Bjork lands a show on Detroit
Rushad Pavri
Issue date: 9/17/07 Section: Features
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On Tuesday last week a fireball crashed through the Fox Theatre in Detroit. Made from cosmic, pixie dust and butterfly kisses, the force of nature originated in Iceland and is called Bjork.
Dressed in a shimmering, Henry VIII-influenced number, she pranced and skipped across the stage in bare feet like my 7 year-old niece playing in the sprinkler. Full of starlight and at the top of her career, Bjork was in town promoting her latest and greatest, Volta. Despite amassing critical acclaim for her other nine albums (including 12 Grammy nominations, one Academy Award nomination, two top 100 lists of rock, and over 15 million records sold), Iceland's all-time most successful musician had to wait for her tenth disc to crack Billboard's top sales lists, where Volta has sat for over 18 weeks, peaking at #1. Bjork and friends played many of her classics to get the crowd going, occasionally introducing newer material that was equally well received. Each song was punctuated with a perfect little "tsank you!" that sent the guys, gals and transgendered alike, to swoon.
The crowd Bjork attracted to the Fox Theatre was worth the ticket price alone. Hipsters and fashionista's emerged from the fringes of Detroit and came out to celebrate one of their own. Stepping into the Fox, recalling the roughly homogenous crowd in front of Comerica Park, one immediately sensed the effect of the eclectic fans that Bjork attracts. The theatre lobby temporarily slipped into a fourth dimension (for those of you not into dimensions, the 4th is time) overrun with imps, elfs and "humans," sharing fashion advice and exchanging auras. In such a setting it would not have surprised me to see concert goers arriving via a rainbow slide or on unicorns.
Setting the stage ablaze (literally and figuratively), Bjork was accompanied by an Icelandic brass band: a drummer, two men on electros, and a keyboard player that looked like my high school band teacher. Aside from Mr. Meakel, all musicians were really into their craft and worked hard to infect the crowd. A new instrument was also introduced in the show, called a Reactable, which resembles a giant, circular radar screen that emits electronic frequencies based on how objects are placed on top of it (check it out http://mtg.upf.es/reactable/pdfs/reactable_bjork.pdf). The hypnotizing visual effect engaged the view more than the music it pumped out; I like to think that at some point during our collective euphoric comatose, aliens touched down and gave the dancer in the dark a friendly high-five. Over Army of Me, in the latter stages of the concert, little white feathers were shot into the crowd by massive jets. Red fire roared at either side of the stage and from that tiny frame, the Pixie Queen emitted frequencies never heard before. For just a few moments the enraptured crowd floated through the confusion of lights and feathers and danced amongst the planets.
After the show the house lights came on and all magic disappeared. The fantastic creatures fell harshly back to earth, pulling their angel wings and homemade capes off as they left the theatre. There were no unicorns to take them home, but their cars and retro-fitted bicycles were just across the street. Many had carpooled.
Dressed in a shimmering, Henry VIII-influenced number, she pranced and skipped across the stage in bare feet like my 7 year-old niece playing in the sprinkler. Full of starlight and at the top of her career, Bjork was in town promoting her latest and greatest, Volta. Despite amassing critical acclaim for her other nine albums (including 12 Grammy nominations, one Academy Award nomination, two top 100 lists of rock, and over 15 million records sold), Iceland's all-time most successful musician had to wait for her tenth disc to crack Billboard's top sales lists, where Volta has sat for over 18 weeks, peaking at #1. Bjork and friends played many of her classics to get the crowd going, occasionally introducing newer material that was equally well received. Each song was punctuated with a perfect little "tsank you!" that sent the guys, gals and transgendered alike, to swoon.
The crowd Bjork attracted to the Fox Theatre was worth the ticket price alone. Hipsters and fashionista's emerged from the fringes of Detroit and came out to celebrate one of their own. Stepping into the Fox, recalling the roughly homogenous crowd in front of Comerica Park, one immediately sensed the effect of the eclectic fans that Bjork attracts. The theatre lobby temporarily slipped into a fourth dimension (for those of you not into dimensions, the 4th is time) overrun with imps, elfs and "humans," sharing fashion advice and exchanging auras. In such a setting it would not have surprised me to see concert goers arriving via a rainbow slide or on unicorns.
Setting the stage ablaze (literally and figuratively), Bjork was accompanied by an Icelandic brass band: a drummer, two men on electros, and a keyboard player that looked like my high school band teacher. Aside from Mr. Meakel, all musicians were really into their craft and worked hard to infect the crowd. A new instrument was also introduced in the show, called a Reactable, which resembles a giant, circular radar screen that emits electronic frequencies based on how objects are placed on top of it (check it out http://mtg.upf.es/reactable/pdfs/reactable_bjork.pdf). The hypnotizing visual effect engaged the view more than the music it pumped out; I like to think that at some point during our collective euphoric comatose, aliens touched down and gave the dancer in the dark a friendly high-five. Over Army of Me, in the latter stages of the concert, little white feathers were shot into the crowd by massive jets. Red fire roared at either side of the stage and from that tiny frame, the Pixie Queen emitted frequencies never heard before. For just a few moments the enraptured crowd floated through the confusion of lights and feathers and danced amongst the planets.
After the show the house lights came on and all magic disappeared. The fantastic creatures fell harshly back to earth, pulling their angel wings and homemade capes off as they left the theatre. There were no unicorns to take them home, but their cars and retro-fitted bicycles were just across the street. Many had carpooled.
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