Image by Martin Dam Kristensen
Iceland’s hottest electro-poppers are playing a show in Dublin. And so life finds me on a miserable and wet Thursday evening, in the middle of the Arthur’s Day celebrations, heading towards the only place in Dublin that does not sell Guinness: the Fringe Factory. Formerly known as Pravda, it is now being used as the main venue for the Icelandic Music Weekend of the Absolut Fringe Festival.
Greeted by the nice people working for the festival, I soon decide to wet my whistle with a German Weizen while I wait for the upstairs venue to open. The club was renovated recently, and the new owners decided to transform the former soviet-themed large boozer with a gallery into two separate floors, each with bar and stage, all painted white.
Around 9 PM, the other concert-goers and I are ushered up the stairs to the room where the Icelanders are performing. I have just enough time to switch from German to Polish beer before the band enters the stage.This is the first time FM Belfast are playing in the Republic (they played – sic! – Belfast earlier this year), but their brilliant album “How to make friends” and their seemingly endless touring make sure that over 200 people turn up, in spite of all those Arthur’s Day shows everywhere else. And the four guys and two ladies (including Unnsteinn Stefánsson of Retro Steffson) splash out big time, and have Dublin eating out of their hands within minutes.
Image by Martin Dam Kristensen
During the first song “Tropical”, main man Árni Vilhjálmsson has the whole crowd kneel down and jump up again at his command, and from there on it only gets better. Playing all songs from “How to make friends” plus a new one called “Craggy Island” and covering Rage Against the Machine, Guns’n'Roses, Snap! and Harry Belafonte – the jumble of humans that is FM Belfast has us cheering, laughing and dancing and feeling good all the time. As Árni and the other, programming Árni (Hlöðversson or Árni Plúseinn = Árni plus one) do their signature striptease playing “Underwear” (Árni: “I only strip for audiences I’m very comfortable with!”), a couple of good-looking crowd members promptly follow suit. Finishing with a sweaty encore of “Par Avion”, FM Belfast leave the stage and a very very satisfied audience after 1,5 hours of dancing, on and off stage.
Come back soon.
Image by Martin Dam Kristensen
Disclaimer: as I attended this show without my trusted partner in crime Kai, I was not able to take pictures. Mostly because I suck at taking pictures – so the ones in here are very pretty “placeholders” from a concert in Denmark. I apologise for any inconvenience caused.