Iceland Airwaves 2016 Day 1: It’s good to be back

But during the showcase music festival, the kind of tourists that are brought here are different; they’re not necessarily more friendly or well adjusted, but they’re more attentive. In the days leading up to the festival there is a palpable tension in the air, an elastic chord of excitement that keeps getting wound tighter and tighter. And then, suddenly, the festival is upon us.

Today was that day. After weeks of anticipation and preparation, the show finally begins. Walking in to Gaukurinn when the clock strikes eight, I see black metal outfit Auðn strike their first chord. They’re bathed in red lights, wearing sharp suit jackets and black t-shirts, and there’s already a throng gathered in the audience. Auðn play a very crisp and precise form of black metal, with well layered guitar work and a mean drummer. The song structures may be varied, but the pacing is consistently good, with long periods of quiet to prepare you for the explosions. The singer screams in an infernal voice about darkness approaching, the wait finally being at an end, to surrender to the inevitable; and it’s all very convincing. Auðn are at the forefront of a new kind of Icelandic black metal that is at once very creative and very disciplined. It should not come as any kind of surprise that they have been offered to play at Roadburn 2017. Catch them if you can.

Over at Húrra, Cryptochrome (pictued above) are ecstatic to be performing. Formed in 2012, the three-piece outfit has been playing all over the place and gathered a lot of attention for their ambitious shows and music videos. Live, the members of Cryptochrome each have a very different stage presence; Anik throws his hands around and moves all over the stage, Una does a lot with smaller and finer movements, and producer S.O.N. launches forward with each deep drop. There are a lot of fans in the audience that dance and lip sync along to the tracks. Final song is so upbeat it even gets me moving my hiney.

Back at Gaukurinn one of Iceland’s seminal hardcore bands, Celestine, takes stage. While Auðn’s storm built up organically into a beast, Celestine’s is a tsunami that hits the shore full force and uproots everything. The singer launches himself into the crowd, beer gets spilled, a mosh pit is (briefly) formed, and the drummer beats the cymbals so hard that the poor sound engineer has to sneak onto the stage to correct it four times. And then, all of the sudden, their set is finished.

There are some singer/songwriters that perform with a live band, and then there’s Teitur Magnússon (pictured above, photo by Varvara Lozenko) who brings eleven people on stage with him. The psychedelic folk artist pulled all the stops to deliver a soothing and chill show to everyone gathered in NASA, and was in turn blessed with a very receptive crowd. There was nothing exciting about the show, it was simply a treat.

Meanwhile on Harpa’s Silfurberg stage an explosion went off the moment the feminist collective, Reykjavíkurdætur (pictured above, photo by Rúnar Sigurður Sigurjónsson), stepped onto the stage. Everyone and their grandmother pulled out their mobile phones and snapped away with reckless abandon as the thirteen girls on stage caroused cooly, vaped away, and threw some fierce love and hate at the crowd. Reykjavíkurdætur have been controversial in the past for having bloated numbers and not being tight, and for liberal use of cultural appropriation for wearing bindis and Native American headdress. Tonight, there is nothing to discredit them for. Their team is smaller and tighter, the beats are better and more addictive, and they are still absolutely on point with their message of female empowerment, combating slut shaming, and taking space. They take so much space that it almost seems like the stage isn’t big enough for them. The crowd is super responsive, and even the cynic in me can’t help but feel proud of how far this collective has come. Tearing through their collection of hits like “Fanboys,” “d.r.u.s.l.a,” and “Ógeðsleg,” they prove that they are worthy of all the praise they’ve gotten. After the show, I kept hearing people gushing about them on my way out, saying “oh they are just...” “I can’t believe that...” “I love them so...” and so on.

Over at Norðurljós, the young R&B star Glowie (pictured above, photo by Burak Cingi) shone in the limelight, performing confidently and basking in the attention. My only niggle about the sweet show was Glowie’s reliance upon playback, which was a shame because she has a brilliant voice. She’s a young artist, though, and it will be interesting to see what trajectory her career takes after this performance.

Sneaking over to Iðnó, I catch one of the coolest and most interesting Icelandic bands out there; Kælan Mikla. This trio performs songs about teenage feelings of angst to the sound of synth punk and a thumping bass. They just signed with Fabrika Records and will be heading out on a European tour in the nearby future.

Back at Harpa, I finish the evening dancing to UK’s own Dizzee Rascal and Iceland’s Milkywhale (pictured above, photo by Burak Cingi). Both are dance-inducing, but in wildly different ways. While Dizzee drops the bass and shoots his mouth off like a machinegun, Milkywhale lead the crowd forward with enthusiasm and inspiring choreography.

Once the show finishes and I exit out into the rain, I’m not too bothered; I’m too fired up to mind the cold. Iceland Airwaves is here. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.