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| Info | Setlist | ||||||||||
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01. Unravel 02. All Is Full Of Love 03. Frosti 04. Aurora 05. Undo 06. Gotham Lullaby 07. Pagan Poetry 08. Generous Palmstroke 09. Possibly Maybe 10. Cocoon 11. Venus As A Boy 12. Its In Our Hands 13. Anchor Song 14. Hidden Place 15. Human Behaviour |
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| Pictures (email) Observe that there usually is a NO camera policy at these concerts. | |||||||||||
| Reviews |
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| REVIEW OF BJORK CONCERT ST JOHN'S , SMITH SQUARE WED 29 AUG 2001 This venue is situated near the Thames, steps lead up to the entrance and the columns of the classically built church, and now from the gloom behind us a pearl covered swan tightropes up beside the neat row of chairs and between the two halves of the audience, singing slowly; "unravel". And does another circuit stepping slowly around mixing with the ceremonial church atmosphere; the song incense-like runs around the pillars. Next continuing in the same vein "All is full of love. The swan had to be Bjork because in one song she went though the full range of human emotions; and a condensation forms around the heart. With all-intimacy delicate, leaf-like sad lines are then crushed as the anguish is turned to joie-de-vivre bounce back with a cheeky smile. The elegant swan which had grown a human head now stood on the low stage and the voice rang sonorous and unchipped and pure throughout. With perfect sound engineering so good for these songs mainly from Vespertine. At the back stood the women's choir from Greenland in red and white gowns - one at the end with her hair pinned in a little bun looked a powerful counterpoint to the other avant-garde things happening. The choir looked somehow warming in their commodious outfits. They were a colourful crest standing above the players and instruments: laptop, Apple Mac; and to the left-stage a curving blue harp; and the large plastic music box. Zeena Parkins had nice shoulderlength hair and a cool sixties style dress as if it were made of plastic petals flattened like pale oil smears; whilst Matmos were two strange shapes on the right, sartorially unAmerican in suit and retro shirt. During one tender moment (possibly Unison) one of them seemed at first to be focussed massaging the other'sback, neck, head but we soon realise he is combing out flakes of sounds; snotty snippets of sampled noise. The crackle from a Matmos head. The set could be strikingly direct and moving as with Bjork at the fron of the stage singing "if you're sweating---Undo; if you're bleeding ..Undo; if you're crying....Undo" it feels very real at that moment of good advice. Heartfelt connections like circuits forming and melting and reforming connecting into another emotional pattern of the evening..open, undisguised; loosely woven these moments occurred again and again "I love him I love him love him " sings the swan and the choir reaffirms; knitting the rawness together with cooing balm "she loves him she loves him she loves him." "Possibly Maybe" starts with the familiar sample but is swiftly squeezed, filtered and fluttered and spat out again all mushy. And the quiet fireworks of Matmos' rebuilding begins as Bjork sings enjoying the colourful play of the cut-up artists. "Anchor song" is played by Zeena on a kind of bellows organ like a harmonium, very fitting to the church; Bjork watches her hands playing the chords. And the melodies of "Venus as a Boy" are played on accordian. "Pagan Poetry" is darker. Is the singer a wolverine in swan's clothing? But if we take snapshots of the stage there is enjoyment plain to see. The playful mini-performance as Bjork sits with her music box on her lap playing the transparent discs. The strange box look as if it might belong in a maternity ward... it seems to contain something precious and rare that needs an extra supply of oxygen; it needs winding and caressing. Two unreleased songs provided bonus moments. "In Our Hands" starts with the choirs clapping game providing the percussion and the beautiful catchy song takes off interspersed with these wonderful moments of handclapping with the others adding their own individual rhythms; exciting. In another song the piano and vocals of Meredeth Monk's "Gotham Lullabye" were creatively transformed into a more icily-textured duet for voice and harp sung in Icelandic. With a warm London evening outside Bjork announces "London well... oh... I don't want to get sentimental.." BUT... The evening was beautiful and a fun bouncey "Human Behaviour" watched by the other band members felt like an informal, personal karaoke sung by the original artist. In the knowledge of a great time the building hums. /Stuart Wilson - 3425 |
| http://www.dotmusic.com/live/Review/August2001/live21680.asp Fri 31 Aug 2001 13:37 Gig played on: Wed 29 Aug 2001 BJORK - ST JOHN'S CHURCH, LONDON It's hard to imagine a better setting for London's first live rendition of what Bjork herself believes to be her most intimate work to date, 'Vespertine'. One of the main features of her latest stage incarnation is those exquisitely rare music boxes, specially designed by the world's last such manufacturer in the US. And Westminster's St John's Church, with its fine, sweeping white Baroque arches and elegant pillars, twinkling gold-leaf chandeliers and empirical red drapes itself seems transformed into a kind of wondrous trinket box by the gentle whispering of the boxes. Bjork, of course, has cast herself as the twirly ballerina, spinning her magic at the centre of it all in one of the three fabulous Pejovski swan dresses she apparently owns. With a refreshing promptness the fourteen strong female choir - fresh in from Greenland - appear on the button, dressed in an amusing combination of traditional Mexican and Eskimo garb alongside the minimalist band of a harp and accordion player and leftfield honchos, Matmos. Bjork, or rather her voice, materialises shortly afterwards as she pixie-paces around the front few rows of the seated audience, opening with the beautifully orchestrated 'Unravel', before taking to the stage to break into the frothily divine 'All is Full of Love'. The new songs are softly enveloping and spellbinding but faintly ridiculous in those creeping moments when suspension of disbelief lapses. 'Frosti' is about twilight, and with a music box upon her knee and Matmos conjuring the sound of moonboots crunching through snow, Bjork's recreation of the magical space between light and dark becomes a living force within the room. Singing "I long to share me" to the whirlpool backdrop of tribal drums, heartbeats, harp and triangles, neatly sums up the impression that Bjork is actually 'giving' a performance. Other standouts include 'Vespertine's 'Pagan Poetry', the surrender of 'Palmstroke' and the deeply satisfying industrial drum and bass interlaced with the lullaby of 'It's in Our Hands', a brand new song. Meanwhile, her debut 'Human Behaviour' as a second encore wins a standing ovation. And through all of this there is the distinct impression that Bjork's new material is about her journey back to her unique, magical and special place following the infamous trauma she experienced as Thelma in Von Trier's Dancer in the Dark. For tonight at least, the rapturous reception confirms that there are plenty willing to be taken along for the ride. /dotmusic.com - 3424 |
| http://www.guardian.co.uk/reviews/story/0,3604,544773,00.html Björk St John's Smith Square, London Rating: *** Dorian Lynskey Friday August 31, 2001 You can hardly blame Björk for turning her back on pop. In the mid 1990s it brought her oppressive media intrusion and a psychotic stalker, and she was too restlessly imaginative to occupy one niche for long anyway. With her fourth album Vespertine, a delicate creature she describes as "modern chamber music", and an unorthodox tour that has brought her to a converted church in Whitehall, the transition from pop oddity to darling of the avant-garde crowd is complete. At times tonight, it seems as if a vital quality has been lost along the way. Resplendent in a dress similar to the swan dress she wore for the Oscars, she is joined by a 14-strong Inuit choir from Greenland, harpist Zeena Parkins and electronica mavericks Matmos. During Aurora, the latter's Martin Schmidt generates rhythms by treading in rock salt; on Cocoon, he plays with static by rubbing partner Drew Daniel's hair. It's that kind of show - over half the set is devoted to Vespertine and unreleased material, none of which is overburdened with choruses and disco moves. When you're playing to fans dedicated enough to snap up one of just 490 tickets for a hush-hush show, you can push the envelope as far as you like, but the atmosphere is almost suffocatingly precious. Had Björk opted to perform a tribute to Limp Bizkit arranged for banjo and spoons the reverence would be no less palpable. Her unearthly tones are awe-inspiring in such an intimate venue, but stifled by several songs with a fairytale prettiness that enchants rather than thrills. Only when her emotions threaten to overspill, as on Pagan Poetry's breathless "I love him" refrain, does she soar. Such moments arise mainly from older material. The choir lend an ethereal grace to the magnificent, slow-blooming All is Full of Love, and Venus as a Boy's music-box eroticism still enthralls. In the ravey synth stabs of Human Behaviour and the cacophonous percussion that rips through new song It's in Our Hands, you glimpse the old impudent energy and sonic wit that Björk is in danger of tidying away. When she plays the Coliseum in September she will be bringing an orchestra and, most likely, exploiting her back catalogue further. It's probably for the best. St John's Smith Square /guardian.co.uk - 3423 |
| http://globalarchive.ft.com/globalarchive/article.html?id=010831001440&query=Bjork Quirky Bjork springs her usual surprises POP Financial Times, Aug 31, 2001 By LUDOVIC HUNTER TILNEY This is my home, surrounded by water," sang Bjork during her concert in St John's, Smith Square in London, and for a moment it was unclear where she meant. Iceland, most obviously: once famous for cod, puffins and geological turbulence, the island is now at least as famous for being Bjork's birthplace. But what about Britain, where she lived as a Londoner for much of the past decade? Or another water-girdled place, New York, where she now lives? Usually described in terms of her elfin looks, otherworldly voice and idiosyncratic mannerisms, Bjork still gets treated as a northern exotic. And perhaps it was a trick caused by the English Baroque surroundings of St John's, but when she introduced her Inuit backing singers - "a choir from Greenland," she said with a flourish - she seemed to adopt the metropolitan role, in the manner of an 18th-century impresario unveiling the latest curiosity from overseas. She is touring her new album, Vespertine, which she describes as being a form of modern chamber music. The venues she has chosen to play reflect this: St John's usually hosts classical recitals, and over the next two months she'll be appearing in theatres and opera houses throughout Europe and north America. For the average concert-going pop fan, resigned to muddy acoustics and impaired hearing, these locations are as outre as Bjork herself is often made to seem. Brooking comparisons with classical musicianship may appear foolhardy - more so since Bjork used a microphone whereas classical singers wouldn't have - but the rarefied atmosphere worked well. Her new songs have an intimate ambience about them, fleshed out by a harpist who tripled as an accordion player and organ player, and a DJ duo called Matmos. Specialists in making music from found sounds, they employed an unorthodox array of instruments. While one fiddled with a computer, the other trod in a tray full of a gravel-like substance or shuffled a packet of cards. During "Cocoon", a sound like stubble rubbing against skin filled the auditorium: its source was the back of a Matmos man's head, which was being vigorously massaged by his colleague. The zaniness was topped off by Bjork's costume, a glittery version of the swan outfit she wore to the Oscars this year. But the songs played were sincerely meant and often lovely: an accordion-led version of her early solo hit "Venus As A Boy" was a highlight, as was the harp-accompanied folk song "Palmstroke". The singer's celebrated voice - swooping, growling, oddly accented - was in fine form, although its amplification was a touch too forceful for the setting. The best moment was provided by an as-yet-unreleased track, "It's In Our Hands", which began with the choir playing pat-a-cake, gave way to uptempo techno-style beats and concluded with the audience applauding wildly. The development from hands to instruments back to hands again was a cleverly worked dialogue between organic and mechanic. Like this concert tour, it showed that Bjork is a fascinatingly difficult performer to pin down. /Financial Times - 3422 |
| http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,62-2001301734,00.html Possibly madly FRIDAY AUGUST 31 2001 BY DAVID SINCLAIR Bjork's show featured a swan, a John Major clone and extreme oddness Never one of your conventional pop stars, Björk was experimenting with odd instrumentation and alternative modes of presentation when Radiohead were still learning how to tune their guitars. Now she has abandoned the trappings of pop entirely, electing to play her current world tour in opera houses and classical music venues accompanied by the electronica duo Matmos, the harp player Zeena Parkins, an Inuit choir from Greenland and the Il Novecento Orchestra. There was not enough room for the orchestra to perform with her in St John’s, Smith Square, in Central London, on Wednesday night, but in every other respect this 300-capacity converted church with its towering white colonnades, sweeping red drapes and wooden furnishings provided a suitably magical setting for the Ice Queen’s return. To begin with, the supporting musicians were installed on stage while Björk walked among the audience, singing the opening number Unravel. Wearing a fluffy, sequinned, off-white ensemble with what looked like a dead swan hanging around her neck (much the same get-up as she wore when attending the Oscars), she made fluttery, wringing motions with her hands, as if physically assisting the ritual mangling of English vowel sounds which marks her singing style. The Matmos duo and the Inuit choir made strange bedfellows. Matmos comprised a computer operative whose plinky-plonky loops provided the instrumental foundation of the songs and a John Major lookalike who supplied bizarre percussive flourishes, for example by brushing his shoes or shuffling a deck of cards. The choir, who were all dressed in traditional costume, sang with bemused gusto, while Parkins attacked her harp with a vaguely psychotic air. The result was a sequence of songs with a curiously discombobulated quality. Erected with a minimum of instrumental scaffolding, numbers such as Undo, Aurora and Cocoon from her new album, Vespertine, were then visited with Björk’s eccentrically swooping vocal parts — often sung in a metre completely independent of the musical rhythm — which clattered around the corridors of the arrangements like ghosts at a party. It was different, certainly, but if anyone, including Björk, knew what the hell any of it was about, they certainly weren’t letting on. Older songs, including Possibly Maybe and Venus as a Boy, were subjected to a treatment which made them sound very much of a piece with the new material, and only the exuberant hand-clapping interlude of It’s in our Hands, and a welcome encore of Human Behaviour served as a reminder of Björk’s ability to entertain and delight as much as to startle, challenge and mystify. /thetimes.co.uk - 3421 |
| http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/dynamic/hottx/music/top_review.html? in_review_id=452525&in_review_text_id=402678 Ice maiden melts our hearts Bjork Rating: * * * by Pierre Perrone at St John's Smith Square, 29/8/01 On a recent webchat, Bjork confessed to a desire to "perform in the most beautiful, intimate venues where I can sing without the use of a microphone". Premiering her Vespertine album at St John's, a 300-capacity church just off Millbank, the Icelandic singer skips elf-like down the aisles, yelping and whispering Unravel. By the time she joins San Francisco sound-sculptors Matmos, harpist Zeena Parkins and a 14-strong choir from Greenland on stage, the audience is spellbound. And speechless. This may have something to do with the fluffy white swan dress she is wearing. Bjork even has the long neck of the bird wrapped around her right shoulder. The late Rod Hull and Emu briefly and surreally spring to mind but this is the only time I step out of the singer's wondrous world. A roadie places a transparent musical box on her lap for Frosti and we're all transfixed. Aurora follows, Bjork doing hand-chops and drawing circles in the air while her beguiling voice rises and swoops, the choir sending shivers down the spine. Undo proves another highlight, the yearning line "I'm praying to be in a generous mood" taking on layers of meaning in this setting. The singer's cradling, cuddling move in Cocoon proves as seductive as the music. She can even get away with performing only four of her hits: All is Full of Love, Possibly Maybe, Venus As A Boy and Human Behaviour, the last of three encores. And debuting It's In Our Hands with the whole ensemble clapping the rhythmic pattern. Arguably the only truly original talent to have emerged in the past 15 years, Bjork operates outside the parameters of mainstream pop. The only current reference points seem to be Aphex Twin's slightly off-key frequencies and distant echoes of trip-hop. Her alien sound draws you in, her impish sense of childlike wonder still palpable in spite of all her trials and tribulations. Goddess-like genius indeed. /thisislondon.co.uk - 3420 |
| http://www.nme.com/NME/External/News/News_Story/0,1004,41085,00.html CHURCH OF NOISE! BJORK christened the UK release of her new album 'VESPERTINE' with a performance in front of just 600 fans in a LONDON church last night (August 29). The show, which took place at St John's Church in central London, was the Icelandic star's first UK live performance since a two-night acoustic residency at the London Union Chapel in December 1999. Bjork, dressed in the white 'swan' dress worn on the cover of 'Vespertine', took the opportunity to premiere material from her new album, which was released last Monday (August 27). In addition, she performed a selection of songs from her solo back catalogue, including an encore of her debut solo single 'Human Behaviour'. Throughout she was joined by a 14-strong Eskimo choir, harpist and obscure dance duo Matmos, who provided samples and loops. Also, Bjork announced a brand new song, titled 'It's In Our Hands', which eyewitnesses have described as a "hybrid of 'Vespertine' and (last album) 'Homogenic'", starting with a minimalist beat, before expanding into a full-on dance number. Bjork played: 'Unravel' 'All Is Full Of Love' 'Frosti' 'Aurora' 'Undo' 'Gotham Lullaby' 'Pagan Poetry' 'Palmstroke' 'Possibly Maybe' 'Cocoon' 'Venus As A Boy' 'It's In Our Hands' 'Anchor Song' 'Hidden Place' 'Human Behaviour' Bjork returns to London on September 23, where she performs a show at the English National Opera. Prior to her ENO date, she will play a number of gigs across Germany, Switzerland and France. /nme.com - 3419 |
 Click to see 28 photos by Miss QueTee! (click here if they dont work)
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