Sigur Rós: Heima

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Heima means "at home".

It's a bit like being on trial,

playing in Iceland.

It's like, you know,

"What do they 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 "Njsnavlin",

featured in "Vanilla Sky",

please welcome Sigur Rs!

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,

like 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,

like 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.

Halfway 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 Rs 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!

Pll, 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.

Djpavk,

you see this big, old rusting ship

lying 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 Snafell

where they were protesting the building

of the dam at Krahnjkar.

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.

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