Árstíðir  Schauburg, Dresden; November 20th, 2023

Árstíðir’s show in Dresden was a really nice one. More than ten shows into the tour, they have smoothed out the setlist and deliver on point every night. It’s truly enjoyable to be part of it and see how the show has evolved since the first one. 🙂

Getting to Dresden was easy, even though I had a very short changing time between my first two trains. It all worked out and the second change in Berlin was with lots of time. Got to my Hostel, checked in to a lovely single room, went for some great food and then just took a nap until it was time to go to the concert.

C. and a friend joined me eventually and once we were inside, J. came up and said hello. The front row was rather close to the stage, but the stage was low, so it worked just fine. I noticed the band had set up pretty much in one row, with the string players only slightly back from the rest of them. Nice!

With the first note sof ‘Himinhvel’ I already knew the sound was much better than it had been the previous day. 🙂 The show was on the road and latest with ‘Ljóð í sand’, everyone got on board. We all like dthe idea of  getting a mixture of old and new songs.

‘Bringing back the Feel’ was lovely. I was especially focussed on the strings that night and how they play a call and response on so many songs. I still keep hoping to get ‘The Wave’, but it seems that sip has sailed. They went straight into ‘Later On’ and only did a shot introduction to ‘Sanity’ – both were powerful and I have run out of new things to say about the songs by now. 😉 I love hearing them every night.

‘Figure’ really made C. happy – it was the one she absolutely wanted to hear. The song really has grown on me. It’s a lot of fun every night. Traveling to the past with ‘Nú gleymist ég’ always makes me really happy and I love ‘Þar sem enginn fer’ as well. They have picked just the right Icelandic songs for the setlist.

‘Lover’ was brilliant with more nice call and response between Jean-Samuel and Guillaume. And with ‘Friðþægingin’ the set ended. The explained that it was a lot of fun to play and declared it the “closest thing to a rock ‘n’ roll song Árstíðir has”. It sure was great!

After a short break they came back with the amazing ‘Glitsky’ and the beautiful ‘Hvenar kemur sól’. As always, Jean-Sam and Guillaume got lots of cheers when they came back out. It was funny too, because Gunnar announced Guillaume with great flair and then he did not appear. Ragnar mentioned that it was Guillaume’s 10th anniversary with the band and they had a little celebration backstage. Yay! I remember his first show.

‘While this Way’ followed without much ado or announcement. It’s so powerful, it does not need any introduction. 😉 Then for ‘Mute’ Gunnar told us a small story about the songwriting process and how an old tune Raggi wrote came back to him much later. This song also has really grown on me. I remember liking it when I first heard it and then not being a big fan for a while, but on the current tour I love it.

Ragnar talked about the theme of time and its perception that was central to the two new albums, telling us Blik means “a moment in time”, “Augenblick” – that’s what it made me think of. He also spoke of emotions related to time and nostalgia, related to childhood memories hat is captured in ‘Home’.

For ‘Kirin’, Gunnar mentioned, how much they enjoy playing it and “even though we told you we only have one rock ‘n’ roll song, this might be the other one” 😀 It sure was fun! The guys had a quick discussion and about the setlist and Daníel mentioned that it was called ‘Seven Years’ and Jean-Samuel was in the band for seven years, so it was fitting. He also suggested it night be their third rock ‘n’ roll song and Gunni answered that he realized he was in trouble when he claimed there were only two. It made me think of Monty Python’s Spanish Inquisition. 😀 The song was great, even though they had a false start again and made me laugh. Dani quipped “That’s not the first time this has happened”.:D The guitar solo was amazing!

Next, Ragnar told us how Blik has all the different Árstíðir colors and that the next song would see all three guitar players play keyboards. It was ‘Let’s Pretend’ of course. This one is getting better every night to and that might have been the best version yet. 🙂 There was only one song left and of course it was perfect – ‘Shades’ always is. The encore of ‘Kill us’ and ‘Things you said’ was great and they even came out once more to ow afterwards.

We talked to them after and I wished Guillaume a happy anniversary , gave Gunnar the usual brief about the show and just told everyone it had been nice. C. was very happy with the show and told them so. I loved it too, but had other favorites. It was lovely to say hello though and get some hugs in before it was time to go. 🙂

Setlist

Himinhvel
Ljóð í sand
Bringing back the Feel
Later on
Sanity
Figure
Nú gleymist ég
Þar sem enginn fer
Lover
Friðþægingin

Glitsky
Hvenar kemur sól
While this Way
Mute
Home
Kirin
Seven Years
Let’s Pretend
Shades

Kill us
Things you said