Anecdotes
- Première date de la tournée pour The Haxan Cloak qui remplace Arca
- 5 Years, Army Of Me, Bachelorette, Hunter, Hyperballad et Mutual Core sont joués pour la première fois sur la tournée Vulnicura
Review
1) Her costume.
Björk was wearing a fuzzy black/green/purple outfit that was out there even for her. We think it was a spider, but it could’ve been a moth, a centipede, or any number of creepy-crawly creatures that you don’t want to look at for too long. There were three-pronged wing/leg things coming out her shoulders. Her head and face were covered in a sheer mask. We’re no entomologists, but Bjork wears arthropod well.2) The videos of nature being extra nature-y.
Ever since her earliest work Björk has been obsessed with nature — the video for “Human Behavior” anyone ? But after her 2011 Biophilia project, she’s gone full blown NatGeo — if NatGeo was dedicated only to nature’s ickiest creatures at their ickiest, that is. The videos that played behind her during her Governor’s Ball set had it all : Moths laying disgusting egg thingies ? Check. Millipedes having an orgy ? Double check. Slugs hanging upside down from snot strings and spewing weird blue goo ? Barf. But hey, it was sort of fascinating and beautiful at the same time, as long as you hadn’t eaten right beforehand.3) Her song selection.
Björk’s set was basically the antithesis of what most acts do at big-stage festival gigs. She, her orchestra, laptop-wielding producer Arca and percussionist Manu Delago played only a couple of her more well-known ’90s hits, sticking mostly with obscure cuts from her heartbreaking, breakup-inspired new album Vulnicura. The crowd got noticeably thinner, but not because Bjork wasn’t great — she was just a little too Björk for a crowd of mostly twentysomethings and teens who were there to festival, man.4) Her dance moves.
Björk moved in mysterious ways, but probably not like Bono meant. Inspired by whatever creature she was dressed up as, she shimmied to one side of the stage, then fluttered back, then did weird robot pantomime moves, then vogued bizarrely.5) Every time she said, “thank you.”
If you’ve ever seen Björk, you know that her favorite words in the English dictionary are “thank” and “you.” In fact, those are often the only two words she ever says. Sometimes, in her thick Icelandic accent, she’ll say them stoically, sometimes happily, sometimes robotically. And at Governors Ball, let’s just say she was as grateful as ever.6) When she demanded that the crowd “karaoke.”
There were only a couple times Björk uttered more than “thank you.” Once she basically said the same thing : “I aprrrrrrreciate you,” emphasis on the R. But more delightful than that was toward the end of her set, when she instructed the crowd to sing along to “Hyperballad.” Or, to let her tell it : “C’mon — Karaoke !” Singing along to Bjork is never easy, but the fans that were left at that point, were diehards, so they happily, clumsily, obliged.7) The fireworks.
Björk’s songs were mostly depressing, and her performance was often confounding. But she saved a big payoff for the end of her set : fireworks. They blew repeatedly from the top of the stage during “Hyperballad,” time with huge flames blasting from behind the orchestra. After the strange journey she took the audience on, it was, like much of her best music, downright cathartic.
Björk Delivers Energetic, Inscrutable Set at Governors Ball
"Karaoke ! Come on !" Björk yelped out at the end of her Saturday night set at the 2015 Governors Ball Music Festival, as the opening notes of "Hyperballad" revealed the crowd favorite that was about to be played. Many audience members dutifully abided by the Icelandic pop chanteuse’s command, warbling clumsily along with the opening verse before the Post classic’s memorably emotional chorus arrived. "Hyperballad" is a giant song, and the closing fireworks display was certainly fitting. The problem was that there just weren’t many people in the crowd to see those fireworks, or help Björk belt out the hypnotic track.
Björk’s performance, positioned on the main stage on Saturday night (June 6) prior to deadmau5’s headlining show, wasn’t as divisive as it was largely shrugged-off from Governors Ball attendees. Presented with 75 minutes of an indie legend prancing around in front of a full orchestra as the sun set, casual fans lasted an average of 20 minutes before wandering off to get ready for Flume or grab a bite to eat. By the end of Björk’s performance, the crowd was noticeably paltry but dedicated, as the gathering of diehards rooted on the performance.
And what a spirited performance it was : Björk certainly did not notice the audience members constantly being siphoned off by other activities at the festival, spending the set shimmying, gliding and spinning around the stage in front of her aforementioned orchestra. Wearing an outlandish spider costume with a white net obscuring her face, Björk possessed a natural vibrancy that contrasted with some of the material from her new album Vulnicura.
Songs like "Stonemilker" and "Quicksand," so powerful in their studio versions, became plodding in front of an unfamiliar festival crowd. However, older tracks like "Army of Me," "Hunter," "Bachelorette" and "5 Years" proved to be downright enchanting, with the live strings often emphasizing the canyon-sized beats of each song.
Earlier this year, Björk performed a string of mesmerizing shows at New York’s Carnegie Hall and Kings Theatre — those audiences lapped up the larval visuals and seven-minute song lengths more readily than a festival crowd ever could. Even if the set list was a bit perplexing and the crowd less than enthralled, the giddy weirdness of Björk’s live show was a breath of fresh air amidst the pop, rock and dance flavors at Governors Ball. Björk couldn’t make "karaoke" happen, but the fireworks exploded nevertheless. Billboard
