Eivør – Live Music Hall, Cologne; October 5th, 2024

I had seen Eivør at two festivals and also saw her play a bunch of Livestreams during Covid, yet this concert was the first one that I went to just to see her. She was just as good as I had expected and gave us an enjoyable evening full of new and old songs.

The show took place at Live Music Hall in Cologne, where I had not been in years. Arrived an hours or so before doors, got in line and waited for G. to join me. She showed up soon and we spent the time chatting. Once inside, we decided to stand by the wall with a good view of the stage and a place to lean on. Slowly, the hall filled up and by showtime it as pretty packed.

First up was Sylvaine from Norway. I’d hear about her, but had no idea what type of music she made. Her music was nice and it fit very nicely with Eivør. she sang in Norwegian as well as English and I liked it overall, but it didn’t really stick with me.

Setlist

Dagsens auga sloknar ut
Mørklagt
Nowhere, Still Somewhere
L’Appel du vide
Eg Er Framand ([traditional] cover)

It didn’t take all that long for Eivør to appear and everyone cheered. She started with a beautiful song in Faroese. I don’t know her music all that well, but according to the setlist it was ‘Ein klóta’. I really liked the sound of her voice. After that a low humming sound and a steady beat  indicated the start of ‘Jarðartrá’. She added another instrument just voicing notes and a piano melody joined in. Only then she started singing and it felt very hypnotic to me. Very cool.

The start of ‘Hugsi bert um teg’ made me think of Cindy Lauper’s ‘Time after time’ – it as a similar melody, but soon became something completely different. So far I was enjoying the show, even thought it was all in Faroese and I had not yet understood one word. She greeted us and told us how she had been looking forward to the tour and enjoyed being back in Cologne, talking about the first time there when she had played a tiny venue. We learned about her new album and that she would be playing many of these songs. So far we were three songs into side A and ‘Purpurhjarta’ (purple heart) was the last song on that side. It was about “looking for the light in the darkness”, she explained. It sounded quite proggy and rather dark – not really my style.

Now it was time for some English songs and I really enjoyed ‘Let it come’ – it reminded me of Irene a little bit. “There is a saying that the fastest way to get to where you want to be is to move slowly and that’s what this next song is about” and we should trust the process for things to work out the way they are supposed to be. It was ‘Skyscrapers’, a beautiful song. Then Eivør picked up the hand-drum and started chanting for the amazing ‘Trøllabundin’. 🙂

I really loved the music of ‘True Love’ and it didn’t matter that I wasn’t able to figure out much of the lyrics. After that we had reached the second part of the new album, ‘Enn’ with the title track of said album. She explained it was about finding hope in the dark. Funnily enough it had ben written in a parking lot at night where she could not find her car. The music made me feel nervous/ restless, but in a good way. It was the underlying beat. I really liked ‘Lívsandin’ – it sounded like a really interesting story to me, ‘Upp Úr Øskuni’ seemed more like a battle. It’s always exciting not to understand the language and just imagine what the songs might be about.

‘Gaia’ was the last son of the album and somewhat dreamy. ‘Salt’ came with a bang, i.e. the drum. I could not even make out if she was singing i Faroese or English, but it didn’t really matter. The melody brought so much emotion that I could feel the song. Next up was ‘Í Tokuni’ a song about being lost in the mountains in bad weather and “strange things happening behind the fog” – it started with some strange sounds and afterwards Eivør turned to us and expected us to repeat it. We laughed. Later on though, it actually worked. What a weird adventure. She claimed we were the best choir ever.

She thanked us and introduced the band and told us how playing live was her favorite thing and how beautiful it was to share a moment with us.  The set ended with ‘Gullspunnin’, another wild beauty. We cheered loudly and got one more song – ‘Falling Free’ was the song people yelled for and the one we got. It was a great finale! After the show I said to G. what a nice evening it had been and we both left smiling. It was worth it.

Setlist

Ein klóta
Jarðartrá
Hugsi bert um teg
Purpurhjarta
Let It Come
Skyscrapers
Trøllabundin
True Love
Enn
Lívsandin
Upp Úr Øskuni
Gaia
Salt
Í Tokuni
Gullspunnin

Encore:
Falling Free