Árstíðir – Łaski Dom Kultury, Łask; November 21st, 2023

The show in Łask was the one that was most tricky to get to on this tour, but well worth the trip. Not only were the guys having a good time and treating us to a great setlist, I also got to see my friend K. and A. and catch up for a bit.

The previous day I had spontaneously changed my train connection for a bus that was going directly from Dresden to Łódź. When I got there it was terribly cold and it took aged to get to the apartment I had rented, even in an Uber. Finally there I wanted to sleep, but didn’t really have that much time. Soon I needed to leave for the train station that was almost a half hour away. The train was delayed, but eventually I made it to Łask, where Marta was kind enough to pick me up, saving me another 30 minute walk.

They opened the doors a moment after i got there and I realized there had been no hurry, because those were assigned seats. I had forgotten about that. 😀 K. and A. arrived soon after I did and ended up sitting next to me. Nice! Saw a few familiar faces, mostly people who had held house gigs for Raggi. A. had agreed to take me home after the show, so I relaxed when I learned there was a support act.

Roman the Pianist was the band called, consisting of a piano and a cello. They were good and played really nice music, but I got bored after two songs. Instrumental music very rarely works for me and this was not one of those situations. I liked it, but I would have preferred not hearing them. They played for half an hour.

After a short break, Árstíðir were on, starting of nicely with ‘Himinhvel’ – the sound was slightly distorted at first, but got much better throughout the song. ‘Ljóð í sand’ was lovely and sitting there with A. and K. brought back some memories.

Ragnar spoke about not having been in Poland for four years and asked who had seen them before. Only one person admitted they hadn’t. He announced “three songs in a row” from Blik and I wondered which one they’d leave out. It started with ‘Bringing back the Feel’ and their invisible drummer was a bit loud. That remained the case throughout the show, but might have been due to us sitting at the front.

‘Sanity’ followed and they had kept ‘Figure’ as well. I wondered if there’d be a surprise addition to the setlist later. Either way, I loved the show this far. 🙂 With ‘Nú gleymist ég’ I got another personal highlight, then ‘Þar sem enginn fer’ followed and again, the invisible drummer was a bit overpowering. ‘Lover’ was great, especially the strings and ‘Friðþægingin’ is always awesome, this time without mentioning anything about rock songs this time. 😉

As with the other Polish shows, there was no break in the set and they continued right away. I had not expected ‘While this Way’ though. It it the set nicely at this point. ❤️ The audience was into it too. Then we got the beautiful ‘Glitsky’ and for ‘Hvenar kemur sól’ Daníel told us how they long for the sun in those long Icelandic winters. The string players rejoined the band to great cheers and it was a wonderful performance.

‘Mute’ had stayed in its original place in the set and strangely it works really well before the two a cappella songs. Yes, they did get out the double mics again this night and sang ‘Bæn einstæðingsins’ as  well as ‘Ísland farsældafrón’ for us. It is always such a treat. ❤️

Back to Blik with ‘Home’ and ‘Kirin’, before Ragnar told us that we had reached the last song of the set and Daníel corrected him – there was ‘Seven Years’ to play first. Gunnar said it was a fun song to play and they started it perfectly this time, which made me really happy. Then, however, Gunnar had screwed something up with he backing tracks and they had to stop. Daníel quipped that they should have just gone to ‘the last song and they asked us what to do. Try again, we agreed and second time was the charm. 😀

We appropriately awwed for having reached the last song and they delivered a great performance of ‘Shades’. 🙂 We gave them standing ovations and cheered loudly for them to come back. ‘Kill us’ is a highlight for me every night – i love their new stuff, but getting back to basics contains so many nice memories. ‘Things you said’ then ended the show with a bang. That was fun!

We went and talked to them afterwards, told Gunni that the invisible drummer was a bit overbearing and I joked with Jean-Sam that in four tried of ‘Seven Years’ t had only worked without errors once. 😉 A. and K. both noted that Guillaume doesn’t seem to age and we all agreed he must have a portrait of himself in an attic somewhere. To Raggi they said that ‘Lover’ is so much better live than on the album and that was the first time I realized that the song is different. I have not listened to Nivalis in so long that for me the live version of ‘Lover’ is the song. 🙂 Spoke to Bartek briefly and he made  sure I had a ride back to Łódź. Otherwise he would have taken me along. So sweet. With final hugs we said goodbye and A. drove me home. It was great seeing you. Let’s repeat that soon

Setlist

Himinhvel
Ljóð í sand
Bringing back the Feel
Sanity
Figure
Nú gleymist ég
Þar sem enginn fer
Lover
Friðþægingin
While this Way
Glitsky
Hvenar kemur sól
Mute
Bæn einstæðingsins
Ísland farsældafrón
Home
Kirin
Seven Years
Shades

Kill us
Things you said