Ragnar Ólafsson – Opacz-Kolonia, April 23rd, 2023
Raggi’s house show in Opaczs-Kolonia, just outside of Warsaw was as good as it gets. I loved everything about it from the living room we were in and the people we were with to the songs being played and Domenika, the guest singer for the night. This tour is shaping up nicely.
The trip from Łódź was an easy one and Warsaw greeted me with Beautiful weather. I went for lunch, spent some time at a park and relaxed at my hotel until it was time to go. It was a quick train trip to A.’s house and I arrived at the same time as Raggi and Marta did with Domenika and her boyfriend. I helped them unpack, then got to sit around and watch them setup and do a quick sound check.
First order of business was a short Patreon gig, that was live streamed. It served as rehearsal and sounded wonderful. I even got to play a small part (i.e. a tiny keyboard) during one song. It was a fun way to start the evening.
Soon after, the guests for the actual gig arrived, grabbed drinks, settled down and the room got crowded. There were far more people than at the last gig I saw here – great turnout. People were clearly excited for the show and I had a good feeling about it.
A. got up and made a few announcements before she left the stage to Raggi. He asked, who had been there last time and introduced the first song, ‘Warsaw’, that he wrote in her garden the previous year and was immediately lectured that this was technically not Warsaw. Close enough though. He pointed out that a quote from the song was in a frame on a shelf behind him and mentioned how this was not a metaphor, because a plane had really flown by as he wrote it. The song sounded amazing.
The show continued with ‘Every Brick in Manhattan’ and I enjoyed every moment. Raggi sounded great, the audience was appreciative and the vibes were just right. He explained about all his bands and the way he writes songs, before playing the amazing ‘Deva’ for us. I looked over at A. and she was singing along just like I was.
We heard about the breakup album, of which he suggested everybody should write one in their career and the idea of democratic love songs. It especially made me smile when he subtly referenced ‘No Woman ever wants to be a Muse’ by saying that we will never know how the woman felt that Dylan sang about. 😀 He invited Domenika to the stage to help and she did a wonderful job on it. Afterwards he joked about how the next song she’d join him for would be a sad one about cornflakes, having been in the milk too long, because that is the saddest thing he could imagine.
The next song, however, was an angry one and introduced by doing a bad impression of the Termimator. Then Raggi explained how he was angry at himself when he wrote it and channeled that into ‘Bravery’. It was powerful and a nice contrast to ‘Hugsanir’, the song from the Fractures soundtrack. He spoke about being nominated for the Icelandic movie award and that it was fun to attend the ceremony, even though he didn’t win. The song was brilliant as always. <3 Afterwards he asked who spoke Icelandic and A. tentatively raised her had. He quipped that she would be the only one to sing along and she countered “speak, not sing” 😀 He made it easy on us though and we all managed to sing “la la la” for ‘Örlög’ . 😉
Now it was time for the piano department of the evening. First Raggi gave us a beautiful rendition of ‘Water’ and only afterwards told us how he wrote it about his own death, two days before an accident where he fell off a cliff and was only saved by a branch that broke his fall. While we were on the theme of death, he said he would sing us a song about the death of a loved one and continued with ‘Shine’ – it was stunning. <3 People even waited a moment after he was done, before they clapped.
After a deep breath, Raggi pointed out, how A. had a quote from the song on her shirt – a subtle request. He decided to lighten the mood, with ‘Muddy Waters’ and for the first time we got to hear the story about the song. It was really funny and truly did make us forget about the darkness of the previous songs. Everyone laughed and the song as such was fun too, even more so now. 😉
Raggi announced his love song to Łódź, which was absolutely written in the city and not just outside it. He asked people if they had been there and liked it and a few said no, so he spoke about how it has changed and how great it is, then played ‘Łódź’ to hopefully change our minds. It’s definitely a lovely song.
Domenika was back for ‘Petals’ and I found out that the polish word for petals is the same as for cornflakes, not just similar. Domenika added that the word also has other meanings, bt he did not want to know them and described a bon Jovi video “bed of cornflakes ” scene. Really funny. The song was wonderfully done too.
We had reached the end of the show with ‘Dragonfly’ where Marta took over the glockenspiel as usual and I was on mini-keyboard duty again. It was fun to join Raggi and Domenika on stage and there are even pictures to prove it. 🙂
For the encore (of course there were encores) we got the tried and tested combo of murder ballads. Domenika sang ‘Where the wild roses grow’ with him and it was lovely. ‘Sleep now’, had Raggi walking around the room and he ended it on singing the last “I love you” to Marta. <3
It was a great show and the evening continued to be great with good food and good conversations before it was time to go back to my hotel and get some sleep. Perfect day was perfect.
Setlist
Warsaw
Every Brick in Manhattan
Deva
Dozen
Bravery
Hugsanir
Örlög
Water
Shine
Muddy Waters
Łódź
Petals
Dragonfly
Where the wild roses grow
Sleep now