violently happy
By anders pearson 23 Aug 2003
like probably most 20 something new yorkers, i went to the Björk concert on Coney Island last night.
it was fantastic.
it was actually my first time in a stadium. not being much of a sports fan, i've never been to a baseball game or anything. and with Björk being about as mainstream as my musical tastes go, i've never been to a big concert like that before. when i ordered the tickets back in may, it didn't occur to me that there would be anything besides General Admission and that that would really be preferable to seats way back in the stands. so i just selected 'best available' and took whatever ticketmaster gave me (which, of course, was way up in the stands).
luckily, keyspan park is pretty small as far as stadiums go. so even up in the stands wasn't too bad. we couldn't really make out much detail on the stage, but we could see Björk well enough to see her funny little dance moves. plus, i got to purchase a $5 budweiser in a plastic "anti-hooligan style" bottle.
the sound was ok too. not tremendously loud, but clear and well mixed.
Sigur Ros opened and they were good. i’d never heard them before; just knew that they were mellow and vaguely radiohead-esque and sing in a made up language. sure enough, they do sound quite a bit like recent radiohead though they have a couple songs that rock quite solidly.
immediately before Björk's set started, we were treated to a massive fireworks display. it was seriously impressive on its own. bigger than most 4th of july shows that i've seen. Björk was just spectacular. her voice sounded great live and she seemed to really be having fun performing. she played a lot of newer material off vespertine, selma songs, etc. throughout the show, there were more fireworks, timed to accent dramatic points in the songs. there were also two rows of torches along the front of the stage that would shoot out 5 or 6 foot jets of flame in synch with certain parts. i figured that with those in place, she would have no problems with stagedivers.
after the show, we all met up with jP and blair outside. that was kind of tricky because the sheer number of people with cell phones in such a small area was overwhelming the cell network and no one could really make any calls. luckily, SMS seemed to be unaffected. yay for SMS!
then six of us all piled ourselves into blair’s little VW Golf (four skinny-ass people in the back seat) and drove off.