Just a Gwai Lo - fun within prescribed limits

Gillian: “I think the band brought a bit of Iceland with them. I mean, it seemed as if the audience was all related somehow, either by blood or by friendship. A few minutes into standing in the lineup, one of my dates discovered that the three blonds standing in front of us just happened to be two of his uncles, and one of his aunts. Go figure.”

It was an imperfect concert which I experienced from the nosebleeds: at one point one of the band's keyboards gave out, but Sigur Rós and Amina put on one hell of a show. I was probably more impressed with the latter, a string quartet that also plays the xylophone and other assorted instruments, a few times using the tested and true technique of recording a few bars of one instrument, looping it, then moving on to another instrument. Add them to the list of musicians I've seen perform variations of this trick, a list that includes Feist, Radiohead and Jim James of My Morning Jacket.

Gillian's photo shows the drummer behind the curtain, a curtain they had drawn for the first and last songs (at least before the encore). For the record, I went with 4 people, and at least 2 of the 5 (myself and Colin's fiancée) were of Icelandic descent. When one of the women from Amina talked about their album and t-shirts being available in the lobby, their Icelandic accents were very thick, and therefore very cute.