This may be starting to look like a Nanna fan blog, but I swear it’s just because I am a little bit of a fanatic and if I ever ran a blog on my own it would probably be all about music. That being said, I went to a Nanna concert tonight (see my How To Start A Garden reviews here and here) and I think it altered my brain chemistry. I am feeling emotions that I had not previously unlocked and holy fuck.
The venue
Bærjarbío, also called “Ðe Lónlí Blú Bojs” Theater (phonetically: the lonely blue boys) was the selected venue for this kick off concert. Nanna is heading off on a world tour and started in her home country. One thing I love about Icelandic bands performing in Iceland (not many other bands do….) is that even if they sing in English, they do all the talk around the songs in Icelandic. And in Nannas case, she even translated the titles. Now I know enough Icelandic to follow along the banter, but there were some annoying Americans and Canadians who kept calling out in English and she had to translate for them. Bruh you’re in her home country of course she’s gonna speak her mother tongue, especially when 99% of the crowd understands.
Anyway, the venue was very cute! There were only like 140 seats, making it quite cozy and personal. I was in the second row, and no one sat
In front of me so I had a clear line of sight. The acoustics were great, this place was clearly made for performances. I had no trouble finding it but it was in Hafnarfjörður so points off for that (all my homies hate Hafnarfjörður). I was worried that it would go quite late and I would miss the last bus back but because there was no opening act it was actually quite short, not a complaint just a comment, and so I did manage to catch a bus back to the city.
The set
I was expecting the set to be a straight run through of the album, but was pleasantly surprised! Nanna mixed up the order going between slower and more upbeat songs. This also kept us on our toes (especially when I didn’t catch the translated title) not knowing what fantastic song was goin in to be played next.
She opened and ended her set with How to start A Garden and Seabed, respectively, which does follow Of Monsters And Men tradition. It also just flows so well since they are meant to open and close the album they have the perfect vibes to
Open and close a concert. But OF COURSE there was an encore, which Nanna came back for and sang the Vine followed by a brand new song! I couldn’t catch the name fully but it is something like the good before the bad. Here is my very shaky video of that song! I am not usually a concert recorder, and this is the only video I took because I wanted to be able to listen to it again.
Over the concert she sang the full album and it was so very beautiful. The recordings don’t catch the power and vibrato of her voice, and in person it sinks into your bones and reverberates your soul.
The lights
I have always loves the lights at shows, they enhance every song and show the emotions that the artist is really feeling. Not only did Nanna have lights swinging around in both color and white, but she also had her short film playing in the background. This created a magical feeling because many of the scenes therein feature the Icelandic landscape or mystical elements such as ghosts. As you know both of these play heavily into Nannas music, and made the performance have even more emotional depth. The video was played in black and white, with layovers of the color from the lights.
The surprise outro song
One of the coolest parts of this concert is that Nanna and her band debuted a brand new song at the end of her performance of her album. While I generally prefer seeing songs I know live, just because they are easier for me to understand and I already have an emotional connection with them, there is always something magical about the feeling of being lost in a song for the first time. It was the only thing I videoed at the concert, so here’s a sneak peak for all y’all who couldn’t get tickets. Sorry for shaky video, I was too busy actually watching to care too much about my video.