Original subtitles

Heima means 'at home'.

It's a bit like being on trial, playing in Iceland.

It's like, you know, 'What do you think?'

Kind of nervous, because it's friends and family, you know, in the audience,

I think it's harder to play for people you know.

I found it quite interesting playing for the Iceland people,

because they're so judgmental.

We had been travelling so much around the world

and wanted to come back to Iceland

and make the last concerts here in Iceland.

There used to be pop bands who toured Iceland

and had some...you know... people came together

and danced to the music, but that's getting less and less.

It seemed like something that we had to do

was to go around and play the shows

in small towns for just the people there.

These people are also the people who back us up as well,

so it was really nice.

I guess that's sort of our idea,

to give back, in a way.

Space is what we have here,

in our personal life and in the land as well.

Because it's a small community,

I think people are unconsciously kind of aware

of giving you space.

So I think we kind of have to do that,

and I think it's a bit in our souls.

Next up is a band from Iceland that has fans and critics

gushing about its elegant, enigmatic sound.

Here to perform 'Nj?nav?in', featured in 'Vanilla Sky',

please welcome Sigur R?!.

I was very young. Yeah, I was 21.

And then all of a sudden, you had record companies and publishers

and money and...

You know, all that stuff.

It was kind of... It was a bit scary

and freaked me a bit out.

You're in a band, but you're just doing business.

You're having meetings with lawyers and things like that.

In a way, it's quite, like I say, exciting.

You think about the future, all kinds of stuff.

At the same time, it's almost like a desk job instead of making music.

The music business is left overseas in a way.

We were really sceptical about all this,

Iike doing a lot of interviews,

a lot of photo sessions where you're posed,

all this stuff, all these typical things.

And if you deny that, don't want to be part of it,

then people are, 'Oh! Why are you doing that?'

It's confusing.

Then they start to build up some image that you're weird.

I'm just a normal person. I like to be silly.

But we take our music seriously.

We work a lot on the music.

Maybe we work sometimes too much.

It takes a lot to make us happy, you know,

with what we do.

When we meet, the four of us, in some space,

with some instruments and play together four as one,

we don't talk much, we just play

until something feels right, some atmosphere comes to us,

and we just mould it and form it until it feels like some whole,

Iike things just come to you.

When you travel, you play in these crowded, big cities,

so it's really nice to come back here to all the space in Iceland

and just to relax a little bit.

At first, we didn't have an idea if people would come to the concerts,

so we imagined some places being totally empty.

I was talking to local people in these places,

and they were really happy to get something going on in their village.

I think we got a lot of attention, actually. I was kind of surprised.

But then it should get a lot of attention, I think.

I mean, not a lot of people have done that,

making concerts so easy

for people to be able to attend.

HaIfway through, we saw in the paper this long article

about how the band was giving back

and also it was really noble because it's all free,

and all this effort of giving these concerts

was joining the soul of the Icelandic public,

so people had this great focus on something so positive.

Everyone seemed really happy

and glad to be able to come and see.

And people bringing their whole family,

grandparents and grandchildren, everyone in between,

it was really, really cosy.

A lot of people were just coming for the happening, too, I think,

to some nice moment, and people want to be a part of it.

I think that's as nice as liking the music.

There's never been much planning in the work we've done together.

Or in Sigur R? in general, there's not much planning.

So they taught us a lot on how to do things

without speaking or planning, just do.

It's just eight people that work really well together.

This is one big family, like sisters and brothers,

because you have this close relationship,

but it's not really close, like stealing your heart from your best friend.

That only happens after a few drinks!

P?l, he's an artist,

and there are these landslides over these flaky rocks.

He goes up and hits the stones,

and they produce a tone.

Then he makes this chromatic marimba out of these rocks.

Amazing instrument, and it's just rock.

Totally natural guy. He's just like...

He just lives alone with his mother in the countryside,

and just makes things all day, carves in stone,

or like a rhubarb marimba, made from old rhubarb.

Dj?av?, you see this big, old rusting ship

Iying in this old factory that was probably used for two years.

Then there was no more fish and they closed them down.

Only two people live there, all year round.

Total isolation. It's like nothing there.

And before it was this village

with lots of activity in the fish factory.

The fish went.

It was good to be able to bring life into the place again

just for a short moment, one night.

Iceland is a unique place in a way

on this planet.

It's so strange

that people can think about it as a money-making scheme.

We're not protecting it enough,

all these nice, special things we have.

Like tearing down old houses to build really...

- Ugly. - In our opinion, ugly...

- Big. - Big houses.

And maybe pretending to be something we are not.

Most people divide into two groups:

people that want to make loads of money in a short time

and the people that think about the long-term effect on Iceland.

Speaking of that, I'm mostly referring to the big industry in Iceland

with all the aluminium factories being built in Iceland.

We went up to this protest camp at Sn?ell

where they were protesting the building of the dam at K?ahnj?ar.

The place where the dam is

is kind of the biggest unspoilt highland in Europe.

We wanted to show support by going up there,

because they've sunk all of this land

just to drive some aluminium smelter.

When we came and saw the dam and it was...

I think everybody was just turned speechless,

because it was such a humungous monster!

They'd brought up this small PA

and were gonna get electricity from some generators.

And then we thought we're actually here to protest

the building of a dam to produce electricity,

so we thought it would be a good idea to do it completely acoustically.

Exactly when we started playing, the wind just went down.

It was really magical,

because it was meant to happen that way,

and after the performance the wind started coming again.

It can't be taken back. I mean, it's flooded now.

And it's really sad.

In every small little village in Iceland there's a choir.

Some say it might be because of the lack of instruments,

but I don't really buy that.

I think there must have been some instruments in the old days.

But it's very interesting for us

because we're learning about things as well,

exploring them, like the rimur,

the old chanting style.

We met Steind? Andersen, the guy we've worked with a little,

who is the head of the rhyme society in Iceland,

just in a small room.

He has this deep voice and he started to chant these rhymes for me,

and something connected inside me, something like, 'Whoa!'

It was warm and right, or something,

so I was interested in this tradition, this old shit.

It's just so beautiful, I think.

I really like the Sey?sfj??r with the fog.

It was really nice, and a strange feeling.

The mist was beautiful. Really nice weather.

Slept in a Mongolian tent in Sey?sfj??r.

It was really weird, but it was fun.

Just the more we travel,

the more you appreciate the world and Iceland, as well.

To travel the whole world and then come back here. Wow!

It's kind of a safe haven for us, Iceland.

We are left on our own here.

I think the Asbyrgi show was definitely...

...a bizarre show for all of us!

And it was so special for us cos we...

I mean, we haven't played a proper Sigur R?/Amiina show since then,

and who knows when we will,

so it was very emotional.

Very dramatic.

It was during a public holiday,

that usually during that weekend

people spread around the countryside to camp,

but everyone was suddenly thinking,

'Yeah, are you going to make it to the concert?'

In the end it was just packed!

Then I just realised it was the last, at least for now.

We don't know what will happen, but it was kind of a shock.

I don't think we maybe realised what we were doing,

that it kind of became a really big thing here,

so it was really nice.

And Klambrat?, the Reykjav? concert, was maybe the highlight,

because it was...

Everyone was there, so it was great.

The show was good.

I start playing and I remember the first two, three songs.

And then I sort of wake up in the last song,

just before everything goes crazy.

I sort of wake up and think, 'Oh, the show is over!'

There is this kind of... Iike a mood you get into,

you know, together, doing the same thing.

A really nice feeling.

I think on stage, when everything is how it should be,

Iike good sound and everything feels right,

you just kind of float.

And it's the best feeling ever to sing for people.

You don't know you're singing,

it's just totally empty headed, you're just floating there.

I think Kjarri's grandmother,

she went to the concert

and thought it was really loud,

and then heard it was on TV, too.

Like, 'lt was on the TV! Let's go home!'

'If it's on TV, let's go home and watch it on TV.'

Then it was the end of the last song

and these crazy backdrops and stuff,

Iike really intense.

Then she thought something was wrong with her TV and shut it off.

I think it's nice.