Svavar Knútur – Filmforum, Bottrop; May 16th, 2024
Somehow I had thought I would not be able to see any of Svavar’s concerts in my area, but then realized that it was very possible to get to Bottrop. The show took place at a cinema, where we all had a cozy, lovely evening of stories and music.
Always counting on Deutsche Bahn being unreliable, I travelled earlier than I had to and thus arrived at the venue quite some time before the show. It was raining heavily so I was happy to find out that they had a cafe where I could sit and wait. While I had a drink, Svavar and his tour manager arrived and they asked me to join them. I gladly did and we had some interesting conversations about the music industry. 🙂
When the doors opened, I still sat there and when I got in there was but one place left in front row – enough for me. Saw a few familiar faces, said hello and settled down to wait for the show. It started soon with Svavar introducing himself and apologizing for not Speaking German, claiming the show would take five hours then. The first song was ‘Fagurt er í Fjörðum’, dedicated to his grandmother. He spoke about her for a while and she sounds lovely. He gave us a song translation too and played beautifully.
We heard about sister songs and the joy of singing in Icelandic, telling us how few people speak Icelandic and praising the “German nerds” who bothered to learn it. ‘Morgunn’, the love song for his family and ‘Refur’, the lullaby for his song Refur followed. <3 Afterwards he mentioned that the song was number six at Icelandic National Radio and how different all the other songs in the top ten were. It made him happy having got there with being his authentic self.
Svavar told us about finishing a big project with Ahoy Side B, wondering what would be next. One idea is writing songs to the “underdogs of Icelandic poetry” and the other one is writing songs about monsters. He played ‘Medusa’, a song about tour life. I really like this one. He spoke a little about Unanswered, his collaboration with Lucy Ward and Aiden Townes that got 4 stars from The Guardian – “the same number of stars as Taylor Swift” 😀 He introduced us to Icelandic meerfolk and how the “meermen do not look like Jason Momoa”, which led to stories about Icelandic weather. Oh and did you know that Iceland has killer sheep? 😉 All that lead to ‘Isn’t it funny?’ which is cool, but not as funny as the stories Svavar tells with it.
Before ‘November’, he urged us all o go to the merch table, because he had only two concerts left and his suitcase was heavy, pointing out that to support him we could either buy a T-shirt or convince 50 friends to listen to one of his albums 50 times on Spotify. Of course we learned about “skál”, “skål” and “kippis” and a curious genetic fact about Finns. 😉 On a more serious note, he mentioned how grief is about embracing darkness, going through it and coming out into the light at the end. The song was the perfect one to lead us to the break. <3
After the break he talked about wanting to be Troubadix from the Asterix comics, but being able to sing and then pointing out Idefix, a dog that we could hear barking. He also spoke about his older daughter and being a granddad. <3 Then he taught us to sing in Icelandic, because “it is beautiful hearing other voices singing in your language”. Somehow people would not believe him hat Icelandic and German are very similar, so we got lots if examples. In the end we managed just fine to sing along to ‘Janúar’. 🙂
“One of the must beautiful breakup songs ever written in the Icelandic language,” according to Svavar, is ‘Næturljóð úr fjörðum’ (Nocturne from the Fjords) by Böðvar Guðmundsson and explained what it is about and how some people in Iceland regard it as their most important song. He thanked us for ringing it out in him, because our sing-along was so good. What he said about the lyrics made me appreciate the song much more. It was really wonderful. <3 He thought that this was enough breakup songs for the night, but passed on the wisdom that breakup songs should be constructive instead of destructive, then changed his mind and played ‘Emotional Anorexic’. <3
He added how wonderful that particular girlfriend had been, but his own insecurities had not let him be happy in the relationship. Growing up, he had learned to looks down on himself and now was cautious not to pass that on to his children. It made me appreciate the song even more. We also leraned he never has a setlist and even tells his stories differently every night, because he does not want to get bored or bore his audience. True, I have never seen two shows that were the same.
We got the lovely ‘Hope and Fortune’ next, including the story of Icelandic refugees, with 30.000 people fleeing the country and going to America. That was 2/3 of the population at the time. ‘Ölduslóð’ was introduced as “a song about friendship” and played on ukulele.
Like a frog being boiled in water, Svavar said, all tech and social media companies are slowly destroying the fabric of trust in society and communities by monetizing everything. He’s right about small venues going bankrupt and smaller artists having a harder time. Everyone should really support small artists and venues, otherwise we will eventually end up with only artists, who are rich. He thanked us for coming and ended the set with ‘Slow Dance’, the center piece of the show. It is always emotional hearing his describe the birth of his daughter Emma and I can always feel the fear as well as the relief. The song captures these emotions beautifully. I love how it brings us all together in the end with a sing-along too.
He played ABBA’s ‘Like an Angel Passing Through My Room’ as an encore and dedicated to his mother. It was just lovely. Then he told us he always selects the next song based on the energy in the room and ended the show with Joni Mitchell’s ‘Case of you’. I’m not sure I have heard him sing that one before. It was the perfect final song. 🙂 I said a quick goodbye, before rushing off to catch a bus. It had been a great evening.
Setlist
Fagurt er í Fjörðum
Morgúnn
Refur
Medusa
Isn’t it funny?
November
Janúar
Næturljóð úr fjörðum
Emotional Anorexic
Hope and Fortune
Ölduslóð
Slow Dance
Like an Angel Passing Through My Room
Case of you