Jonsi

Exactly two years after the concert in which he presented live the latest album, "Með Suð Í Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust", by his Sigur Rós. Jón Þor Birgisson returns to the familiar summer stage of the Cavea at Rome's Auditorium.

While since then the world's most famous Icelandic band has appeared to be in a prolonged state of dormancy, Jónsi has in the meantime been building an independent image as a full-fledged rockstar, as well as an alternative career that, while inevitably echoing shades of his band of origin, is far from lacking in ideas and recognisable traits of its own. In the span of just a few months, Birgisson released an ambient album with Alex Somers ("Riceboy Sleeps") and his solo debut "Go", released solely under the name Jónsi.

It's almost exclusively on this latter record that one might have expected the evening's performance to be centred, along with the light-and-image show announced by press releases and reports from concerts held abroad.

Given the joyful tone and pronounced pomposity of Jónsi's only solo album, expectations (or fears) of an overblown, even kitsch show would have been legitimate; in short, something much closer to Mika than to the dreamy atmospheres and turbulent emotions of a Sigur Rós concert. And yet, the calling card offered to the eyes and ears of the numerous spectators by Jónsi and the three skilled musicians accompanying him (Thorvaldur Thór Thorvaldsson on drums, Ólafur Björn Ólafsson on keyboards and Úlfur Hansson on bass) takes a completely different shape: on the screen serving as backdrop to the performance, images of mural art, moths in flight, light reflections and bare branches follow one another, while Jónsi, composed and utterly alone, intones alien notes and vocalisations over a simple acoustic guitar, so quietly that one can make out the chirping of cicadas in the warm Roman summer evening all around. It's only the first of three unreleased tracks – or ones published only on the DVD bundled with "Go" – with which the concert opens: a disarming incipit, completely devoid of rhythmic content, which by the second track already conjures up the magic of Sigur Rós in a minimal electroacoustic version, immediately effective, perhaps also thanks to the pleasant surprise of finding Jónsi in a context able to best bring out the expressiveness of his unique, now splendidly mastered voice.

With the drummer now on stage, it's time to return to familiar ground, and so "Kolniður", "Grow Till Tall" and "Tornado" follow one another, in simpler, more directly evocative versions that dispel any doubt about the excess of production trappings on "Go", an album whose songwriting is by no means bad but which is too calculatedly constructed to come anywhere close to Jónsi's repertoire with the band. Instead, thanks to the musicians and to the more measured arrangements achievable live, the same songs shine with fresh inspiration and a more direct emotional impact.

While the undisputed star of the show gives little away in terms of chatting with the audience, preferring instead to stay focused as he moves between microphone (and guitar) and piano, the liveliest tracks from his slim existing catalogue ("Go Do", "Boy Lilikoi") follow one another in a feverish, seemingly uncoordinated sequence alongside new songs of the most varied shapes.

The former are recognized and greeted by the audience with enthusiastic reactions and the occasional round of handclapping, while the latter are met with orderly silence, as if trying to catch a glimpse of where Jónsi's artistic path is headed next. In that respect, the variety of approaches on display bodes well for a hypothetical follow-up to "Go", poised between vintage atmospheres, acoustic textures and bolder forays into electronics — particularly intriguing in one track built solely around piano and a lopsided drum machine.

The only concession to surface-level showmanship, then, remains Jónsi's return to the stage for the ritual encore, crowned with multicoloured feathers. But never before have form and substance been kept so aptly separate, which is why the finale contains no eccentric flights of ego nor unleashed bowed-guitar digressions: everything is, in its own way, "normal" within the limits of what that can mean for an artist and character like Jónsi, and yet everything is extremely moving, while also bodding well for the continuation of his solo career. As for Sigur Rós, who knows, but it's clear that this new guise of Jónsi's is more than capable of standing as a credible counterpart to what he expresses with the band: not a mere side project, but something with its own autonomy, even though it inevitably springs from an artistic matrix closely tied to the one already well known through other means.

So, after a good hour of a pleasantly surprising performance, all that's left to do is shout with even greater conviction: "go Jónsi, go!".

Heartfelt thanks to Laura Fabbri for her kind photographic contribution

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