Jonsi Jonsi Jonsi

It's hard to describe what this concert was like, just one of those had-to-be-there things really. The article further down catches a little of it.


What I remember is feeling like I swelled almost to exploding point with some rather weird, rare kind of music-induced joy. And that I wished he could have played all night at the very least.


I remember us walking, loitering dizzily, skipping, maybe even floating down the rainy street afterwards, getting gelato, hanging off chairs in the sheltered entry to a cinema, alternating between bursting with talk and drifting into happy dazed silences... haha

Darkness and light infused with the joy of being alive

Bernard Zuel - August 4, 2010 SMH

JONSI, Enmore Theatre, August 2

MAYBE the way to understand what it is about Jon Thor Birgisson which appeals (but could just as easily deter, I know) is to step inside the celeste-and-thundering-drums song Animal Arithmetic.

Here, the tall, boyish-looking Icelander usually called Jonsi describes a day of seeming mundanity, of haircuts and breakfast and riding bikes. Then he declares with unfettered enthusiasm, ''every day, everywhere, people are alive … we should all be alive'' as the music rattles along like a pack of pre-teens bursting out the school gates at 3pm.

It could be tacked-on naivety, the sort of faux innocence which grates. Somehow, though, Jonsi finds a way to channel the energy and pleasure of childhood without sinking into childishness (certainly not when another line equally excitedly declares ''get it on, let it out, f---ing and erupting''); to revel in optimism without turning into Pollyanna.

His music and his voice marvel at the colour and spirit of just being and churn with the rolling energy of it, and you can't help but be lifted. Just as you find yourself in some unfeasibly sunny corner when Go Do gallops past you. Go on, it says, I dare you to let go.

Jonsi and his small, multiskilled band, whose members all find a way to play various ancient keyboards, vibraphone, percussion, guitar and bass, don't just do sunniness. The show begins with a slow, darkened mood, grows into something like secular hymns (Grow Till Tall is as angelic and moving as anything by Thomas Tallis) and then, as light bursts through, fills out into a meaty and vigorous width.

Although the night ends with a cataclysmic shower of light and volume and cascading drums which is simply thrilling, these songs are not intended to be as dramatic as the music Jonsi makes with Sigur Ros. Instead they trade on a view that innocence and pleasure can sit next to maturity and heartbreak. We should all be so alive.