Björk at Chase Center, February 8, 2022

Björk at Chase Center, February 8, 2022

Live Nation presents Björk
Chase Center
Terry A Francois Blvd at South St, San Francisco, CA 94158 USA
8:00 PM, Tuesday, February 8, 2022

Back to the previous event! ☸ Up to the 2022 yearbox! ☸ Up to the 2022 event list! ☸ On to the next event!

One Set

[8:25 PM] {repeated announcements: no photos/videos}
[8:29 PM] {lights down, performers out: Tonality choir w/o Björk}

[8:30 PM] Joseph Trapanese: New Collective Consciousness (2021): I We Know
[8:33 PM] Trapanese: New Collective Consciousness (2021): II How Dare You {playback: Bird Sounds and Soundscapes}
[8:39 PM] {playback: Family (Intro)}
{Björk out}
[8:41 PM] The Gate >
[8:46 PM] Utopia
[8:50 PM] Arisen My Senses
[8:54 PM] Show Me Forgiveness
[8:55 PM] Venus as a Boy
[8:58 PM] Claimstaker
[8:n PM] Isobel
{add Serpentwithfeet}
[9:n PM] Blissing Me
{drop Serpentwithfeet}
[9:n PM] {First Interlude; playback: Arpegggio (flute solo)}
{add Tonality}
[9:n PM] Body Memory
[9:n PM] Hidden Place
[9:n PM] Mouth's Cradle
[9:n PM] Features Creatures
[10:n PM] Courtship
[10:n PM] Pagan Poetry
[10:n PM] Losss
[10:n PM] Sue Me
{add Tonality}
[10:n PM] Tabula Rasa
[10:m PM] {set ends}

Encore
{Second Interlude: A message by Swedish environmental activist Greta Thunberg}
{add Tonality}
[10:n PM] Future Forever
[10:n PM] Notget
[10:14 PM] {show ends}

Post-show scribbling:

On the bus by 10:20!
Rolling towards BART by 10:28 PM
15 min wait for the train, ugh! But much better than a 30 min wait!
10:56 on the train bound east for Oakland!

Performers

Katie Buckley: concert grand harp;
Manu Delago: drums, Bell vibraphone, electronic drums, percussion;
Björk Guðmundsdóttir: vox;
?: keyboards;
Serpentwithfeet AKA Josiah Wise: vox.

Tonality (mostly second half of the show)

Tonality - an 18-member choir from L.A.

Alexander Lloyd Blake: artistic director;
singers TBD.

Viibra (almost all of the tunes)

Viibra: piccolo, Eb soprano flute, flute, circle flute, alto flute, bass flute.

Björg Brjánsdóttir: flute;
Áshildur Haraldsdóttir: flute;
Þuríður Jónsdóttir: flute;
Melkorka Ólafsdóttir: flute;
Steinunn Vala Pálsdóttir: flute;
Emilía Rós Sigfúsdóttir: flute;
Berglind María Tómasdóttir: flute.

Production credits

Tobias Gremmier: media artist;
Lucrecia Martel: director, filmmaker;
Olivier Rousteing: costumes;
Chiara Stephenson: set design.

Notes

What a strange show! Certainly not the usual Rock and roll spectacular. Something much more theatrical. Song focused? Not so much: sound focused, certainly: built up from voice and keyboards with a splash of percussion. The whole production had a breathy vibe due to the performance presence of Viibra. There wasn't really anything danceable, but it was certainly music you could sway to. Or maybe turn yourself inside it and explode into a million pieces if you wanted to follow the example of one of the trippy videos. It seemed to me like there were three scrims used for projecting the visuals, and at times, they combined to make almost three dimensional effects. Not holographic, but with unexpected depth. Cool!

Plenty of commercial reviews were posted after Björk's first night at Chase – I guess she's more of a current taste-maker than I realized. Anyways, here are a few links for further reading:

Corey duBrowa posted a review for Magnet Magazine
Dan Gentile posted a review for the SFGate
Roman Gokhman posted a review for Riff Magazine that included over twenty photos by official tour photographer, Santiago Felipe.
Jim Harrington posted a promo article with the Mercury News. One unique tidbit he related was that the five recent shows (three in Los Angeles and two in SF) are really a pandemic-interrupted continuation of the Cornucopia tour that played New York, Mexico, and Europe in 2019.
Jeff Kaliss posted a review with SFCV.
Zack Ruskin posted a review for the SF Chronicle Datebook.
additional photos to be posted at Björk's website.

Photos

Big thanks to Ting for the photo gallery!

Whoa! This section is incomplete for now, sorry!