Iceland Airwaves Festival

Well Airwaves is over. Went Wednesday to Saturday with a few extra shows on Sunday. Was a long and tiring few days but a lot of fun. I saw some pretty cool bands, but I was also kind of disappointed with a lot of the bands as well. Most of them were just very generic bands, not really sticking out, though some would try and be unique like the Apparat Organ Quartet which were 4 organists and a drummer, though they were electric organs so just sounded like electronic, industrial type music. But they had a typical rock band, punk band, indie band, etc. Also there was not much energy from the band nor the audience (which either may have had an effect on the other). The bands didn´t interact with the audience much and the crowd would bob to the music but not give much response though they would always cheer (perhaps out of politeness) when a song was done, no matter who the band was. Maybe it is because of Icelandic indifference or maybe I was tired and music-festival-out, going out for 4 to 8 hours a night to listen to music and I was de-sensitized to the music(which is most probable).

Now that I have made it sound like a horrible time, I really did have fun the whole weekend. I spent most nights hanging with Anna Vala, Ásta and Leif and sometimes with Tom, Chrissy, Kate, Nathan and others. The first two nights were kind of dissappointing, I only saw about 3 bands each night because we tried to go from one venue to another but there were long queues to wait and would have taken about an hour to get inside, but by friday I had figured out a plan of venues to go to where I was able to go to 2 or 3 with out having to wait in line and seeing a lot more bands (though both Friday and Saturday I was out from 8pm until 4am one right and 3am the second night. I think I got my money´s worth). I barely made it Friday night though, I was so exhausted and many times thought of going home but made it through the night and the last band, Jagúar, a funk band played for an hour and a half which was a lot of fun. I also saw Jónsi again, with his possible boyfriend and other bandmate Kjartan at the one venue I went to (pictures on my pic site, though kind of dark). I felt like such a stalker taking a picture of them, considering they are just like anyone else, but I did it anyway.

You can check out the website for info on the bands and such at www.icelandairwaves.com

The bands I would recommend, or the ones I liked at least are ( all icelandic):
Skátar Ókind Úlpa
Jagúar Jakobínarína Lights on the Highway
Hjálmar Ampop Helgi Valur

Then bands other people really enjoyed that I didn´t see:
José Gonzales(sweden) The (International) Noise Conspiracy(sweden)
Junior Senior(denmark) The Zutons(UK)
Architecture in Helsinki(australia) Juliette and the Licks(US)
Benni Hemm Hemm(iceland) Hermigervill(iceland)

There are a lot more who were probably really good but these ones stood out. If you are able to you should download some songs. Some of the bands have mp3s you can listen to on the site but I haven´t looked around much to find where you can download their music. It was frustrating and really difficult because there were so many bands playing and not enough time and too many people to see all the bands you wanted to see, but the experience at least opened me up to new music (especially icelandic, considering I tried to go to mostly to icelandic bands).

This weekend we are having a big Halloween party in our rez. Everyone is suppose to dress up, bring a snack, and their own drinks and we are allowed two guests each. I think I will dress up as a vampire, because it will be really easy to do and all I need is some white make-up to make me look pale. And I will attempt to make my pumpkin pie for the party, hopefully it will turn out, not even sure what I bought is a pumpkin, think it is some type of gourd. Well we will see how it comes out. I´ll try and write about how it goes later but for now should get some rest.

Oh by the way, temperature has dropped to under 0°C now, was -3 yesterday and I think colder today, but still bright and sunny during the day though sun rises at about 8:30-9am and sets around 5:30-6pm.