![\"Silvurdrongur](\"https:\/\/cdn1.faroutmagazine.co.uk\/uploads\/1\/2025\/09\/Silvurdrongur-at-Sea-The-concert-so-good-I-sought-psychological-help-afterwards-Far-Out-Magazine-1-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/div>But over on the pier, the world was as quiet as an empty Scottish bothy, and it gave the impression that the 45 of us gathered there, each in various states of weariness, were the last people on Earth. This was somehow the effect that Larsen, the Head of the Faroese Music Export, must\u2019ve been hoping for.<\/p>\n
The first boat emerged from the mist and lurched towards the pier. Beers and passengers were passed aboard, but it was full and on its way before even a fifth of us had clambered on deck. Alas, boats, in varying degrees of splendour, continued bumbling forth one by one. I was on the fourth and final departure. Where we were heading remained a secret.<\/p>\n
We crept through the fog, the sea hushed by the eerie stillness of the weather. Occasionally, the mist to our flanks would lift just enough to reveal steep grassy mountains on either side of our tiny boats, their tops secretively fading into grey. As the Faroes\u2019 own William Heinesen put it, the archipelago is \u201cto the vast ocean just about the same as a grain of sand to the floor of a dancehall.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut,\u201d Heinesen continued, \u201cseen beneath a magnifying glass, this grain of sand is nevertheless a whole world with mountains and valleys, sounds and fjords and houses with small people.\u201d As we sailed, we seemed like small people edging from the safety of the shore into the unknown, and the first foreign sound we heard was a creaking cello.<\/p>\n
We happened upon the concert like explorers happening upon new lands only to find that they\u2019ve been expected for some time. The Ocean Rainforest research boat was anchored in the middle of the foggy Atlantic. Stationed upon it were Hettarher, an avant-garde cello and double bass duo, and a man in a woolen fishnet-like dress with a purple headscarf yelling about Coca Cola in performative verse. He was Silvurdrongur.<\/p>\n
The fleet of boats encircled the performance, the creaks and cracks of butting bows, as people silently attempted to dock, tesellating with the music as though it was all part of the song. Nature leant its own percussion and smoke machine. I glanced over my shoulder to see a puzzled seagull bobbing on top of the water. Madness. This was utter madness.<\/p>\n
A few weeks later, as I struggled through an indie band at the local pub, I wondered whether I would ever enjoy a concert again. I felt like yelling strange heckles along the lines of, \u2018Where\u2019s your fucking seagull mate?\u2019 or \u2018You couldn\u2019t even moor a dinghy to that stage son\u2019 as the recent university graduates plodded their way through a track that blatantly ripped off \u2018Linger\u2019 by the Cranberries.<\/p>\n I was rapt by Silvurdrongur, a madman in ill-advised seafaring clothing, hopping between the crescent of vessels to berate the\u00a0capitalist encroachment of the Faroe Islands. I wondered whether I would ever be rapt again in my sorry life. Puzzled and confused, with a yearning for floating gigs that no other human has surely ever suffered, I turned to Dr Michael Swift, the founder of Birmingham-based\u00a0Swift Psychology\u00a0and Head of Counselling at the\u00a0Uprawr Mental Health Foundation, and, in what will surely be considered a sound use of his time by all our readers, I pleaded for answers.<\/p>\n \u201cYes, it\u2019s possible for an extraordinary concert to temporarily \u2018spoil\u2019 future ones,\u201d the good doctor told me, as I proverbially shivered and muttered the words to \u2018Sp\u00e6lidrongur\u2019 in my life jacket on his couch. \u201cWhen we experience peak emotion, intense euphoria, connection, or awe \u2013 the brain encodes it as a reference point.\u201d<\/p>\n My new reference point was an avant-garde chansonnier-come-rapper and a neo-classical duo floating in the North Atlantic, accompanied by the ambient bustle of jostling boats. It was easy to see how that might be a problem. \u201cLater concerts may feel flat by comparison,\u201d Dr Swift confirmed, \u201cnot because they are bad, but because of contrast effects and elevated expectations.\u201d<\/p>\n He even had a term for it, \u201cPsychologists sometimes call this\u00a0hedonic calibration<\/em>: once we\u2019ve experienced something extraordinary, the ordinary feels muted for a while.\u201d I feared my career as an objective music journalist could well be fucked by hedonic calibration of a huge magnitude hitherto unknown in the profession. Is this what Larsen wanted? Had he wanted to establish the superiority of barely-known acts in off-kilter locations to such an extent that all cultural criticism was skewed towards oceanic obscurity thereafter?<\/p>\n When Silvurdrongur\u2019s wink cut through the fog, was its cheekiness sinister rather than that of a performer in full flow, causing even the tides to dance to his whims? Is this what I had begotten when I naively prayed for fog without the foggiest idea why? \u201cReframe the experience, don\u2019t chase it,\u201d my psychologist advised.<\/p>\n \u201cRather than expecting every gig to reach the same high, recognise that the peak moment is special precisely because it is rare,\u201d he said. Swift was certainly right on that front. Beyond the novelty of Silvurdrongur at sea, what was truly riveting was the sense of creativity unfurling in its rawest form.<\/p>\n Something magical was happening simply because people had bothered to make it so. It was, of course, bold and original in the extreme. And it was perfectly considered to such an extent that it\u2019s hard to imagine any other act that would\u2019ve worked quite so well in this setting. But it was also deeply naturalistic, unfurling with raw, unpolished, perfect imperfection. Ultimately, there was no finer showing of art for art\u2019s sake in the world that day.<\/p>\n I felt privileged knowing I had stumbled, beer in hand, into something that you could never come close to recreating. As I returned to my homeland and mortgage, I wondered whether I would ever feel quite as privileged ever again? Probably not. It seems unlikely that myself and my partner Sherilyn, equally awed to the point of depression by the experience, will be afford a fleet of ships any time soon. But Dr Swift keeps telling me that maybe that\u2019s the point.<\/p>\n I had to avoid thinking about this too much. You can\u2019t ask lightning to strike twice, as Dr Swift urged, \u201cBy lowering pressure on future experiences and focusing on different aspects (the musicianship, the crowd, the setting), you allow joy to emerge in new ways. Gratitude for the peak makes space for appreciation of the everyday.\u201d<\/p>\n In time, I have endeavoured to see his point. Now, a few months on, above all, I see that the concert reminded me of the inverse of what David Byrne was angling at when he yelled, \u201cHow did I get here!\u201d In \u2018Once In a Lifetime\u2019, the Talking Heads man warns against life becoming a somnambulant wander towards maudlin inevitability, but in the sleepy sea, I was awakening.<\/p>\n In equally Byrne-esque fashion, I didn\u2019t know how we had got there or where we were or, in truth, what I was watching and hearing, but on a Faroese boat as a Silvurdrongur asked, Is it us that makes us human?\u201d and poeticised, \u201cWe were all gifted the Earth on our birthdays,\u201d it seemed it is worth venturing through the fog of the unknown: it might re-affirm your life or it might ruin it. For me, it remains to be seen, but Swift and I are hoping for the former.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The sea was creaking under the weight of the fog rolling in from afar, and the compasses had started pointing south. A journalist from another … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2843,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"Silvurdrongur](\"https:\/\/cdn1.faroutmagazine.co.uk\/uploads\/1\/2025\/09\/Silvurdrongur-at-Sea-The-concert-so-good-I-sought-psychological-help-afterwards-Far-Out-Magazine-2-1024x768.jpg\")
<\/div>![\"Silvurdrongur](\"https:\/\/cdn1.faroutmagazine.co.uk\/uploads\/1\/2025\/09\/Silvurdrongur-at-Sea-The-concert-so-good-I-sought-psychological-help-afterwards-Far-Out-Magazine-4-1024x768.jpg\")
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