Iceland’s leading exporter of Stomp Clap Hey suffered a setback early into their North American tour in support of The Mouse Parade when a critical component of the Hey contingent (co-lead singer Nanna, in this instance) suffered vocal problems and the band had to reschedule their Boston date. Her voice quickly recovered after a couple days of rest (to the band’s credit after that first Toronto gig where the problems arose before the show, they huddled and came up with a quick alternative) and ended up playing four songs in their first Nanna-less set of their career.
A pretty full house greeted the band as they squeezed in the rescheduled Boston and Toronto dates on the back end of their tour before returning home to Iceland, and they had a few surprises in store as it was pre-Covid times since they played Boston. Eschewing the normal back of the stage position, drummer Arnar Rósenkranz Hilmarsson was stationed far stage left, with the rest of the band fanning out in two lines across from him. Dramatic stage lighting was achieved via banks of cross-stage lighting on either side, and the back of the stage was festooned with white umbrellas that added accents.
Late in the Nanna spied a very young fan holding a sign signifying that it was her first (and best!) ever concert, so the band graciously decided to dedicate the evening’s set to her. They also broke out a very early song (“From Finner”) that rarely gets played, recounting its origin of being written after playing a festival far from home and sleeping in a locker room near at late night DJ set. “Ordinary Creature” recalled Mojave 3 in spots, a carefully crafted melody line nestled in gentle, lush instrumentation. Thanks to the band for making the effort to play this show; based on the reception a lot of people were counting on it.
Josie Edwards took over support for the rescheduled dates, in lieu of fellow Icelander Arne Margret. Bravely standing on an otherwise empty stage with a constant stage light giving backlighting, she played a mostly agreeable but fairly beige set of acoustic-based songs, leaning heavily on vocals delivered in a pronounced Taylor Swift meter.
