An Evening With...Sigur Rós

Let me take you back… It's the year 2004, and I've just been handed a CD of an album by a band from Iceland. It has no track names, and there is very little artwork. The booklet inside is blank. The album itself doesn't even have a name, only going by the symbol ( ).

All I know is, I've been told I must listen to this. A few minutes later, I am completely captivated, a few days later, I am obsessed. 

The band, of course, was Sigur Rós.

I saw my first Sigur Rós live show in 2008 - four years after that first listen. I guess you could say I had high expectations, and the excitement to see my favourite band for the first time was off the charts. Nothing quite prepared me for what I was about to experience.

However intense and beautiful their music is on their albums, the live experience is on another level. By the end of the concert, I had been chewed up, spat out, and left with no instructions on how to piece myself back together again. It forever became the benchmark of what a perfect live show should be. 

I saw them many times over the coming years, but I always had two dreams: to see them play in their homeland of Iceland and to experience them play with a full orchestra - a very rare occurrence at that time. 

Fast forward 16 years to 2024, and I am in Reykjavík, about to enter the Harpa to see Sigur Rós on their Nordic Orchestral Tour. It’s their final stop, and they are playing with the Elja Ensemble, conducted as always, by Robert Ames.

The cherry on the cake? I have a photo pass…

My two main passions have always been photography and music, and getting the opportunity to combine the two is always a lot of fun. I think back to when I first started doing photography, going to shows and using a point and shoot compact camera - with terrible results - but still loving the experience. In recent years, I’ve been lucky to shoot concerts with far better equipment and a much greater technical knowledge. 

For anyone not familiar with concert photography, you usually get to shoot from the ‘pit’ (the area just in front of the stage), and it's normally for the first three songs. As this was an orchestral show, and to minimise the risk of ruining the audience's experience, I had to shoot from the rear of the auditorium. The song allocation was the first two songs of the second set.

I took to my seat, sat back in anticipation, as my musical bucket list was about to be fulfilled. And boy, was it ever. From the first few bars of the opening song Blóðberg, I knew this was going to be special. I was transported to another place, hearing the songs I knew so well but different this time. It was captivating. The first half of the show flew by, and before I knew it, it was the intermission and I had to get ready. 

On to the second set and the photography, which was a bit of a challenge for a few reasons. As mentioned, I was at the back of the venue rather than the front. The lights had a dark red-hue, and the band members were hidden amongst the orchestra. I was using a pair of Canon 6D mark IIs with a Canon 70-200mm f2.8 on one and a Canon 85mm f1.8 on the other. The 70-200mm f2.8 is an incredible lens and allowed me to get the more intimate shots, focusing on the band members individually, while I got some good wide shots with the 85mm. The quality of the 70-200mm meant I could crop the image a little in post-production to give the illusion that I was closer than I was. I just had to be careful balancing the lack of light and setting a fast enough shutter speed to keep everything sharp. When shooting a show outside the pit, the main objective is not to disturb the audience. Therefore, keeping my movements minimal, even from the back, was crucial.

It's amazing how fast two songs can pass when you're taking the shots and before I knew it, I was back in my seat, job done, and enjoyed the rest of what was a mind-blowing show, with the band ending with their most recognisable song, Hoppípolla. Overall, the photography was a different experience to what I'm used to, but I really enjoyed the challenge and was happy with the images that I came away with. 

The concert was an experience that will stay with me for a long time, and I want to express my gratitude to the band and their management for allowing me to photograph it. 

TAKK!