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Photo: Kathleen Phipps

Photo: Kathleen Phipps

Photo: Kathleen Phipps

Photo: Kathleen Phipps

Emily Jane White

Emily Jane White

08/11/2022

Eivør at The Old Church Concert Hall 8/7/2022 Review/Photos

By MATT HANSEN //  Faroese singer-songwriter played to a sold-out crowd at rescheduled Portland date for her first American tour. 

With a queue of ticket holders snaking around the block of The Old Church last Sunday, the anticipation to see Eivør was as high as the sweltering 100-degree temperature. Originally booked for last January, this newly rescheduled date for Eivør's first American tour sold out months ago – back when Portland’s summer was a steady cool gray. Nevertheless, fans lined-up Sunday with bar codes in their hot little hands – some of whom had been sitting on the tickets for over six months – with a weekend heatwave doing little to deter them. 

Opening was Emily Jane White, whose melancholy voice and shoegaze chords gave the necessary escape from the harsh reality outside. Touring behind the new album “Alluvion,” the Oakland-based singer-songwriter performed a set of songs with baritone guitarist Francesco Echo deftly providing back-up to White's guitar and keys – no small feat when considering her rich cinematic mix of indie rock, folk, and chamber pop. “The Hands Above Me” sounded as though Beach House wrote the theme to your personal HBO limited series, which was unfolding in a church with the sun setting against stained glass.

And as night fell on the venue, with little cooling effect, Eivør took the stage for her very patient fans; many of whom discovered the Faroese singer when she opened for Nordic folk band Wardruna at Revolution Hall back in 2018. Since then, much has changed about our world, yet Eivør fans remained true believers.

By the second song, during the chorus of “Let It Come,” her voice hit a piercing register that inspired the first of many standing ovations. As her dynamic range belted into the night – drifting airily into the arched ceilings of the venue – it was clear that Eivør had brought her fans to church, but they ended up at the opera.

And this singing Valkyrie, hailing from a town of only about 500 people in the Faroe Islands, was quick to acknowledge the long wait with a joke. “I know some of you bought your tickets like two years ago. Thank you for keeping them,” Eivør said with a highly disarming smile, before launching into the song “Broken,” which washed over the pews in electronic swells of her voice.

Later on, switching from guitar to the shamanic drum on “Salt,” Eivør moved from almost hushed silence to towering Faroese bellows, embodying the power of a shield-maiden with a voice that could beat the drums of war if it so desired. Luckily for us, Eivør is more of the love song persuasion. On “True Love” her serene vocal run is so clear and familiar, it could even be sampled for an ambient techno song, such as Orbital's “Halcyon.”

By encore’s end, the crowd was even more smitten with her than their patience would insist. Whether she’s throat singing like a demon or angelically carrying you over turbulent oceans, Eivør is a creative force which has only been strengthened by the wait. And on this night, Portland echoed that time is of no object.

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