Earlier this month I had the privilege of traveling to Detroit to see Jonsi perform live. Nov. 5 was the date I had been looking forward to since I bought the tickets in early August. I prepared myself for the concert by listening to his debut album Go constantly with the 10 others that planned on attending as well. We had heard that the show was going to be amazing and life changing, “the best show you’ll ever go to in your life,” some said. Our expectations were high, to say the least.
However, expecting an amazing show was underestimating the production that went hand in hand with the overall performance. The lights, visuals and instruments of all kinds were engulfing. As I stood just off to the side of the ballroom dance floor I would close my eyes during the melodic intervals of Jonsi’s almost feminine voice and feel the music run through my body. On the faster songs–Animal Arithmetic and Go Do–the visuals hypnotized me with a plethora of ants marching and carrying various objects, or hummingbirds flying and catching on fire. Every detail of the the audience’s emotions were taken into consideration with the production of the visual to music. For the song Tornado, the team created scenes of an abstract hunter (a wolf) and the hunted (a deer) running through a forest. I followed the deer through the forest as it was being hunted not wanting it to become the latest meal of the wolf, the music going hand in hand with each action of the characters jumping and running around the trees and bushes during the chase.Jonsi will be back in the United States during the spring and will be in Chicago late April. Right now he is distributing his latest live single for free on his website for just a taste of the real live show. There is only so much I can describe about a Jonsi show; the real thing is so much better. It truly was the best show of my life and I more than highly recommend seeing a live show.
