Iceland Airwaves review

Last week was the 11th annual Iceland Airwaves festival, where over 150 bands played over 5 days from wednesday to sunday. total mayhem. the festival is about new music, both icelandic and international. things get started around 7 every night and go till well after midnight. all the venues are in and around downtown reykjavik, so the streets are lousy with night life. so here's what i saw:


bjort (3 out of 5)
__super cutesy singer song writer stuff. catchy and sweet. not really my cup of tea, but good musicians and good stage presence.


the drums (1.5 out of 5)
__i came into the reykjavik art museum expecting awesome, and instead i got the drums. they very well could have ruined my night. if i hadn't a sweet date lined up later and if crystal antlers didn't play i would have got in a fist fight that night. preferably with one of the members of the drums.
catchy pop which is a combination of the smiths, elements of new order, the clash, cure, etc. i don't even know why i hated it so much. i guess that guys can get famous and rich off of hashing out something that was done 20 years ago. and that they weren't even impressive musicians. it makes me think of Hot Hot Heat, who are doing well because they know people, despite sucking. boo...


tim hecker (4 out of 5)
__describing hecker is tricky business. he does atmospheric/inspirational/moon scape/tundra ambience extremely extremely well. the venue, Iðnó, was completely dark except for hecker's face lit up from his laptop. about halfway through the set i looked around and saw that most everyone was sitting on the floor with their eyes closed, looking at the floor. like a very calm insane asylum.
i think it was too loud though, and the bass was breaking up at times. still amazing.


crystal antlers (5 out of 5)
__holy fucking shit. crystal antlers; live. noisy, melodic, punky, rocky guitar wailing awesomeness. holy fucking shit.


jessica 6 (4 out of 5)
__electro-disco? stuff i never listen to. awesome though. one of the better live performances all festival.


retro stefson (4.5 out of 5)
__imagine if nintendo came out of Rio instead of Tokyo. now imagine the advantage (a band that does nintendo covers exclusively) are from iceland and have members who are influenced by European, South-American, African and North-American music. then you have retro stefson. they're bloody young too! excellent show.


fm belfast (3.5 out of 5)
__people are crazy about fm belfast. i'm still kind of 'meh' about fm belfast. excellent name, and high NRG show. just probably not my cup of tea.


Oculus (3 out of 5)
__techno DJ in a corporal (or captain?) uniform. pretty good.


GusGus (2.5 out of 5)
__not much to say about GusGus. not very impressed. lots of lazers. and creepy singers. greasy creepy singers.



oh yeah, and band photos are up on the previous post.