polaroids of androids

Nov 1, 2007

Iceland Airwaves Review

Last week I was lucky enough (but as it turned out not wealthy enough) to attend the 9th annual Iceland Airwaves festival, in Reykjavik, IcelAand. It will no doubt go down as one of the more memorable moments of my life, and aside from making heaps of new friends and getting drunk alot on lethal hostel-mixed drinks that we snuck into venues and shared around the bus, I also managed to catch a few bands. The following is who I saw and what I thought of them.

Day 1

Took Tony the traveller, a blind and 80% deaf, yet completely independant traveller out on the town and walked him in to venues despite him not having a wristband for the festival. Got kinda drunk, and forgot to watch any bands, or at least to remember who they were. 'Nuff said.

Day 2

Caught 15 minutes of Skatar, a local Icelandic band. Their record The Ghost of the Bollocks to Come, aside from having a brilliant title, is a pretty good listen, which makes me kinda pissed for not catching more of them.

I also caught Late of the Pier from the UK on one of the bigger stages of the festival (which in reality is probably only a 400 person venue). They were pretty dancey, but surprisingly entertaining for a scenester band, and the silver matte jumpsuit with silver gloss patches of the lead man was a nice touch.

Day 3

Saw another local band by the name of Reykjavik!, who appeared to be local favourites. Aside from jokes about other local bands in icelandic that I couldn't understand, they played some pretty loud and raucous music while keeping the crowd involved by jumping in and marching about with microphone in hand.

Directly after the masters of their own unique genre of music Deerhoof took to the stage and delivered an entertaining and flawlessly delivered set of off kilter classics from their extensive repertoire. The crowd especially seemed to enjoy the newer material from recent album Friend Opportunity, possibly indictitive of the local's unquenchable thirst for new and exciting music.

Day 4

Headed out to the famous Blue Lagoon for the festival's 'Hangover Party', in which thousands of people disregard the icy weather, discard their clothes and plunge into the steaming blue pools and dance to french DJ's for the afternoon. It was all pretty tame until a bunch of insane danish guys (who I later found out NEVER touch drugs or alcohol of ANY sort) riled up the crowd into a frenzy by dancing, chanting, crowd surfing and conga lining, all of which sent huge cheers through the crowd and made for an amazing atmosphere to be a part of.

That night I managed to catch a short amount of Mugison, the equivalent of Bono in Iceland, except without the pompous self-righteous attitude and shit music.

I also managed to catch the set by American band Annuals. Their song 'Dear Brother' caught my attention a while back, but the rest of their album never really grabbed me. Live though, it was a different story. Their beautiful soaring melodies were effortlessly distributed across the Reykjavik Art Museum (A beautiful old prison that was converted as Iceland has almost no crime), and made for my personal highlight of the festival.

Departed the museum to go and catch !!!'s set. They played almost entirely new material, and while they were entertaining the crowd well enough, they certainly struggled to get the energy of their recorded material across after the recent departure due to a falling out of one of their lead singers. The fact that the remaining singer spat obnoxious ignorant banter at the crowd for "not appreciating how far they came to get there" and the venue's security for "Not letting the pretty girls through to the front" and when challenged by one retorting with "What is that? Is that Swedish for 'I'm a fag'?" definately soured their set even further.

Day 5

Caught half of the 'surprise' second set by Buck 65, who had played a few nights earlier. The way he mixed up his beats ty sound nothing like they do in his recorded material was certainly impressive, and the lucky few who witnessed it were certainly feeling pretty lucky to catch him in a smaller, more intimate venue than his previous set.

Finally trundled along in time to see the closing set of the festival by none other than New Zealand's own Cut Off Your Hands. Tony, the deaf and blind guy was in tow again, and he described them as the best band he had ever seen (his joke, not mine). I too thought it was one of the better sets I have ever seen them play, and it was a nice way to end the festival.

Back home, to sleep, and off on the plane the next morning. It was a phenomenal experience that I would recommend to anyone with the stamina and bank balance to handle it, as it is something I will never forget. Thank you Iceland!