Artist: iamamiwhoami
Album: Concert in Blue
Release Date: September 2, 2015
Years ago, the mysterious Swedish electronic act, iamamiwhoami, stunned the world with a ritualistic concert in the woods featuring a legion of servants in paper boots and white underwear on top of their all black ensemble as well as one volunteer who was lucky enough to be sacrificed in front of thousands of fans and curious viewers online during a funeral pyre. It was theatrical, it was a spectacle of weirdness, it was over top but not full of pretentiousness; it is what it is. It was possibly one of the most defining moments in music during that year. Now they’re back with another online concert for all fans to enjoy.
Compared to the first online concert, Concert in Blue is more straightforward. It is void of all the elements found on In Concert; well there are a few weirdness here and there but nothing too shockingly profound. That’s not to say that the concert isn’t great, in fact it’s better that they didn’t repeat themselves on this one otherwise the first concert will lose all its novelty. One thing that Concert in Blue has that the first one didn’t is that it feels more intimate. Even though there is no audience during the concert itself, however, the act does a tremendous job at incorporating their fans into their performance. A beautiful instance would be during the performance of Blue, Blue, were videos of fans singing along to the track were projected onto her ballooned white dress. A symbol of how Iamamiwhoami ballooned into something even greater and bigger all thanks to all the devoted fans who were entranced by their music and their cryptic visuals.
One of my favorite moments during the concert would be the Shadowshow performance. During the performance, a video of Jonna Lee alongside fan videos where projected onto the background screen where she mimics each fan’s every movement, every sway of their head, every expression they wore on their face, every parting of their lips as they sung along to the song. It shows not just dedication rather how deeply connected the fans and the artist are.
The biggest downside of Concert in Blue is not that it wasn’t an extravaganza of strangeness rather there wasn’t much changes to the songs, there was no extreme make-over of any sort made to them unlike on the first concert where the songs were reinvented and became completely different tracks compared to their original form. Iamamiwhoami did make up for that by premiering a new track, The Deadlock, a minimalist track that contains certain elements from all previous albums.
Concert in Blue may just be your typical concert performance bar the fans in the audience and not a cinematic experience, however it doesn’t lessen the fact that the concert itself was still on point.
8/10