Svavar Knútur – Weltecho, Chemnitz; September 30th, 2023

Since I didn’t have time for most oof the gigs Svavar played in my area, I decided to go east for a weekend to see him. The first of those concerts took place in Chemnitz and was a fun one, completely different from the one I’d seen in Essen earlier that months.

It was an uneventful trip to Chemnitz, but when I finally arrived, I needed a nap. The pain pills I took for my broken arm really made me drowsy. Refreshed after, I got myself some food and eventually left for the concert. I was one of the first people there and thus easily got a spot at the front.

Before anything else, Svavar asked if here were any Icelanders in the room. Since there were not, he decided he could shit-talk Iceland all evening. He started out in Germany, but decided to speak English, because he felt his German wasn’t good enough. He moved the mic stand so the people on the side could see him too.

To share his language with us, he started with songs in Icelandic, the first being a love poem by Vatnsenda Rósa, who was a traveling midwife. It was beautiful. He continued with poetry and talked about Látra-Björg, who traveled from farm to farm and wrote poems about the families who took her in. He translated his grandmother’s favorite poem for us and then sang it. He also told us how his grandma listens to all his new songs and is his quality control. We all laughed when Svavar said every record label should have a grandmother.

Next we heard about his son Refur and the song he wrote for him. Svavar translated the song for us too. ❤️ After all the Icelandic songs, he continued with a few ones in English, ‘Wanderlust’ among them. I had not heard that one in a while and love dsinging along to it. I think it might have been at that point that he talked about Deutsche Bahn and how he always hears people complain, but he has only ever missed one concert due to delays. His conclusion was that we are too much in a hurry and should just be happy to have trains. Well….

He decided to show us some new songs he wrote for the album with Lucy Ward and Andrew Townes and played the great ‘Medusa’. I think he meant to play ‘Isn’t it funny?’, but then got distracted and played ‘Clementine’ instead. Not entirely sure though, he might have played both. 😉

For the first time in a long time he had brought a n illustrated book to pass around for us to sign. I remember that from years ago and it was nice doing it again. This time it was a book about Icelandic trolls. At one point Svavar talked about Chemnitz being named Karl Marx Stadt before and that he likes that name, but people tell him it was named after a dictator. He then pointed out that many cities are named after or by dictators so it shouldn’t be a big deal. 😀

We also got to hear ‘Öldesljoð’ and ‘THe Curtain’ in the first set. I think somehow the latter was connected to a story about Götland, but I cannot remember any details, just know that it was very funny. And of course the song is not about a curtain. 😉

The second part of the show started with Svavar telling us that it would be a little shorter, because part one was a bit longer and this way we would all have more time to chill and have beer. He spoke about sabotaging a relationship and that being related to the Eastfjord curse that is believing you don’t deserve anything and constantly apologizing for everything. The relationship ended with a breakup and thus, ‘Emotional Anorexic’ came about. I always love hearing it.

We heard a story about a Nordic Cowriting workshop he attended that had been a big disillusion, because some major labels just wanted them to produce content. Thus, Svavar got drunk and wrote ‘Humble Hymn’ with a Norwegian songwriter. It turned into a nice sing-along. Next he played ‘Yfir hóla og yfir hæðir’ and the sing-along was even better.

‘Lady Winter’ was next and he told us he loves winter, because there is not much else in Iceland. He compared the Icelandic seasons t Tinder profiles which was really funny. It made me so happy to hear the song, I had secretly hoped Svavar would play it. We got more funny winter versus summer talk as an introduction to the two winter songs, ‘November’ and ‘Janúar’. 😀 He even got us to sing along in Icelandic to the latter. That was fun! Before we got here though, he had to tell us another story about a middle aged man he saw on the street in Reykjavik one day, who looked so cute.

Towards the end of the show he asked if he had forgotten any song we came to hear. Someone asked for ‘Leipzig’ and he had to retune his uke for it, joking he wished he had written a song about Karl Marx Stadt, but he hadn’t, so Leipzig it was. That one’s always fun and we got the extended version bits and pieces of ‘Livin on a Prayer’, the Doctor Who theme and ‘Firestarter’ mixed in – all on the ukulele no less.

Svavar pointed out he wished he had someone to hand him his ukulele and Uwe, his tour manager, promised he’d do it in Jena. 😀 He got ‘Girl from Vancouver’ dedicated to him. That ended the set, but Svavar came back for an encore. He told us the great thing about being a folk singer was that there wasn’t as much ageism there. He compared folkies to cheese, getting better with age. 😉 He played Cindy Lauper’s ‘True Colors’ for us, dedicating it to Sinead O’Connor and ended with Abba’s ‘When all is said and done’. It was a lovely show overall.

Setlist

“Love poem” by Vatnsenda Rósa
Ástarsaga úr fjöllunum
Refur
Wanderlust
Medusa
(Isn’t it funny?)
Clementine
Öldesljoð
The Curtain

Emotional Anorexic
Humble Hymn
Yfir hóla og yfir hæðir
Lady Winter
November
Janúar
Leipzig
Girl from Vancouver
True Colors
When all is said and done