Iceland Airwaves 2007: Volcanic Blog

Iceland | by Ben H. Murray | 23 October 2007

Monday 22 October

A coda to Sunday's joke. We're in a farm house in the middle of the Icelandic countryside and someone mentions there's sheep for dinner. Mutton, whilst not being a top choice of meat for some, is perfectly acceptable and this sheep was indeed mutton in that it had mutton on its head and feet, which made up the first course. Shaun, as we'll call him from now on, had been BBQ'd thoroughly and then he'd had his head split in two, leaving two eyes staring up at you from the plate and a shiny row of teeth grinning like he was in on the joke. The back of the head, cheek and lip are the best cuts and it tastes like a bland piece of lamb with only the back of the head giving off any real flavour.

Sunday 21 October

The Icelandic people like a joke and today is their idea of a pretty funny joke. It goes something like this - we'll put three days of solid festival action on in one of the most amazing cities in the world for all you foreigners and we'll make you stay awake until it's time to get up. Then, when you're totally exhausted and think you can't possibly see another electric guitar or drink anymore Thule, we'll just put some more bands on in the same venues so you have to go and do it all again. Imagine if Michael Eavis got his favourite bands to play on the Monday after Glastonbury and you can imagine the sort of problems you're faced with - you're here, you've had the best time over the past few days and it's carrying on for another day so you absolutely have to go and see more bands.

So, with that hilarious joke ringing in my ears, I head off to a venue called Organ and see a hip-hop act Buck 65. I'd love to write a review of their set but the venue was so crowded with people eager to carry on the fun that barely a note carried beyond the front row. I was told they were good a very drunk Viddi. The bass player from Trabant and Motion Boys also reckons they were decent.

Saturday 20 October

The pinnacle of the Airwaves festival is Saturday night. The best bands play in the best venues and if you're in bed before breakfast then you're either ill, pregnant or asleep in Business Class on the early flight back to London or New York. The evening's entertainment took place in one of the strangest venues in Reykjavik, the Art Museum; a sort of concrete, warehouse-style ode to the country's strong artistic heritage but don't worry, they clear all the boring stuff out for the weekend and install a massive stage instead.

Usually the first band on the bill is first for a reason but Hraun (the word translates as 'lava' in English) could have easily relegated headliners Bloc Party to a shifty pub down the road. Their album hasn't received much praise from the press over here but see them live and it's a whole different kettle of whale (sorry, fish) They have a flute player who wishes he was in Jethro Tull, a troll on keyboards, a hippy on bass and some others milling around making sounds that combine to make one of those really memorable festival moments - when everyone is smiling and the songs all seem like you've known them for years. Hjaltalin, a folksy collective similar in live performance to Hraun, are also a pretty special band live. They sing songs about how making trees smoke is an evil thing to do and get away with it, in England you'd have to be a shoe-less hippy at Glastonbury to enjoy such thoughts but in Iceland such sentiments are just words in songs set to music.

Bloc Party were so late on-stage that they really missed the fun. "Takk" was all Kelle could muster in response to the baying crowd of neon-clad youths and that was just about the most interesting thing he did or said all night, apart from stage diving for thirty seconds during 'Pioneers' and constantly adjusting his outfit.

So that was the official festival program over, three days of constant musical stimulation in venues as diverse as a bookshop, government building and a museum covering every type of music from speed metal to 80s electro pop. We stayed up all night and ate breakfast before bed, saw more bands than one could possibly hope to remember and met some of the kindest, most interesting people you could ever hope to share a drink with. Until next year - skal.

Friday 19 October

After a pretty mixed evening at Grand Rokk last night, Friday evening was spent at the misleadingly-named Lido, another of the central Reykjavik venues that's been hosting evening programs for the Airwaves festival. It's not an outdoor swimming pool, more the sort of venue where you might hold a wedding party or a conference on the international paper export business rather than an evening featuring some of Iceland's most well-respected bands and an American called Jon Spencer (of Blues Explosion fame)

The first part of the evening was pretty standard fare with Sverrir Bergman and Fabula running through short sets of middle-of-the-road folk rock and Kate Bush-style balladry before a group called Benny Crespo's Gang produced one of the sets of the weekend, for me anyway. A reoccurring theme of Icelandic music is that no one musician sticks to a particular style of music and there is no better example of this versatility than a lady called Lay Low. By day, she's a gentle blues singer of astounding talent but by night she joins a group of boys to form Benny Crespo's Gang, whereupon she's transformed into a frantic button-hitting dervish, helping to make a sound that skips between electro, rock, punk and just plain loud noise with surprisingly engrossing results. There are a few examples of this type of music in Iceland at the moment with a group called Dr Spock being the current expert exponents of this sort of noisy cabaret. They're a band not to be missed if they ever come your way and don't be scared when you see that the band brings a whole box of pink or yellow rubber gloves to every gig - they're all clean(ish)

Petur Ben then rocked out with his excellent brand of acoustic rock, the highlight being a cover of The Doors 'Break On Through' before the evening went a bit downhill as The Tremolo Beer Guts and Jon Spencer's Heavy Trash ended the evening on a bit of a low point. One played tired old surf music that was totally at odds with the more forward-looking music that went down so well earlier in the evening and the other was just like a big musical rubbish collection of old rockabilly - pure trash.

"And now we are going to do something we've never done before..." claimed Jon Spencer as he swaggered towards the end of his Heavy Trash set. What's that Jon, playing something recognisable as being written this side of the Cuban missile crisis? No such luck - that job vacancy was successfully filled by the evening's earlier performances from Petur Ben and Benny Crespo's Gang.

By the way, if ever you're in the Grand Hotel in Reykjavik and fancy seeing the city lights without leaving your accommodation just head to the top floor. On the roof there's a meeting room straight out of Wall Street and, if you find the right button amongst all the board room kit, then the curtains pull back to reveal a stunning 360'c view of the city. Bring some drinks and make a night of it - just don't let the hotel staff catch you.

Thursday 18 October

Last night's bill at Grand Rokk in central Reykjavik was beyond electic, maybe Mr Destiny (the organiser) was standing anonymously in the corner chuckling into his pint of Viking as combinations of androgynous folk-singing sisters mixed with post-grunge noise bands and Joy Division-influenced futurists whilst a minimal audience looked on in confusion.

The End, the aforementioned Ian Curtis fans, were the by far the best band of the evening, mixing a lively vocal performance from lead singer Magnus with keyboards and guitars straight out of 1979. The band's name isn't just a throwaway moniker either as Magnus explained after their set. "You know, we were going to Annice the fourth secret tonight but as it's not being recorded I didn't do it. We predicted the Twin Towers being attacked, Afghanistan and Iraq and now we have the fourth secret." I explain that if he was to divulge this secret then I'd happily record it for prosperity. "OK, we know that Israel will be attacked soon. They will line up to bomb Iran, but then they'll bomb Israel instead." He goes onto say that he's a bit fan of Nostradamus and similar prophetic writers and that it is all true, they are a band who predict world events with great accuracy so if The End start mentioning the end then I'd grab the Yellow Pages and look up Richard Branson's new space travel company pronto - sell the house, kids, laptop and everything else and get out of here.

Today I've seen Canada's of Montreal playing in a bookshop and Sweden's Jenny Wilson performing in a library. Jenny Wilson is, and I apologise for the lazy comparison, a Joni Mitchell look-a-like and sound-a-like of exceptionally good breeding - the songs have the same sort of folk/rock crossover and her sister plays guitar alongside a pianist and bass player that all melt together in a modest, yet endearing, fashion. Her European tour starts soon and I can highly recommend getting a seat in the front row.

Tonight looks to be a bit more exciting than yesterday with folk troubadour Petur Ben and Benny Crespo's Gang playing a small venue called Lido, again in central Reykjavik. The interestingly named Tremolo Beer Gut and England's Computer Club are also performing and it's Friday night out in Reykjavik after that. Friday night really means Saturday morning and you're considered a total limp-wristed girly girl if you head home before dawn, here that means sometime around 11am...

Jenny Wilson
www.myspace.com/loveandyouth

The End
www.myspace.com/theendis 

Wednesday 17 October

The weather is hotting up, comparatively speaking anyway as it was -14'c earlier in the week, and the real action starts tonight with performances from bands such as Iceland's Gavin Portland and Sign, America's Bronx and Grizzly Bear, England's Duke Spirit and Late Of The Pier and the Faroe Island's Boys In A Band, spread around dozens of venues in downtown Reykjavik. Although the last sets are scheduled for midnight, the parties will undoubtedly carry on until breakfast time at various all-night venues around the city with an eclectic mix of international guests hanging around the various cafes, bars and clubs that act as live venues for the next three or four days. I say three of four days because the festival has the unique attraction of not really ending when it ends, Icelanders are never good at going home when it's past their bedtime and this extends to making the festival last as long as possible with various events planned for Sunday daytime and beyond, including the famous hangover party at the Blue Lagoon. Calling it a hangover party is false advertising really - that party won't start until Monday morning.

Tonight I'm off to Grand Rokk, the Icelandic equivalent of London's Water Rats, to see Who Knew, Royal Fortune, The Nanas, Motorfly and Beteley. I have no idea what any of these sound like and judging by last night's line-up, that seemed to specialise in bands who wouldn't be allowed out after dark in-case they get scared and run home to Mum, it should be something between a melee of drunken youthful exuberance and an eighties tribute act.

Incidentally, the band I'm most looking forward to seeing this weekend go by the easy-on-the-tongue name of Ultra Mega Technobandið Stefán. They recently performed their hit single Story of a Star on Icelandic TV and the end result found its way onto youtube, I wonder if a Tellytubby can sue for breach of image rights? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzoUCKYlRB0