THE PLACE TO BE
THE FIRST TIME Seattle band Fleet Foxes performed at the Sydney Opera House, they were surprised by the concert hall’s intimacy. “You have an idea about a building and the architecture,” says songwriter and frontman Robin Pecknold. “The acoustics were really amazing, and it felt close, which I wasn’t expecting.”
After a ive-year hiatus from performing, the band will boldly return to the stage, with four dates under the vast sails of the opera house, as part of Vivid Live, Sydney’s annual festival of light, music and ideas that spills out across the harbors, botanical gardens and the entire city. The opera house refers to its part in the festival as “the centerpiece of its year-round music program.” Vivid certainly conforms to the original aims of the building, which opened in 1973 to promote all forms of art along with “scientific research into, and the encouragement of, new and improved forms of entertainment and methods of presentation,” according to its mission statement.