Svavar Knútur – Bar jeder Venunft, Berlin; May 12th, 2024

After three wonderful shows in April, I needed to see more Savar and went to see him in Berlin. It was my first time at Bar jeder Vernunft and it’s a beautiful venue, where he played a fun concert. Absolutely worth the trip.

I arrived in the afternoon by train had some food and went to the venue, where I sat in the garden with a drink. Svavar said hi and told me some about the venue’s history and how beautiful it was. It did indeed look cool, lots of mirrors, nice stage and small tables everywhere. I had ice cream before the show as the place slowly filled with people.

Svavar stepped on stage to great cheers and remarked how cool the place was and how it felt like a circus. He started with ‘Fagurt er í Fjörðum’ dedicating it to his mother and grandmothers, because it was mother’s day. Before singing, he translated the song for us and spoke about his grandmother, who has many grandchildren and great grandchildren and makes them Christmas presents every ear. Lovely.

He mentioned how much he hates writing love songs and gave us examples as to how boring such songs can be. Then he listed all the topics that would be more interesting, among them stars and fish. While at the topic, he continued with Icelandic ways of showing love. It was all very funny. After all this ranting he played us the lovely ‘Morgunn’, his version of a love song. 🙂

Svavar told us that he knew almost everyone in the room and welcomed those he had never met before. The most important thing to teach us was ‘skál’, expanded on how it is in the rest of the nordic countries and joked about how the Icelanders always team up with the Finns to go to the bar. 😀 He continued with ‘Refur’, telling us how he got to spend a lot of time with him because of Covid. The song is really beautiful.

We learned about a lot of his songs belonging together as sister songs and played ‘Lady Winter’ and ‘Hope and Fortune’, the two songs about refugees. We got a piece of Icelandic history too – it was really interesting. He mentioned never wanting to leave Iceland, but loving to complain about it and then joking how that comes natural to Germans. True! Having both of them in the setlist always makes me happy, they are two of my favorite songs. With ‘LAdy Winter’ I can feel the melancholia and then ‘Hope and Fortune’ puts the hope back in my heart. <3

Svavar talked about differences in culture between Germany and Iceland and his first culture clash with Germans about blowing our nose. Go see Svavar Knútur, you will always learn something! 😀 He continued with stories about train travel and delays. It was very funny. I also loved how he wove in there that we should not be yelling at the train staff when the train is late, because it is not their fault and the rule should be “the less you get paid, the less you should be yelled at”. ‘Wanderlust’ was the perfect song to follow. It does not show up in the set so often these days, so it made me smile and sing along. 🙂

At the end of the set, we heard about the project about grief that Svavar has been working on with his songs and how it is finished now with Ahoy Side B. How that lead to his love for Raclette cheese, I have no idea, but loved it. 😀 Of course, summer in Iceland was a topic too before he played ‘November’ the song about going into the darkness. I feel like I say that about almost every song, bt this is one of my favorites too. it very much captures the feeling of the dark season and oh the dramatic changes from slow to faster, just like an oncoming storm. <3

At the start of the second set Svavar talked about how great it is to travel around he world and sing in his own language. We learned about the words “happiness” and “sadness” in Icelandic and how these words literally mean having or not having fur, then expanded how happiness has different meanings in different cultures. It was really interesting. We got a great version of ‘Janúar’ and managed a nice sing-along. It always amazes me, how well it works.

He spoke about going through grief about his father’s death and how hard it was at the time, because so many people died at the same time. He worked through it by writing songs and people liked them, thus he became a musician. We learned more about his father’s life and that ‘Ástarsaga úr fjöllunum’ is about him. Beautiful.

“Breakups are awesome,” he exclaimed, then elaborating on why it is good for people who don’t fit together to not stay together. He gave us examples of bad breakup songs, explaining we should use them as an opportunity to learn about ourselves. Some things and people just do not belong together and Svavar had even made a scientific experiment to illustrate the point. 😉 We got ‘Hard Things’ and ‘The glorious Catastrophe’ and both were fun. Someone asked for ‘The Hurting’, but he answered that after realizing in Vienna what it really is about, he needed to give the song a rest. Fair enough.

“I have one song left,” Svavar told us and everyone made sad noises, so he explained that he likes to have a bit of time to hand out after a concert and if he plays too long that won’t happen. Someone in the audience mentioned their daughter plays ukulele because of him, so that bought us two extra songs. We got ‘Ölduslóð’ and ‘Baby would you marry me?’ on the ukulele – that was so sweet. ‘Slow Dance’, about the birth of his daughter Emma, was the last song in the set – a very fitting end to a show that started with honoring his ancestors. He told us the story too – scary and dramatic and with a happy ending. Such a great song and a beautiful song-along of “come into the light” in the end. <3

The entire room erupted into cheers in the end and Svavar was back on stage just moments later. He talked about growing up in a farm and the records he listened to back then. His favorite song in the world is ‘Like an Angel Passing Through My Room’ so he played it for us. <3 He told us a funny German joke, then spoke about different melodies of different languages, including examples and played us Brahms’ ‘In stiller Nacht’ in-between. 🙂 He ended the concert with ‘Krummi Svaf í Klettagjá’.

Svavar was surrunded by friends afterwards, so I said goodbye quickly and left, walked back to the train station and dreamt of music on the night train home.

Setlist

Fagurt er í Fjörðum (Látra-Björg)
Morgúnn
Refur
Lady Winter
Hope and Fortune
Wanderlust
November

Janúar
Ástarsaga úr fjöllunum
Hard Things
The glorious Catastrophe
Ölduslóð
Baby would you marry me?
Slow Dance

Like an Angel Passing Through My Room (ABBA)
In stiller Nacht (Johannes Brahms)
Krummi Svaf í Klettagjá