Svavar Knútur – Baba Su, Duisburg; February 1st, 2016
To paraphrase Forrest Gump, seeing Svavar Knútur is like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re gonna get. One thing is guaranteed though: He is going to make you laugh. If it’s a good day, he’s probably going to make you cry too. Either way, his concerts are always entertaining. On this February night he introduced his new album ‘Brot’ (The Breaking) – yes, he knows the word means “bread” in German and it’s nowhere near as funny as you might think it is. 😛 The stories he told were hilarious though and the songs beautifully sad. I thoroughly enjoyed the evening.
The website had said the concert would start at 19:30 so I arrived about an hour before that. While I guessed it might not start on time, I didn’t think it was going to be almost two hours late. By the time Svavar finally took the stage it was well after 9 pm. The café had a strange atmosphere, a bit cold for my liking, but the corner where the stage was had some comfortable sofas and chairs. Everyone seemed excited to be there and it felt a little bit like a family reunion that I had accidentally walked into. The organizer was really enthusiastic and support act Justus Liebe did his best to warm us up for what was about to come. His songs were very listenable, but I didn’t really have the patience for them, because I had a train to catch and wanted to hear Svavar’s full set before leaving.
Finally, Svavar walked up to the microphone, greeted the audience and made me forget all the waiting in an instant. From then on it was a wonderful evening with enjoyable music and extremely funny stories. Some of Savars observations are spot on, others far out, but he tells them in such a manner that they all seem to make sense and you are willing to believe every word. You have to see and hear it to fully understand. All I can say that he brings everything across so matter of factly that nobody would doubt its truth. He is a born comedian. Interestingly enough, quite a few of his songs are deeply sad and/or depressing. This contrast makes for great entertainment.
The first piece of wisdom he shared with us that night was that music is better for you than sports, because there are more muscles involved in singing than in any other exercise. Hence, it would be good for us if we sang along. It helped, most people did sing with him during the course of the evening and those who didn’t had at least the muscles trained that you need for laughing. 😉 I cannot remember which songs he played, but the stories he told were hilarious. The most memorable one was about singing before some chess championship event in Iceland where the people were only concentrated on their chessboards and wanted to start playing. He described their reactions in great detail and so colorful that I could see the whole scene play out in front of me. I don’t think I can reproduce all of it though. It was all about their inability to communicate and merely grunting in reply to his invitation for singing along. He told them singing was good for the brain and claimed that a few weeks later a female Romanian chess player befriended him on Facebook thanking him and saying it helped. That sure was a good story. 😉
He played songs on guitar and ukulele, even asking us for requests for the latter, but I don’t know his catalogue well enough the remember the ukulele songs. either way, it was a good selection of songs, older as well as brand new. In-between, he shared thoughts and stories, usually with a funny twist. whatever he tell and explains always makes perfect sense to me when he does, but often seems way out there when I think about it later. It is part of Svavar Knútur’s magic to make absolutely everything sound believable. This night he told us that mentally balanced people are never good in bed. Sadly it escapes my memory how exactly he explained, but I think it had something to do with needing a certain amount of strong emotions to make things interesting. Either way, it seemed perfectly logical to me at that very moment. 😉 Later he theorized that in the vastness of this universe there must be a planets where aliens are getting drunk on plutonium. OK, if you say so. 😀
All in all was a fun night with good songs, even though one of my favorites, ‘Emotional Anorectic’ was not played. I’ll sure be back to see him the next time he comes around.