Eva here the photographer who did the pictures for the deluxe edition. First
of all I'd like to say how much I enjoyed doing these pictures. I love
looking at how people interact with each other and their environment so what
could be a better opportunity than touring with a group of people who know
each other through and through and going to lots of different countries?

It was tough though physically - I'll never look at a band on stage again
without thinking of the hardship that comes with touring: sleeping on the
bus, in a hotel, back on a bus. Showers no showers, food no food. You're
being carried from one place to the next, lose control over where you are at
what time, living in a bubble. It's very surreal. But fun too of course and
full of life.

The band were absolutely lovely to work with. No egos, all easy. I'll miss
them.

It's been great working on this and I'm rather sad it's over. Thanks for
pre-ordering and buying the deluxe edition and for all your responses. And
if any of you are interested in hearing more stories on the making of this
book, I'll be doing a talk at the OFFF festival in Lisbon in May, here's a
link http://www.offf.ws/


ex

I missed a trick when describing our Bonaroo experience in my last blog in not mentioning a beguiling performance we happened across in one of the further-flung outposts of the festival. Wandering round the site, we heard vaguely familiar strains coming from a side stage. Gravitating towards it in order solve the riddle of its origin, we found a troupe of hippy chix doing expressive dancing to 'Glosoli'.
As anyone who's shared the pleasure:pain interface we experience when confronted with artistic interpretations of the band's work (cf. the a capella barbershop quartet version of Vaka; the head-on hip-hop collision of Staralfur and Flostradamus; the unholy mash up of My Heart Will Go On and Bium Bium Bambalo; the much-loved Hebrew reading of Svefn G Englar; We Are Scientists' Hoppipolla; Kronos Quartet's Flugufrelsarinn, and perhaps most heinously the current Jonathan Ansell pop-classix rendition of Hoppi) will know how heart-rending and cherishable this stuff can be. After all it's why we instituted the Gobbledigook remix competition, just to see what we'd get back from y'all. So without further ado, for your cultural enlightenment, here's the young lovelies from Bonaroo struttin' their stuff to the peppy, kick-up-your-heels beat of 'Glosoli'.



I also forgot/neglected to write any sort of Tour Diary from the latter stages of the US tour, even though lots happened. Much of it is now lost in the midst of my brain, but I feel I should mention that i think I found a famous person to undertake our ludicrous 'Brad Pitt' (see previous diary entry) idea of trying to say "Med sud i eyrum vid spilum endalaust" on camera, to prove to (some people at) our record company that it's not such a dumb idea to so name it (although personally I always wanted to call it 'Sigur Ros', and be done with it).
So, having singly failed to pluck up the courage to ask Drew Barrymore when she came back stage in LA, despite her being super game and seemingly lovely, I told myself I'd confront the next celeb I met with this askance marketing opportunity. As it turned out, by chance i was sat next to Jared Leto at the next show in Berkeley, and so gave it my best pitch, and he seemed to take the bait and has promised to open himself up to public ridicule on our behalf sometime this side of Christmas. I'm hoping this is the start of a promotional rollercoaster and all manner of folks are going to come on board and out themselves as Sigurphiles and we can snatch victory from the very jaws of defeat.
Speaking of that kind of stuff. I should say the weirdest thing happened to us on the way to the White House. That is, Sigur Ros, a band who remember don't do advertising, approved an ad for national US television. The circumstances we extenuating, however, the ad was for the final stages of the Democratic campaign to elect Barack Obama as President of the United States. Now, we've always stayed out of politics, but after sleeping on it a night, we all decided this was worth getting down off our moral high-ground for. So we said yes, only to be stopped in our tracks by an insurmountable amount of red tape. The Democrats were looking for gratis (i.e. free) use of Hoppipolla, which was fine by us, except that, because the band are 'Foreign Nationals' it is apparently illegal for them to make "donations" to US political parties, and they would have to pay us "fair market value", which was deemed as being several tens of thousand of dollars. Now everyone knows that Hoppipolla has become emotional shorthand for "heart-rending hope", but, under these fiscal circumstances, even a campaign as well-funded as Obama's was always going to pick a freebie over us.
I understand that you can't have foreign powers buying influence in the White House, but to be blocked on these grounds for a piece of music that has been used pretty much globally for next-to-nothing under "blanket agreement" deals between broadcasters and rights owners, did for a day or two made my head go dizzy with frustration. For it's normal for "our" 'synchronisation licensing' people to be forever ringing us up, begging us to give our music to this General Motors' ad, or that Julia Roberts' blockbuster, trying to find any chink in our armour to make these 'syncs' happen. This time, however, it all went strangely quiet. If you are signed to a multi-national it seems you should not expect to be able to show your support for a political party, even though the same corporation's executives themselves give freely under their own Universal Music Group Political Action Committee [www.opensecrets.org/pacs/expend.php?cmte=C00392464&Cycle=2008 , etc].
Anyway, that's how we didn't get to play our (minor) part in history, and I was left with a strange feeling of invisible wheels turning high above my head. Thank goodness Barack won, but imagine how it could have been still sweeter had his victory been soundtracked by familiar, effortlessly ascending, piano chords. Someone will no doubt write to me now with sound and reasonable legal reasoning as to why I should remove this from my blog, but that's what happened, and I thought some of you at least might be interested.

I thought I'd write some notes to go along with the pictures Eva took to go in Special Edition, since while a lot of the images are pretty much self-explanatory - or better left mysterious - some others could maybe benefit from a little background info.

That said, I don't really have that much extra to say about the photos from Abbey Road that start the book, it's just some lovely shots of the Sigur Ros boys in an historic and photogenic setting, interspersed with the kids from the London Oratory boys choir being, literally, old school in their maroon striped blazers.

I really like the shot of Kjartan with his hand on his forehead, sat in the crook of someone's (Georg? Conductor Daniel?) arm. The way the staircase rises in opposition to the limb is most pleasing.

Actually while I'm musing on compositional elements, the strip lights seen in various reflections within Abbey Road also provide great zonal definition within the pictures. As does the arc of lights strung between Kjartan and Daniel in the photo of them poring over the score.

The last shot in this section, called "courtyard, abbey road" in the photo key, features Production Manager Derek McVay reflected in the window to Kjartan's left. Eva likes a nice reflected image, which is how we segue into the short section from Berlin.

I'll say a little bit about Berlin, because it could be construed as weird why there are any pictures from Germany at all, since we didn't do any recording or rehearsing there or anything. Well, that's true, but we did have the brilliant idea of collaborating with Icelandic-Danish art superstar Olafur Eliasson on all aspects of the presentation of 'Med sud…' and the associated videos and live shows, and his studios are in Berlin.

Thus, we went to Berlin a couple of times to see how things were progressing. In the end it was decided not to pursue this avenue, since Olafur was wrapped up in his first solo show at MOMA in New York and things just didn't come together. The images in this section of the book are taken from the second and last visit to Studio Eliasson. The photo labelled "after image presentation" is pretty cool, since it shows one way the stage show could have gone, with Olafur using strong colours on the retina to create effects that exist in-eye only, if you see what I mean. It's kind of subtle but interesting, and something you can see in his own art shows.

I think this time in Berlin was kind of stressful for everyone involved, since we were all running out of time to create artwork and a live show, and Olafur's very precise operational methods were not chiming with Sigur Ros's defiantly unscientific approach. The tension of the occasion can be seen across the following spread, with Olafur rubbing his eyes and Kjartan succumbing to the flu, unable to concentrate on what is being expressed to him any longer. He left the meeting a few moments after this picture was taken, while the rest of the band repaired to a café to talk about what to do next, given that it probably wasn't going to come together with Olafur.

The last picture in the Studio Eliasson is reproduced upside down in order to draw attention to the huge revolving mirror above our heads (another possible presentational idea that never happened). The shot called 'Kreutzberg' shows Georg in full flow explaining ideas for the live show that would eventually materialise as the snow and confetti blower carnival the band have been exhibiting on the road since the summer. It's a great moment of focus captured perfectly.

Next are a few shots from producer flood's studio in Willesden in North West London. Here the band were mixing and doing late vocals, as they finally bit the bullet and realised the songs needed to have words. Lyrics are always the last thing to come on a Sigur Ros song, and this was a pensive and slightly stressful time as we all wondered if they'd ever crack the problem of so many guide vocals and so little time.

You can see in the first picture Kjartan sitting at the console riding the faders, while Flood is glued to the screen on the left. There's an awful lot of close concentration at this stage, and they are constantly identifying miniscule fixes required that I can't spot when I know they are there. That said, the record was still rushed by band standards and there are many things they have had to live with on this album rather than correcting them to perfection (and maybe losing some of the life of the recording in the process).

The New York City pictures are centred around mastering the record with Ted Jensen at Sterling Sound. He's done the last two albums and is pretty amazing. There's also some pictures of me and Jonsi twatting about with artwork ideas. Jonsi might well be handwriting the text eventually used on the sleeve in that picture, or maybe it was one of the many efforts that ended up in the bin. Hard to say. There's one shot there taken in the XL offices where we are explaining to the guy who is responsible for making the Cds what card weight and finish we are looking for, which might be why there's a Beck Cd on the desk in front of us. Is this interesting, or am I over the line and into boring the shit out of you?

The next sequence of pictures shows video directors Stefan and Siggi (aka Arni & Kinski) casting the models for the Gobbledigook video to be shot later the same week. Stefan and Siggi have shot Vidrar Vel Til Loftarasa, Glosoli and Hoppipolla, and so we pretty much let them get on with it, once we've agreed a script. With the Gobbledigook video the ideas were all inspired by the photography of Ryan McGinley, who you obviously know shot the sleeve picture for 'Med sud…' (or rather we asked him if we could use one of his existing pictures as our sleeve picture).

Jonsi and Ryan had been friends for years, but all the same it was great that Ryan agreed so readily, especially since he had (apparently) previously turned down a similar request from Coldplay. Anyway, all the boys and girls you can see in the next 15 or so images are models borrowed from Ryan McGinley's various road trip shoots. It had been raining stupidly hard for days in New York, but unbelievably the skies cleared on the Saturday we went to Caumsett State Park on Long Island not far from Manhattan, and we had a blast.

We weren't allowed to drink in the park, but we smuggled some liquor in so folks felt less weird getting naked in front of a full film crew. Jonsi, I think it is fair to say, had his share of the bottle(s) to give him Dutch courage to lip-synch to camera, and I would guess slept pretty good that night… None of the rest of the band came on the video shoot, which as far as me and jonsi were concerned was their loss.

In the middle of this 'Gobbledigook' section is a shot of the actual 16mm file reel that was later cut up for inclusion in the inside front cover of each special edition. Oh, and Chris Doyle the director of photography seen in one of the shots is the guy who shot that amazing Wong Kar Wei movie 'In the Mood For Love' – so we knew we were in good hands.

After that it's over to Iceland for the mandatory 2 days rehearsals ahead of a world tour. Anyone who's seen the short 10 minute EPIK we made for this album will know Jonsi says one of the secrets of Sigur Ros is that they never rehearse – well, it's true. If you get 2 days out of them you are doing really well.

The fridge in this section is Jonsi's, as is the draining board, with Raw Food recipe books on the side as a dead giveaway. Sadly, Georg lost the cat seen with him in his back garden in the weeks after this shot was taken when he was away on tour. The shot of Kjartan with the drums is taken in Jonsi's living room, as we pick up early prototypes of what will become the marching drums used in Gobbledigook live.

I really like the shot of Jonsi with the eagle flying out of his head against the blue wall. This is taken on the roof of a bar called Boston, where he had just been for fitting with costume designer Raven (aka Hrafnhildur in Icelandic). I also like the lights stretching between Kjartan and Jonsi in the two-shot labelled First Rehearsal. The variety coloured t-shirts ranged across the next picture against the black backdrop is also most attractive, as are the variety of hand gestures.

After that it's Mexico, where we find trombone player Sammi worshipping the sun Gods in some half finished (and empty) resort in the mountains outside Mexico City. This to my mind is one of the best shots in the book, recalling ????. The shot of the boys pratting about with the brass instruments is obviously funny. While the following Amiina shot carries all of their don't-fuck-with-me attitude appeal, plus some great use of cerise.

We fought with Eva over the inclusion of the shot of Ingi with his Sousaphone behind the dressing room couch. Maybe the composition is too formal for her, but I find the symmetry and lazily angled trombone compelling. She loves the cow which follows, and which provides one of the only direct visual links to Nick Abrahams's 'Vid spilum endalaust' film, since the same cow gets screen time there too.

The picture of Helgi with the hose supposedly filling the swimming pool (it never actually got filled by anything other than rain water while we were there) is cool and brings back fond memories of having races round the edge of the pool on that narrow internal ledge you can see. That bourgainvillia bush at the back of the pool has got really sharp thorns if you run into it at great speed, I can tell you.

Orri had had a bad headache during the day and had been visited by a doctor for the same the night before. But all the same, none of us were prepared for what happened when we got to the festival site at Tepoztlan. When I look at his pallor and expression in the shot with the two caravans backstage at the festival, I can see the tension in his face, but at the time I thought he'd play through it and be fine. Of course, he couldn't and didn't, collapsing on stage after two songs, and being driven away in an ambulance for the brain scans you can see both here and later in the Omaha section, when he rejoined the tour after being deemed unfit to fly with the rest of the band to San Diego.

The scrawled over setlist from Tepoztlan tells its own story. In the end I think the band played another 5 songs without Orri, before running out of things-to-do-without-a-drummer. It was a sad and scary time with everyone very fearful for Orri's wellbeing.

Nevertheless, there are two shots in the Tepoztlan section I really like. The brass boys practising while fans climb the scaffolding and peer over the fence backstage, and the costumes hung from the tree at the hotel while we wait for the van to come and pick us up. Somehow the suit holders are reminiscent of huge fruit bats.

I wasn't around for the days in San Diego since I was hanging hospital side with Orri in Mexico City. Still, it looks like the boys weren't too concerned about us, since they are kicking back in the pool and watching the World Cup. They also took this time to rent the speedboat you can see in Nick's film.

Reunited in Omaha, you can see us on a tour of the city zoo, courtesy of local Kianna from the wonderful Tilly & The Wall. I think the shot of Georg and Orri looking at some desert brush-type enclosure is pure mystery, and probably my second favourite shot in the whole book.

Things got dramatic later when the tornadoes that had been cruising up and down Tornado Alley for the past couple of days came to Omaha. I confess to being kind of thrilled by this extreme weather, and the shot of the Amiina girls and Kjartan watching the skies as the wild wind begins to come in is my absolute favourite shot of all. You can see the vigour in their faces and the arrangement of bodies is exquisite.

Shortly after the shot outside, everyone was recommended to move not only inside the venue, but into the basement to be safe from weather that had already killed 3 on the outskirts of the city. During this time Orri was taken ill again, and the two of us had to go across town to the Emergency Room for another round of brain scans. In hospital we urged to keep away from windows as the weather worsened. Eventually after a surreal few hours we took our chances and skedaddled back across town through the blinding rain and howling wind.

When we got back to the Orpheum Theatre we found the rest of the band, strings and brass preparing to entertain the audience in the basement of the venue, while the tornado sirens screamed outside. A "spirit-of-the-blitz" feeling overtook proceedings and a kind of hysteria reigned as we sat out the storm, til everyone could finally take their seats. This feeling is perhaps best exemplified by the shot of Kjartan cramming his feet into Solrun's shoes, although Jonsi unloading champagne cork into Ingi's arse while Solrun cracks up is also a lot of fun.

Just after the shot of everyone looking at Orri's brainscans in the ceiling light panel, there's a really contemplative shot of Kjartan's bare back from Kansas City, where there was another tornado warning and the lighting was flashing wildly. I think this is a great shot, reminiscent of something taken by Philip Lorca Di Corcia. I like its casual mystery and it kind of makes me feel the way I feel when I read something by Raymond Carver, for some reason I can't put my finger on (the whole point of Raymond Carver perhaps). Wow, sorry for getting deep.

Anyway, shallowness return with full force in the black and white shot of Sammi poured into a pair of pink latex trousers, having (another) champagne cork aimed at his butt by Jon Thor Birgisson.

In St Louis Hildur gets a tattoo from Trevor Forever, and Edda gets debilitating vertigo as we go up the tiny elevator to the top of the city's famous arch. That look in her eyes is real and palpable fear. In the previous picture you can see Maria and Kjartan peering through the viewing windows right at the apex of the arch, a graphic representation of which can be seen just above their heads if you are in any doubt as to its vertiginous nature. It's really nice the way the kid to their left is lit by the glow of the focussing light of another camera.

Down at Bonaroo Festival things got a bit more relaxed, as you can probably detect. The show sucked, but everyone was chilled. We spent the day kicking around the site, and saw James Hetfield sitting on his own in a mosquito proof tent. I'm afraid there is yet another picture of Jonsi easing the cork from a champers bottle in his favourite initiation ceremony, this time at soon-to-be keyboard tech, Brian. Can you see the evil intent lurking in his eyes? That's me behind, looking fetching (and more than a tad camp) in pink plaid shirt.

The pizza shot next is another one Eva didn't really want in the book, but pizza after a show is such a habitual ritual than it seemed inevitable that it should be represented, and I like the mess of hands reaching over and around each other to get at the shitty junk food. The shot opposite shows Georg and Jonsi outside the dressing room trailer, looking like they've been possessed in a zombie takeover. Again, kind oif remind me of a Philip Lorca di Corcia shot.

The setlist spread shows that at this point in the touring process we were still very much making it up as we went along, with things crossed out, added and moved around. As the touring progresses this kind of recedes a bit as we find a rhythm that works, but at first at least, everything is kind of possible. I guess that's another function of not really rehearsing.

The next few shots of New York are all taken from our day playing at the Museum of Modern Art. We played just up the steps from those coloured striped lines, next to the statue of Balzac by Rodin. I like the way that Georg and sound guy Jelle are both wearing grey checked shirts and have one hand to their head across the grey-toned spread. Georg is on the phone to his wife Svanhvit, which is how he spends a lot of time (and money) on the road.

After the MOMA bow shot (with the roped off Balzac), you can see the Ryan McGinley models enjoying our backstage hospitality, this time with their clothes .. we left MOMA we went downtown to an all-nite Korean barbeque where strong drink was taken, and much carousing ensued.

London looks sober after Manhattan, and it kind of was. In the first shot of the section you can see the white trombone that Sammi bought to match his uniform back in Guadalajara. Overleaf, Orri has that just-got-up look even though it's nearly soundcheck time. There was what is known as buy-out in terms of catering at the London at Westminster Hall. This means instead of food you are given money to buy food. Except that there really isn't anywhere to buy food in that bit of town, so I walked for fricken ages to find the requested Indian meal, which you can see attractively arrayed around Hildur's person.

I think Westminster Hall might have been the first time we properly used confetti in any sort of cannon arrangement on this tour. The amount of confetti, what type you get and how far it goes varies wildly according to where you are in the world. A lot of places won't let you release any at all, which is a bit of bore. Other places you just can't get the handheld confetti wands we were using in the summer, and you can't take them with you across borders, because they contain explosive. Consequently there is little consistency in what we can present as one of the shows highlights. Here in this shot in London, it looks alright but a bit paltry by comparison with some later shows.

The final pictures in the book are taken in Iceland around the Nattura concert with Bjork. I love the first shot of my assistant, Clare, peering in the fridge in the hope of finding vodka to assuage a nervous Edda. I like the crowd spread, cos in my mind I can't help thinking the young men on the left are just older versions of the cool little dudes on the right. But you often see the same faces in Iceland's pure gene pool.

The two pics with Bjork and Olaf Arnalds are cool. Jonsi only asked them right before the show, and at that time neither of them had ever heard the song they were expected to play on. So full marks for throwing themselves into the fray without a safety net. I think that was the second time Orri had worn his newly acquired crown (he got given it in London), and he has subsequently become very superstitious about wearing it and keeping it safe. A fan nicked it further into the summer at Benicassim and he was pretty devastated. So leave off the crown all you souvenir hunters.

That's pretty much it. Except to say in the last shot you can see steam rising off the former public baths where the good burghers of Reykjavik used to come to do their washing, maybe only a couple of generations ago. The past is always close at 66 degrees North.

Enjoy the book and the films. We certainly enjoyed putting them together.

John x

The wait is over and the results are finally in!

How creative can you get with three skinny-assed naked guys and one girl in a shop window without breaking the obscenity laws? This was the challenge set by Sigur Ros to the independent music store owners of America, in asking them to create an in-store display using only the posters and postcards of Ryan McGinley's celebrated nude cover for the band's current Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust album.

We have to say we were knocked out by the seemingly limitless scope of your febrile imaginations. Thank you to everyone who took part, it was bloomin' marvellous. Take a look at the winning entries here - http://dot.sigurros.com/wp/news/window-display-competition/ - and we're sure you'll agree.

The entries in this contest were most impressive and we all thank you for your inspired creativity and hard work. Since so much effort was put into this competition, we have decided to call out 10 overall winners, including the one Grand Prize winner.

Click on the user name links to watch the videos.

GRAND PRIZE WINNER

DanThomasIII - BEST COVER AND GREAT VIDEO TO BOOT
(http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=_PdG3F7TDiI)

RUNNERS UP

Benfi - BEST USE OF NUDITY
(http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=-bVdsRcemjc)

TheAmazingTveir - BEST COMEDY ENTRY
(http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=pfaAU52rprE)

sugargookies - BEST STOP MOTION
(http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=PtYJ1hX8r68)

bcnidea
(http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=szc1aAAY058)

onkennedymurray
(http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=-ExuA4tDycA)

AlvinPing
(http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=a8butKfe8p0)

Monolichell
(http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=CZw5eoA3TdI)

Finnguala
(http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=a58J90qNxBg)

PRIZE: The runners up will get a signed copy of the album and Dan Thomas III get a signed copy of the Special Edition of Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust.

Go to the Group page on YouTube to see all of the entries: http://www.youtube.com/group/Gobbledigook

We are playing at Laugardalsholl, Reykjavík on Nov 23rd as a four-piece in Iceland in many years. It will be the last show for our current world tour.

Tickets are on presale now and will be there until the general sale starts Nov 4th 10am GMT.

A few live videos from the MoMA show in New York, and Náttúra Concert in Reykjavik are up now.

Click here to watch a live video of Vid spilum endalaust, directed and edited by Jesse Reding Fleming, performed at New York's Museum of Modern Art earlier on June 17.

Current TV produced a 46-minute live footage video for the same show at MoMA that is available here .

"The changes that are going on in Iceland need to be the subject of debate," Jonsi said on teaming up with Björk in June this year for the Náttúra Concert, intended to raise awareness of the destruction of Iceland's natural landscape. Watch their take on Gobbledigook, and a live clip of Inni Mer Syngur Vitleysingur here on National Geographic. Stay tuned for the full show to be aired on National Geographic soon.

Tour Diary September 2008
Tour diary
North American tour
Sept 23, 2008

So new tour, new show. Or that's the theory, at least. After a handful gigs in Eastern Europe to check they could still even do it, the band are out on their first major tour as a four-piece in 7 years. Elaborate plans have been set to ensure a clear visual distance from the amiina-plus-brass shows seen in the summer.
We are meant to be having new lights and visuals, and indeed, after a fashion, we do. Except, there's a problem. After one show, during which my notes on things-needing-attention run to several sides, our lighting guy Freysi succumbs to pneumonia overnight and is rushed to the nearest hospital. Thus, we wake to our second New York show (always a big stress anyway) with no-one who knows their way round the show or even the lighting-cum-visuals board.

Okay. Let's not panic. There's a technician who comes with the hired lighting and visual kit who surely understands how to work this shit. True, he only heard Sigur Ros for the first time last night, but needs must, eh? Even then the show he did see had so much wrong with it that I wouldn't want him to take that as any kind of template. Cues were missed, the wrong projection gauzes were used for some songs, visuals were forgotten, colour palettes misplaced, etc. All the type of stuff typical of a first show but, under the circumstances, more than a little troubling.
But what else can we do? So, we sit through the day, me, Mike and Alastair, the Kiwi who's been inputting Jonsi's new video content, and try and piece together something that might vaguely stand as some kind of show. The computer has a memory of what lights/films are used in which song, but not their cues, durations or intensities, or how they combine to make something more than the sum of its parts. Mike and Alastair work like troupers to get on top of a colossal amount of information, breaking it down into individual song sheets to be referenced live.

Because of this unexpected development, it is necessary to keep the setlist for both NYC shows the same, even though we had intended to make them much more complementary in terms of representing the SR canon. During the show the three of us sit in a row each in headphones and mic, with me telling Mike what is going to happen next in any given song that he might anticipate the change. In the event, he acquits himself admirably and I have a strangely exalted feeling that we pulled it out of the fire, and did a good show.

Sadly, this evaporates the next night in Boston, when I think adding a whole layer of new refinements to last night's instructions becomes overwhelming, and the show is pretty much a mess. Sound guy Jelle, who stands next to us all night and sees what's going on, suggests I stand back, now Mike for the most part knows his way around the show, and let him get on with it for better or worse. It's good advice, and the fourth show in Montreal is a definite step in the right direction. Still plenty to fix, but Mike is stepping up to the plate. Well done, Mike, and get well soon, Freysi.
Anyway, if anyone feels the show has sucked for these first few shows, you can see we've got a pretty reasonable excuse, right? The good news is we've crossed some sort of hump now, I hope, and are even managing to swap out songs from the setlist to change it up a bit. 'Festival' came in for Montreal, and 'E-bow' in Toronto. I'm particularly excited for this second inclusion, since it harks back to the time when the band were last a quartet, during the '( )' tour (which is often under-represented in SR sets, in my opinion). The gloomy, dark stuff works well as counterpoint to the new sunny stuff from 'Med Sud…'. All we've got to do now is get it all hanging together and we might even have us a show.

Show concerns aside, the first few dates have been a lot of fun. The band have all now got foldable Brompton bikes (www.brompton.co.uk), which go on the truck with all the equipment. This means they can now rock up in city and be out and about exploring it in a jiffy. Keep an eye eagle out for a squadron of skinny boys on delicate bikes if they come to your town.

Backstage at the Montreal show, they were practising their wheelie abilities (it's hard to pull a wheelie on a Brompton) and doing that bouncy thing bmx riders do, and having races round the gritty harbour-side compound. Amazingly no-one got gravel rash, although Jonsi did crack his nuts coming over a cable channel at great speed.



Later on, support band Parachutes decided to stage an impromptu Icelandic wrestling, or Glima competition. It was after the show and strong drink had been taken, but luckily most of the Ros seemed disinclined to take part. Georg even said dismissively that someone would end up getting hurt. Little did he think that 20 minutes later it would be him, when he finally gave in to the primal urge, and got tanked by some Canuck. He was limping badly afterwards and prophesying the worst, but as far as I know he's not had to go onstage in a wheelchair as of yet.

In other news! (Some things I made a note to tell you 'cos I thought they were funny). In Boston, the really long, drawn out intro to 'Vidrar' is because Jonsi went absolutely blank on the opening verse of the song and had to walk over to Kjartan for him to mouth it a few times til he got with the programme. This has never happened before, and he puts it down to "not being drunk enough". It's a slippery slope, Jonsi.
On a similar matter, the band are thinking of instituting a Gig Anonymous session for after shows, so they can confess all their mistakes made during the performance. This, too, came after the Boston show, when Kjartan realised he was more hung-over than he had credited himself with being and as a result had played more bum notes than usual (usually he doesn't play any at all, of course!).

Still with Kjartan. We were talking about the tour, and it became apparent that other than New York and LA, he didn't have a clue where we were going on this trip. For Kjarri it's all going to be one glorious magical mystery tour.

Earlier in New York at the first night aftershow, I had met Ryan McGinley, whose photograph we used on the front cover of the new album, for the first time. Since he's a big time photographer, I expected him to have his snoot in the air and be up himself, when in fact he was completely the opposite and couldn't have been nicer in any way, shape or form. You could see why people had no problem in getting butt-naked in front of him – not that I did, I hasten to add…

There was an interesting post on the messageboard after the first NYC show saying that Jonsi was having voice problems in opener Svefn-G-Englar and that he tried four times to reach the final note saying "excuse me" between efforts. That made me smile, 'cos that's just such a sweet misinterpretation. In fact, he always sings that note round a few times, only this time he does make some wordless (Hopelandic) whispering ad-lib semi-off mic between times. That's just the way he rolls these days, folks.

While we were in New York we did a live session at AOL, which may or may not be live online by the time you read this. We did it early morning after the first show and they had laid on some toxic-looking donuts. Georg, bless him, went round and took a big bite out of every single pink, brown, white, frosted, sprinkled and crème-filled confection, thereby marking it as his own for later on. It was funnier at the time than it looks written down…

Also funnier as it happened was Jonsi reappearing for the final bow in Montreal wearing a mop-top wig, as owned by backline tech Silli. It is amazing how hilarious the wearing of wigs can be.

I had this dream the other night where I was getting Brad Pitt to do an online ad for the new album. It went something like this, Brad in den-like environment presumably his home, leans towards camera and adjust it as if to do a video diary. Settles back in comfy chair and starts speaking, "Hi, my name's Brad Pitt, and when I kick back I like to listen to 'M-med sud eye ear-rum'" [attempts feebly to say album name a couple of times]…pauses, sighs… "it's the one with the skinny ass naked dudes on the front". Then it goes to a screen saying "Sigur Ros: ask for it by name".
I woke up thinking this was a genius marketing campaign and wondering who had Brad's number. I then started thinking of all the other famous folk I knew had said they liked the band at one time or another, and how we could ad-lib these ad finitum. And since it was only for the web and could be done with no crew, maybe we could get everyone to contribute one out of the goodness of their heart, just because Sigur Ros are so f**king a-mazing. So far, however, I've not got hold of Brad's number. But, hey Brad, if you're reading this….

Actually the reason I've been trying to dream up ways to get more folks to get into the band and thereby buy more records is because some very senior bright spark at a label, who shall remain nameless, pointed out very gently that we hardly do ourselves any favours by calling the record something hardly anyone can pronounce and then representing it with a pointedly "gay" cover, which is apparently repulsive to many right thinking people. Hey, at least we called it *something* this time! F**k.
Kjartan told me that one of the Icelandic national papers (Morgunbladid, I think it was) prints my blog as news, and that it's really embarrassing for him to have my ramblings spread across the land for his family to happen across. I'm not writing it with any news agenda in mind – and indeed if I was I might be a little more cautious about what I say (like not p**sing off music supervisors of major TV shows by announcing that we won't be doing their programme via the www) . But I figured that if I am going to give you an insight it might as well be a reasonably accurate one. You should hear what I don't tell ya!

john

The good people at National Geographic are going to webcast this Saturday's Náttúra concert live on their website. here is the press release:

NAT GEO MUSIC TO WEBCAST BJÖRK AND SIGUR RÓS CONCERT
LIVE FROM ICELAND ON SATURDAY, JUNE 28

Fans can see concert only at worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com

NEW YORK (June 27, 2008)—Nat Geo Music, the music division of National Geographic Entertainment, will Webcast an open-air Náttúra concert live from Iceland on Saturday, June 28, 2008. Two of the world's most important and visionary musical entities, Björk and Sigur Rós, will headline the free concert.

The event will be available exclusively at worldmusic.nationalgeographic.com from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. ET (begins at 8 p.m. BST/London or 7 p.m. GMT/Reykjavik).

To be held in a large park near the centre of Reykjavik, all of the performances will be during daylight, with Iceland's capital city and dramatic rolling scenery providing a perfect backdrop to what is expected to be one of the biggest concerts the country has seen. The Náttúra concert looks to raise awareness of the impact of the growing aluminum smelting activity on Iceland's natural landscape.

"One of Nat Geo Music's main goals is to offer artists and experts who care about global culture and the environment an outlet to create awareness for important issues. Spotlighting these amazing artists performing live in a spectacular backdrop allows our worldwide audience to enjoy great music and become aware of Iceland's environmental concerns and join the conversation," said David Beal, president of National Geographic Entertainment.

Commenting on the gig, Björk said: "Too often battles being fought for nature turn into something negative and into mudslinging. We will not go that way, we are not saying that this and that is forbidden, we are rather asking 'what about all these other possibilities?' The 21st century is not going to be another oil century but rather a century where we need to recycle, think green and design both power plants and our surroundings in harmony with nature."

Sigur Rós, who released its fifth album, "Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust," this week, believes the issue of aluminum smelting in Iceland is one that can no longer be ignored. "We are not a political band and don't think musicians should set themselves as spokespeople on anything at all, but sometimes you see things going on in your own back yard and find that just as a human being you cannot stand by and do nothing. The changes that are going on in Iceland need to be the subject of debate and not snuck through the back door because no one lives in the wilderness and there is urban apathy or a general lack of awareness," said Sigur Rós vocalist Jón Thor Birgisson.

To download artist photos and bios, go to:
www.bjork.com
www.sigurros.com
www.nattura.info
http://dot.sigurros.com/natgeo/sigurros_presskit.zip
https://download.yousendit.com/E5D21F6108F3A08B

Nat Geo Music & Radio (NGMR) is a division of National Geographic Entertainment, established in 2007 to inspire people to care about the planet through the power of music. NGMR distributes and promotes its music offerings throughout all of National Geographic's media platforms, including the National Geographic Channels worldwide, National Geographic Films, National Geographic Giant Screen Films and National Geographic Kids Entertainment, as well as its magazines and digital media divisions. In addition to its programming and music supervision responsibilities, NGMR oversees the production of projects and programs with some of today's hottest artists who are actively involved in environmental and cultural issues.

Nationalgeographic.com is the award-winning Web site of the National Geographic Society and attracts 13 million unique visitors a month (source: Omniture). Nationalgeographic.com combines National Geographic's video, photography and maps with in-depth information and interactive features about animals and nature, destinations and cultures. Nationalgeographic.com's news service, National Geographic News, publishes daily stories about science and discoveries and produces electronic newsletters for more than 650,000 subscribers. Information about advertising on Nationalgeographic.com is at nationalgeographic.com/advertising.