It was almost exactly a year ago when we saw Kria Brekkan last perform a solo concert. That event also took place in a church — St. Mark’s in Manhattan — and featured as an opening act a young Icelandic folk singer performing for the first time in the United States. It was not until last night that we finally realized that young singer was in fact Olof Arnalds. In the year that followed, Olof Arnalds has seen her career bloom to the point where last night, she was the headliner.
However, while last year was a fairly relaxed event, last night’s concert was a strange affair. Kria spent much of her set fiddling with her effects box and actually prematurely ended two numbers as a result. When the scene did work for her, Kria played and sang beautifully.
It was during Olof when things turned strange. After some equipment difficulties, she began her set with a breathtaking acapella Icelandic ballad and proceeded on to several similarly wonderful numbers. At one point, a baby began to cry and when the song ended, Olof revealed that it was her eight-month old son who was crying. The child was brought to the stage and after some fairly awkward moments, eventually the child was placated and removed from the stage. The imbedded video above is quite dark, but it captured that moment. The balance of the show was a series of outstanding numbers with a guest violinist and three songs with Kria. The closing song, a cover of “Lucky Old Sun” was quite moving.
We recorded audio of both sets, except for the first three minutes of Kria’s set. The acoustics, equipment issues, and off-mic performances will make this a diffcult show to master but we expect to offer recordings of both sets in the near future. As a side note, I believe that there is a recording of Olof’s US debut in the nyctaper archives but I have to find it!
In the meantime, Kria set from St. Mark’s Church, September 9, 2007 is still available on nyctaper [HERE].
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