The SONIC ICELAND AIRWAVES blog – day 2
Day two was a nice one. We started our day with a strong coffee and shopping tour through Reykjavik. I bought books, yay – I’m especially happy that I got a copy of “Zombie Iceland” by Nanna Árnadóttir. And then it was already time for work, well, self-promotion: I gave an interview to a German film crew from Cologne production company Florianfilm, who were in Reykjavik to film a documentary about the Airwaves and Icelandic music in general. We met in the cozy surroundings of Hemmi og Valdi, and I was happy to chat about Sonic Iceland for half an hour, hoping that my hair’d look good.
After that, we had more coffee and a delicious vegetarian dinner – and then it was showtime again. We started the evening with a show by one of my favourite Icelandic musicians, the mighty Mugison in the newly opened concert hall Harpa, which is a stunning building right next to the harbour, designed by Olafur Eliasson.
The set was was incredible. Mugi looks more and more like an Icelandic Tom Waits with his fierce long beard, and he had completed his on-stage outfit with a wide-brimmed hat and a waistcoat. His backing band was equally impressive – the drummer behaved like a dog waiting for his master to throw a ball whenever Mugi was counting in a song and added a super-tight rhythm foundation to whatever song from whatever album came up. I had expected Mugison to focus on the Icelandic songs of his newest album “Haglei”, but we were treated to a best of-playlist. The new songs got a makeover as well, and so the first single from the new album, the eponymous “Haglei” sounded more like a Johnny Cash-track than the melodic pop-song that it the recorded version. The set finished with a mean, belched-out version of “Murr Murr”, which sounded very White Stripes-like and made all bums in the audience sway. All.
We then walked over to Bakkus, to watch the very drunken show of our favourite art rock band, Reykjavik! The guys were not only celebrating the release of their new album “Locust Sounds” (which you should buy!!), also was it guitar player Valdi’s birthday, so the band was handing out shots and shrieking out songs by the busload. Singer Boas got bored on stage and climbed over the nearby bar and hung himself from the speakers, so to say. Very sweaty and very good. The only thing they did not do was play my favourite song “Internet”. But they are forgiven.
After the show: more beers, and another hot dog. Stay tuned for more. Also more hot dogs.
