Árstíðir – Industrie 36, Rorschach; November 24th, 2023

The Árstíðir concert in Rorschach was an interesting one, as it was the first concert on this tour without Guillaume and therefore no cello. I knew they could do this as a quartet, they have before, but I missed the cello dearly. The show was still really nice and Jean-Samuel did a great job as the only string player. It was a good show and well received by the audience.

The trip from Vienna was exhausting. It looked easy, but of course my first train was hugely delayed, causing me to miss the connection and having to wait more than an hours for the next one. When I finally got to Rorschach, I just wanted to sleep. Instead, I needed to get ready and leave. Was the first one at the venue and didn’t even bother to try the door until more people came. It was open! They let us in early, sold us drinks and never checked the tickets. As soon as chairs were set up, I chose my usual spot at the front. Finally I could relax and though about what changes they might make with only one string player.

The venue was an old industrial building and looked really cool. as it turned out, it had really nice sound as well. I hear it as soon as ‘Himinhvel’ started. It was lovely with the lone violin, softly supported by the backing track. ‘Ljóð í sand’ was just as nice and once that was over, Ragnar gave an introduction to what was going to happen.

‘Bringing back the Fell’ set just the right mood and it looked like the guys were having fun. I realized I was way too tired to fully enjoy the show, but was moving along anyway. There was no way I could not. ‘Later on’ was back in the set and I loved it. Jean-Samuels playing blended nicely with the backing track strings for all the songs. It worked really well. After a brilliant ‘Sanity’ and the fun ‘Figure’, they played ‘Mute’ and Gunnar told us how it came about.

‘Þar sem enginn fer’ was next, with Daníel tellingus it was abot a car ride in the Westfjords. Seamlessly they continued into ‘Lover’ and ended the first set with ‘Friðþægingin’. Gunnar explained how Icelanders tend to think in Icelandic and English and each song they write just sks for one of the two languages “without telling you why”. He spoke about hard to pronounce words in Icelandic and Daníel admitted that he found “Rorschach” very hard to pronounce. He did just fine though. Overall this was going well, even though I felt that their voices were a bit strained occasionally. From time to time I missed the dialogue between cello and violin, but everything sounded great anyway.

For the second set I stood up for a bit, to get a few pictures from further away, trying to get all of them in. It proved to be harder than expected, but I managed a few. 🙂 Ragnar spoke about Pendúll and explained how ‘Glitsky’ is the weather phenomenon that happens when ice forms in a cloud and creates a rainbow. The song was beautiful as always and Jean-Sam joined them again for ‘Hvenar kemur sól’, another song “about a weather phenomenon that we don’t get enough of in Iceland” – Ragnar declared the lack of sun the reason all Icelandic musicians wrote songs in minor keys.

We were “Falling off the edge of the world” with ‘While this way’ and this was probably the song where the missing cello was less noticeable. Nice! Then they got out the double microphone and gathered around it, while Ragnar told us about the Icelandic singing tradition. To demonstrate, they sang ‘Krummavísur’ for us, the song about Odin’s ravens. Gunar explained how parallel fifth is still used in Icelandic music and we got to hear ‘Ísland farsældafrón’. I was mightlily impressed with Jean-Sam, singing all the songs. Last but not least they snuck in one Christmas song, ‘Hatið fer að höndum ein’ and adding that they do even Christmas in minor keys. 🙂

THis night we didn’t only get to hear ‘Home’ and ‘Kirin’, but also ‘Let’s Pretend’ and ‘Seven Years’. The former was fun with Ragnar walking around the room and Jean-Samuel playing air piano, just like he plays air violin at times. The latter was flawless this time and Daníel joked that it might be about Jean-Sam, because he had been in the band for seven years “and 27 days to be exact,” Gunnar added. 😀

‘Shades’ was amazing. I had thought I would miss the cello there especially, but  the backing track blended perfectly with the violin played on top of it. The audience cheered loudly and of course they came back. All four of them. For a moment I expected a change in the set, but they just added some violin to ‘Kill us’ – cool. ‘Things you said’ was great too and just ended show 14 of 16.

I talked to some other fans after the show about Árstíðir and festivals. Said hello to the guys, praised Jean-Sam, gave Gunni a status report, talked with Raggi about how the violin fit in with the backing tracks and hugged everyone, who wanted be hugged. They were all a bit tired, but in good spirits. It was a really nice evening!

Setlist

Himinhvel
Ljóð í sand
Bringing back the Feel
Later On
Sanity
Figure
Mute
Þar sem enginn fer
Lover
Friðþægingin

Glitsky
Hvenar kemur sól
While this Way
Krummavísur
Ísland farsældafrón
Hatið fer að höndum ein
Home
Kirin
Let’s Pretend
Seven Years
Shades

Kill us
Things you said