Daiana Feuer on May 31st, 2017

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Last night, Björk capped a two-year tour of her ninth studio album, “Vulnicura,” with an emotional, symphonic performance at Walt Disney Concert Hall. She was accompanied by a 32-piece string orchestra conducted by 28-year old Bjarni Frímann Bjarnason, an award-winning rising star from Iceland known for his “new approach to music,” and quite handsome to boot, with really nice hair cascading onto his forehead during rapturous moments.

From Björk’s grand entrance to the final note of a two-hour set, the audience could barely contain their applause. Single-person standing ovations dotted the sold-out seats after every song. At times the clapping swelled to such dimensions, all the different rhythms bouncing off the high ceiling and walls, it created a moving meditation in itself.

Björk matched the energy with a raw outpouring of her innermost suffering and passionate poetics. “Vulnicura” is a heavy album. It chronicles Björk’s tumultuous breakup with Matthew Barney, her partner of 13 years. Starting at lows so low they rip your heart out, the songs follow her climb out of pain, reclaiming a sense of self strengthened by all-out suffering.

To take the audience on this journey from wound to healing, the first half of the night followed the album order. The opening songs, “Stonemilker” and “Lionsong,” written in the year leading up to the breakup, described being frustrated, stuck in an uncertain place and needing more from the other person. The very sensual “History of Touches” came next. A song about waking up in middle of the night to make love, it conveyed a deep connection, made bittersweet within the context of this dying relationship. She sang of “every single fuck we had together” with true reverence, further embellished by the beautiful orchestra vacillating between a swarm of bees and long hot tears. It was certainly the most elegant iteration of “fuck” the Disney Hall has ever experienced.

“Black Lake” and “Family” brought us to the darkest point of Björk’s suffering and anger. At 10 minutes long, the structure of “Black Lake” tripped up the audience when the strings held a single note for hyper-extended stretches that dissolved into silence. At several points people began clapping, thinking it was their cue, only to be thrust back into the whirlwind of another devastating verse. These stretched-out notes were so mesmerizing I inadvertently kept holding my breath until they resolved. The final song before intermission was “Notget,” which conveyed a turning point in the healing process: “If I regret us, I’m denying my soul to grow. Don’t remove my pain, It is my chance to heal.”

The second half of the night mixed the rest of “Vulnicura” with songs from various points of Björk’s 40-year career: “Aurora” from 2001’s “Vespertine,” “I’ve Seen It All” from the film “Dancer In The Dark,” “Joga” “Bachalorette,” and “Pluto”  from 1997’s “Homogenic,” and “Vertebrae” from 2007’s “Volta.” Overall, this half was more upbeat, and Björk danced around the stage, pumping her fist to an invisible drum.

Björk has always been direct about her feelings and vulnerabilities in song. To that end, the lyric “when I’m broken I’m whole, when I’m whole I’m broken” during “Quicksand” seemed to sum up a prevailing theme in her music, and the way she delivers it in a pleading, poetic, emotional flow, breaking up lines to create unique, complete melodies.

As for the clothing, Björk came dressed for a surrealist ball. Her first outfit evoked a dominatrix insect. This sheer black underskirt lined with strips of metallic colors flowed to the floor out of a tight black shiny leather dress topped with tall regal shoulder pads. Her mask had antennas, and feathers jutted out from the sides of her jaw like insect mandibles. Her second outfit was more of a musketeer crossed with a jester crossed with a blanket experience in purple. She wore an even bigger sparkly mask, and thigh-high platform boots. Both outfits were very well received. Björk never disappoints in that domain.

Those attendees most appreciative of her fashion made for an excellent game of people watching at the concert. It was like Where’s Waldo, scanning the audience until someone jumped out with a bold outfit. In some cases it was a couture-inspired dress, elaborate shoulder-padded jackets, sequins, bright colors, or a face tiara — which is a pretty thing that isn’t quite a crown or a mask, but somehow both. Others presented stylish interpretations of wilder ideas, a white bird with black wings, a mummy … actually two mummies, a French school boy outfit paired with velvet stiletto boots that reached his shorts, a few aliens, one couple in long, loose cream robes looked like they were in middle of crossing the Sinai desert. Another guy popped out because he was surrounded by people in suits and dresses, but he was all dirty, hair everywhere, with a grease-smeared white shirt. All of it was great and beautiful.