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It’s difficult to describe one of the most enchanting and memorable live music performances that I’ve ever seen. The entire night’s experience seemed to reside somewhere beyond the confines of the stage and audience, filled with emotional highs and surreal moments that constantly floated in and out of the space between dream and reality.

OK, time for the quick and dirty review. Jónsi (y’own-zee), playing the first of two nights to a mesmerized and sold out 9:30 Club, wooed those in attendance with an hour and a half set that was more like an ancient Icelandic opera than a rock show. Arriving just in time to see him take the stage, we managed to snag a pretty decent view towards the back of the main floor before moving up to the balcony for the second half of the set. (Oh and if you you’re wondering, Jónsi is the lead singer of Sigur Rós – “cig-er roce”. Iceland, baby. Who knew?) For the past few months I’ve been listening to his debut solo album, Go, with an almost trance-like devotion to each track and I had high hopes that his live show would live up to my expectations. And it did.

Dressed in his usually unusual garb, an eagle-like amalgamation of feathers and streamers, face paint and sculpted hair resembling a bird of prey, Jónsi performs with an incredibly channeled energy. The fairly gaunt, one-eyed siren very much resembles the characters that his music evokes during his mythological-like set. His performance is accented by an evolving projection set against a backdrop of trees with a running animation full of forest creatures, ranging from owls to elk to bears. The images often focus on a tale of changing seasons, birth and decay; through the course of one song, we follow a lone tree as it blooms and offers sanctuary to other animals, suffers through the slow pain of autumn and, finally, its heart wrenching battle to persevere through the harsh storms of winter. (Believe it or not, I forged a pretty tight bond with this tree over the course of 5 or 6 minutes).

Jónsi played his entire record and the pace was completely natural. His songs are balanced equally between slow, moving ballads and riotous, uplifting tracks that would be perfect for any number of heroic film soundtracks. The entire mood of the evening was like the most epic bedtime lullaby you’ve never had the chance to hear. An 11 out of 10 show if there ever was one.