Morgunn’ was the first song, setting the mood. He made us laugh with declaring love songs as boring and played ‘Ölduslóð’ a song about friendship. We laughed even more when he talked about Icelanders communicating feelings and showed us Icelandic dancing with the feet firmly rooted on the floor because it’s so windy. What an introduction to ‘Emotional Anorexic’. I love hearing this particular sad song – it makes me strangely happy.
Next, we learned about Icelandic trees (“bushes bigger than you”) and forests, followed by ‘Undir Birkitré’ which led to the first sing-along of the evening. Most of us did it, because it’s good for you and “la la la” is easy to sing. Much easier than playing guitar and talking at the same time. 😉
Svavar spoke about frozen grief after losing his father and how he became a musician before playing us ‘Clementine’. The he announced two winter songs and let us know why Icelandic summer sucks and how people manage get hypothermia then. It was very funny. In contrast, ‘November’, was painted lovingly with words. The song is one of my favorites, putting a big smile on my face. <3
Before he continued playing, Svavar imagined a very late rockstar death. Let me just say it involved Raclette cheese. 😉 ‘Janúar’, his ode to the month that brings the light back, was beautiful – so much for not writing love songs. Getting back to the language theme, we got to hear Brahms’ ‘In stiller Nacht’ as a good example for German language melody. The introduction of the song included musings about clouds and musical examples how singers from different countries would write about them. 😀
It has been a while that I’ve heard him talk about Weltschmerz, Waldeinsamkeit and Wanderlust and how they help him make music. He played ‘Wanderlust’ then, but to my surprise there as not much of a sing-along. I guess that is reserved for audiences that know him better. He thanked everyone at the festival, recommended bands to see next, and encouraged us to check out the merch.
The last song of the evening was ‘Krummi Svaf í Klettagjá’ the raven poem he had written a new song about. We dang along again to the lalalas, then clapped and cheered so much that we got an encore. It was the song ‘Soundracks’ he has written for his daughter. I cannot recall ever hearing that one before. It was lovely.
Setlist
Morgunn
Ölduslóð
Emotional Anorexic
Undir Birkitré
Clementine
November
Janúar
In stiller Nacht (Brahms)
Wanderlust
Krummi Svaf í Klettagjá
Soundtracks
Afterwards I did not see Svavar at the merch table right away and knowing I’d see him again the next day, I hurried onto the next venue to see Lón. The band consists of two members of Valdimar plus one more guitarist. The songs were partly bluesy, partly poppy and full of great guitar playing and harmonies. I really enjoyed them.
In-between they talked about forming the band, buying hats on tour, their children and much more. I laughed often and thoroughly enjoyed their music. In the end they even ran out of songs to play – new band problem clearly. The last song was a nice sing-along one though. I loved it all and decided the night had been perfect. Thus, I went back to my hotel instead of checking out one more band.