Ólafur Arnalds – Bridgewater Hall, Manchester 29/06/10

For most gigs, it’s alright to walk in whenever you’re ready. In fact, in some cases it’s best to turn up as late as possible, and a twinge of regret is felt when you realise that you could’ve spent another 20 minutes on the couch instead of standing at a bar watching some average also-rans attempt to warm up a disinterested crowd. But that’s a normal gig – a gig where your average punter is likely to be wearing some form of jeans, a well worn t-shirt and some sort of jacket, drinking the cheapest lager whilst standing at the edges of a darkened room.

Of course, the main event at a normal concert isn’t usually something so breathtakingly beautiful as the work of Ólafur Arnalds, the 23 year old Icelandic genius that has garnered international acclaim during his brief but dazzlingly bright career crafting classical, post-rock infused compostions. And most shows are in awkward, dingy rooms with sticky floors rather than the splendour of Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall. This, then, is something truly special.

Coming from Iceland in an era when Sigur Ros are simultaneously a part of every well meaning indie kid’s CD collection and the soundtrack to every slow motion montage on the BBC means that Ólafur’s ambient sound almost immediately earned itself a unique cache, marking the mixing of cultures. There are suits in abundance, but equally there are skinny jeans and unkempt beards, which could also be due to the fact that opening up proceedings is one fifth of Radiohead. Or rather, an Orchestra playing a composition by one fifth of Radiohead, as Johnny Greenwood’s 2005 Popcorn Superhet Receiver opens up events in the main hall.

However, the problem is that this is no normal gig. So turning up 15 minutes into a set is frowned upon – and, indeed, prohibited. So the best this review can offer of composer Andre de Ridder’s take on the piece is that the people who actually saw it seemed to enjoy it, as well as the piece that followed, entitled ‘Spices, Perfumes, Toxins!’ by Avner Dorman, which only serves to compound the misery of sitting in a gastropub for a few hours instead.

A recital of Igor Stravinsky’s ‘The Rite of Spring’ receives a prolonged, enthusiastic ovation, but crowd numbers seem slightly down by the time the main event comes at around 10 o’clock. However, it does little to stop the feeling that those that didn’t elect to leave were witnessing something spectacular. Billed as a world premiere, the set was written especially for the evening’s performance, an adapted version of Arnald’s latest album …and they have esaped the weight of darkness.

The orchestra may not quite be full, having been slightly reduced from the piece that proceeded it, but that’s unsurprising for an album which draws as much from the space between the notes as the actual sound itself. Olafur takes the stage, dapper in a bow tie, and takes his seat at a piano. The use of a synth may seem slightly out of step with the expansive nature of the evening, but the electronic nature of much of the work means that it’s inevitable. The work doesn’t suffer from it, however, weaving the distorted percussion in amongst its fleet of bows and brass.

An artist who has made his name on the back of brittle, isolated works, Arnalds claims that this sort of approach is more likely to be the exception rather than the rule, making the show somewhat of a one-off. It’s not hard to see how well the latest album lends itself to the bigger, yet more tuned nature of working with an orchestra, and if upcoming pieces were specifically created to be played by such numbers, the results would undoubtedly be spectacular.

His works being so understated, it’s no surprise to see the @OlafurArnalds account on twitter describe the night as “pretty amazing”, but the relieved smile on his face as he takes a bow following the set’s completion tells of a greater joy beneath the icy cool exterior. The lights come up, the punters leave their seats and the skinny jeans, the beards, the suits and the blouses intermingle, all invariably with huge smiles upon their faces.