Svavar Knútur – Die Bäckerei, Innsbruck; April 27th, 2024

When the tourdates for the sprig were announced, I saw only one near my area and decided that wasn’t enough, so I aimed for the weekend shows and settled on Austria, with Innsbruck being the first stop. I had not been to Die Bäckerei since I’d seen The Anatomy of Frank there back in 2017, but remembered I had liked the venue. It was the perfect location for a great gig. I loved all of it, from Svavar’s song selection to the wonderful crowd.

Due to the last minute Trier detour on Friday, I had a long travel day. Trains didn’t even take that long, but with waiting times it added up to an 11 hour trip.  When I finally got to Innsbruck, I was already tired. Not much time to rest and I was off to the venue. Of course I arrived to early, so the bartender directed me to a nearby park, where I walked around in the sun. It was a beautiful day. Once I returned, I said hello to Svavar, secured a spot at the front and had a nice glass of wine before the show.

Once on stage, he first asked us, who had never seen him before and maybe a quarter of the crowd raised their hands. That made him happy and he said he wanted to sing a lot of songs for us, so maybe he would not tell so many stories. Or tell stories and forget about singing. First was his grandmother’s favorite poem by Látra-Björg, ‘Ástarsaga úr fjöllunum’. He explained that she had written many beautiful poems, but this was a harsh one and gave us a quick translation. It was a good start to the show.

Svavar said that when he stated he swore he would never play the same concert twice and always changes things around a little bit. He spoke about Ahoy and that finishing it it took longer than expected, but the long time made it better. He now feels that his “Songs of misery of redemption” project, that started with the first album is now done, the story is told and he has worked through his grief. He added that he wants to continue being an artist though.

He made us all laugh with all the interesting things to write about apart from love. And because love songs are so boring, he wanted to sing one for us, ‘Morgúnn’. It is always a treat. After that we got a bit of an introduction to Icelandic language and culture, learning about romantic gesturesand no rhymes for “Moon”. He explained Icelandic dating as: You get drunk, you fuck, f it ws good, you do it again, then you watch a mivie and if you don#t wnat to kill the  other person you’re dating. There was a sub-plot about Svavar’s family and the movie ‘Twins’ somewhere too. 😀 It was all very funny. I love it, when Svavar is in a talkative mood.

‘Refur’ was next. All the songs about his children are lovely. 🙂 The audience loved it too. He told us about often writing “sister songs” with the same topic and wanted to play us the two songs about Icelanders  finally being able to leave their land in the late 1800 after being oppressed by the Danes so long. The history lessons are always an interesting part of the show and the two sister songs, ‘Lady Winter’ and ‘Hope and Fortune’ are two of my absolute favorites. I loved both and finally was able to sing along too.

Svavar mentioned how much of a privilege it is to be able to sing in his own languages and bring these songs out to the world. Before playing ‘Undir Birkitré’ he got from making jokes about Australia to not being judgmental about people’s sexual preferences. OK then 😀 The song eased us into having to sing along and everyone did a good job.

There was so much to laugh about that nigh, like Svavar imitating different German accents, joking that southern German was like “cowboy German”. The point of the story was to tell our friends in Vienna to go see the concert there, but on the way we got a story about being buried in snow. How we got from there to best friendships and ‘Ölduslóð’ I have no idea, but it all made sense. Afterwards we go a little story about Scandinavians versus the rest of the Nordics and how the Finns and the Icelanders end up drinking together. 😀 I especially love that he added “our non-binary siblings” to “our Finnish brothers and sisters”. <3

The final song of the first set was about the month that brings us into the darkness, ‘November’. He spoke about his love for winter. I love winter too, but November is ugly in Germany. Anyway, his disdain for Icelandic summer is very funny to me and ‘November’ is an amazing song. I always love it.

The break took a while, which usually means Svavar is selling lots of merch. Good for him. 🙂 Part two started with ‘Janúar’, the song that brings you out of the darkness, but first he told us to remind him of “the story of the pizza”. He really painted a beautiful picture of January before playing the song. For him coming out in the light at the end of the months is the perfect example of the process of grief. I never thought about it that way before, but it made so much sense. I really could relate to the notion of grief cleaning the splinters in your heart. <3 We got to sing in Icelandic too, including some examples of Icelandic versus German words. He explained the sing-along part really well and it was the best I have ever heard it.

He proposed a sing-along challenge for Hamburg and I immediately was sorry not to go there and I don#t even drink beer. 😉 If he actually posts that challenge, you’ll know what I mean. Next came the breakup song section, with an impromptu example of the wrong type of breakup songs. 😀 Learning from breakups lead us to hearing about his love for strawberry ice cream and making sacrifices in the spirit of science. 😀 We got two examples of breakup songs, ‘Hard Things’ and ‘The Glorious Catastrophe’. Especially the latter was great, because it was quite different from the last version of it that I’ve heard. 🙂

The we heard about the album he made with Lucy Ward and Aiden Townes, playing ‘Isn’t it funny?’ for us. Apparently the album got 4 stars in The Guardian and it’s definitely cool to hear about Icelandic merfolk compared to how they are presented in other countries. They will laugh at you to let you know you are wrong. 😉 After merfolk, we learned about elves and how again, they are different from how they are imagined elsewhere. This brought us to finding guitar picks in one’s pocket and ‘The Hurting’. It rocked the house!

He introduced the final song of the set, ‘Slow Dance’ as one he had not played for years. It is about childbirth from the perspective of a helpless man. He spoke about how his daughter Emma was born, how traumatic it was and the amazing child she has turned into. <3 The song was fantastic and I am sure I have never heard him play this one before. In the end we even sang along, very softly. 🙂

We could not let him go yet and cheered loudly for him to come back. Before he played anything else, he told us the story about the pizza, but if you want to hear that one, you’r gonna have to go to one of Svavar’s shows. 😉 After that, he played us ABBA’S ‘Like and Angel passing through my Room’ and ended the concert with his interpretation of the poem ‘Krummi Svaf í Klettagjá’. So we ended, like we started, with an Icelandic poem. It was perfect.

Setlist

Ástarsaga úr fjöllunum
Morgúnn
Refur
Lady Winter
Hope and Fortune
Undir Birkitré’
Ölduslóð
November

Janúar
Hard Things
The glorious Catastrophe
Isn’t it funny?
The Hurting
Slow Dance

Like an Angel Passing Through My Room
Krummi Svaf í Klettagjá

I went for hugs and a chat afterwards and was momentarily tempted to join Svavar for post show drinks, but I was really tired, so I said goodbye. Two more shows to go.