Sigur Ros fits Pavilion well

Sigur Ros is a band that understands presence. Volume, silences, texture.

Which made the heralded Icelandic group’s appearance Monday at the Dorothy Chandler Pavilion a powerful matching of band and venue, where at least one atmospheric corner of pop music sounded right at home.

The band’s 90-minute concert opened appropriately enough with a six-minute untitled song constructed around a spare piano melody played by Kjartan Sveinsson. The result was like a delicate classical piece clipped into a minimalist loop, until the wordless cries of singer-guitarist Jon Thor Birgisson.

His vocals were solemn and uplifting, not unlike sacred music, and Birgisson frequently took a violin bow to his guitar, Jimmy Page-style, drawing sounds from abrasive to delicate.

The room itself brought a certain formality to the concert, but so did the band’s music, even if Sigur Ros wore the usual lo-fi casual of T-shirts and jeans. The Pavilion is an excellent room for amplified rock, with clean sound bouncing off the chandeliers and walls of polished wood.

With the Los Angeles Philharmonic scheduled to relocate to the new Walt Disney Concert Hall across the street, the Pavilion, which has showcased such pop-rock acts as Neil Young and Jethro Tull over the years, could easily become a premier sit-down venue for pop music. Maybe not for death-metal.