Live Pics, Music

Bjork @ The Fox Theatre - Detroit, MI (9/11/07)

Posted by: Johnny Loftus on September 14, 2007 at 12:00 pm

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It didn’t look that out of the ordinary. There weren’t druids or woolly mammoths lurking in the shadows or anything like that. A bank of keys to one side, an ordinary workstation of laptops and other blinking electronics on the other, and what looked to be a conventional DJ rig in the center. Flags in the shape of inverted isosceles triangles were draped across the back of the stage; they fluttered as three bookish fellows appeared and took their places at their instruments. They began to generate a low noise somewhere between a bass groove and the murmur of software coming to life. And then, of course, ten Icelandic women in robes made their procession onto the stage, the blacklights glinting off their brass instruments. Pennants were affixed to poles rising from the backs of their robes. Bjork hadn’t even emerged from the shadows yet, and the show was already something un-placeable in time, a chorus of serene horn players meeting the unpredictable fringe of future technology. The sound? It was as if microphones were picking up the sonar doodles of nocturnal animals.

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Bjork appeared then, a tiny dynamo of bunched gold fabric and dark swatches of hair framing a face from a fairy tale, and she started singing in a voice that ranged from a harsh whisper to sweeping, roaring notes as wide as the North Atlantic. The whole mess of analog, digital, and singular human voice (except for when the ten horn players chimed in as a backup choir) became songs — “Hunter,” a crystalline “Pagan Poetry” from 2001’s Vespertine, “Hidden Place,” “Joga” — and though they were recognizable, most of them were reworked in part or whole. That her songs are so malleable, and that she glued them together so confidently with that huge voice was the most charming thing about the show, beyond the nervous little dances she’d break into during instrumental sections.

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Even up close, it still isn’t clear whether or not Bjork is from the present, future, or some alternate past where animism inhabits not only humans and the lower kingdoms, but electronics and instruments, too. She was taming those songs on the stage, and rearing them with her voice and sure hand. It was simultaneously weird and fascinating, particularly when one of her more well-known songs became something wild and new. The rattling, militaristic shuffle of “Army of Me” was reborn as an electronic rant with industrial overtones, while “I Miss You” seemed even more personal wrapped up as it was in pillowy layers of keyboard, horns, and unrecognizable blips. And Bjork kept everything on track throughout with that gigantic voice and the classiest hints of audience interaction, which elicited screams of pleasure every time. Did the kids up front dressed up in garish gold and streaks of makeup get tipped off on their heroine’s ensemble? Maybe Bjork really does travel through time, and she left Post-It notes in the past for each of them full of tips on mimicking her tour outfits. “Don’t have any gold taffeta? Use aluminum foil!”

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Wherever her ideas and motivation come from, it’s clear from her live show that no one’s working on Bjork’s level except for Bjork. Maybe Timbaland — he did produce parts of Volta, her newest album — but from the looks of him on the Video Music Awards, Tim’s too busy benchpressing three or four honeys at a time to be bothered traveling through time and space with this dynamo from Iceland.

Words: Johnny Loftus // Pics: Erika Rich

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