In the land of maybe, G! Festival is a must

Having travelled over 1100 miles to be here, it’s a little late to be flakey, but – as in so many other ways – G! Festival proves to be an exception to the rule. For thousands of Faroese and a dedicated following of foreigners, the three-day event in the village of Syðrugøta (Gøta to its friends) is an essential part of the summer calendar. Not a maybe but a must. Established in 2002, G! has run almost every year, whatever the weather; only a global pandemic could stop it. Along the way, it has operated at the heart of a broader cultural transformation in the North Atlantic nation of around 55,000 people, alongside other vital institutions in the capital Tórshavn like pioneering alternative venue Sirkus, the musician and composer-owned TUTL record label and shop, the beautiful Nordic House, and, since 2019, a dedicated Faroe Music Export office.

“When there’s nothing, it feels like you can create anything,” says Sunneva Eysturstein, who opened the doors to Sirkus on her 25th birthday, 15 years ago, kickstarting a wave of entrepreneurship and bringing a new vitality to downtown Tórshavn, a stone’s throw from the city cathedral on a small hill overlooking the harbour. The knock-on effect has been huge. Today, the Faroe Islands hosts hundreds of music festivals and events throughout the year, from the longest-running programme of contemporary and classical composers, Summartónar, to the newest festival Skrapt, conceived by Eysturstein to shine a light on artists from the thriving Faroese undergound. There’s something that caters for everyone, and G! has been among those leading the charge for a more pluralistic and inclusive scene that people can be proud of.

“A lot of young Faroese people would go to Denmark to study and then stay there,” Eysturstein explains. “Now they have a reason to move back.” Musician Høgni Lisberg, who recently stepped up to head the booking arm of G!, agrees. “I don’t feel so much oppression in this country as when I was a kid,” he says. “We still have that old soul, but the general feel here is ‘everything is possible.’ People are more open for weirdness now.”

Like many of its Nordic neighbours, the Faroe Islands is a culture that has traditionally frowned upon having a sense of self-importance. The old norms have begun to fade in recent years, but, as Lisberg explains, the idea of keeping one’s humility and treating everyone equally, whether they are high or low, remains anchored in the Faroese people. “It's a great thing that we have this sense of equality, in my opinion, no matter what your bank account looks like,” he tells me, “but it does take some courage to break out of this cage of humility, if you wish to be a weird outsider all year around, or to do something extraordinary.” Still, as trailblazing artists like Eivør and queer feminist punk band Joe & the Shitboys have proved, those who do break through and succeed on their own terms are often the ones who feed back into the culture in the most significant ways. “We have seen over time that people will respect and love you for being brave, for leading the way on some new path,” he adds.

Situated in Gøtuvík bay on the island of Eysturoy, roughly 17 miles northeast of Tórshavn, Gøta is a small village with an outsized reputation. Flanked by almost cartoonishly pointy mountains, it’s where Faroese folk hero Tróndur í Gøtu took a stand against a rival who was trying to introduce Christianity to the archipelago. Although the religion did eventually take hold – today, around 75% of the population are members of the national Lutheran church – Tróndur í Gøtu became a symbol of resistance, immortalised in poetry, on a stamp, and even adopted as an Icelandic idiom loosely meaning to be someone’s pain in the ass. Speaking to festival director Sigvør Laksá, who was born and raised in Gøta, it’s immediately apparent that G! shares this rebel spirit wholeheartedly. Though the festival does have some commercial sponsorship from a handful of Faroese companies, any marketing is kept very low-key and refreshingly unobtrusive. Only a few teenagers working for an insurance company and dressed up as fairies are visible reminders that nothing as magical as G! can happen in a vacuum.

‘Magical’ is a word I suspect I use far too much during my days here, though, in my defence, it is a pretty apt way to describe much of what you see up here. The way the ghostly ocean fog clings to the sloping green mountains is magical, as are the gobsmacking panoramas of the Faroes' highest road, through the Eiðisskarð mountain pass. To the north there are magical, monolithic sea stacks that look like two distorted figures. Magical, too, is the sight of puffins in flight off the dramatic basalt cliffs neighbouring the village of Gjógv, where you can walk into a gorge that, on a foggy day, looks like a gateway to the end of the Earth. Then there's the double waterfall at Fossá, a cascade so tall and powerful that it impresses even when viewed from across the Sundini strait, and not forgetting the world’s first undersea roundabout – with its own soundtrack! I really could go on, but this is a festival review not a guidebook, so I’ll let you discover the rest for yourselves.

At the festival site in Gøta, most of the action hugs the golden, sandy beach, where the main stage lies together with a cluster of hot tubs and sauna tents that seem to almost never be empty in the whole time I am there – even during the downpours, of which there are many. The rest of the action takes place at a handful of venues dotted around the esplanade above: at Spæliplássið (‘the playground’), Fjøsið (‘the barn’) and at new venue Rönn, which hosts the festival's programme of literary events and panel discussions. I sadly missed the talk on the legacy of ‘the Faroese invasion’ of Iceland’, an influential period in the early 2000s when Faroese musicians like Eivør and her old band Clickhaze (who also counted Høgni Lisberg and G! co-founder Jón Tyril as members) became huge stars across the water, but I’d happily read a book about it.

The village’s main venue outside of festival time is found slightly up the hillside, at Tøting, a former knitwear factory that, during G!, acts as a base camp for the organisers and international delegates. It’s here that we catch a glimpse of some off-programme moments: a short recital by women’s choir Silvitni and unplanned showcases from a group of Faroese rising stars singing and playing for no-one but themselves. As any Islander will tell you, singing is the most integral form of music to Faroese culture, largely because – as a timeline on the wall of the TUTL record shop in Tórshavn explains – no musical instruments of significance reached the archipelago until the mid-19th century. It’s easy to forget that, until quite recently, the Faroes remained an extremely isolated place; the first commercial flights were in 1963, and journeys didn't run regularly until the late ‘80s when Faroese flag carrier Atlantic Airways was founded.

Because of this isolation, and the dominance of the Danish, for centuries it was through hymns and traditional ballads called kvæði that the Faroese people kept their stories and language. Today, many of these ballads live on through the chain dance tradition and its various offshoots. As Gunn Hernes, director of The Nordic House in Tórshavn, explains, this pre-Christian form of storytelling is becoming more and more popular among Faroese youth, perhaps in tandem with the renewed sense of belonging described by Sunneva Eysturstein. If this all sounds a little abstract, let me tell you that cramming into the barn at G!, locking arms with shiny-eyed strangers, and chanting as the bodies of hundreds of people snake past in formation is a very corporeal experience. For the proud young people in national dress who lead the singing, we outsiders who don’t know the words and fail to keep up with even the simplest dance steps must be quite annoying, but I feel welcomed all the same.

Of the 40+ acts playing at the festival, more than half are Faroese or have a Faroese connection. The most famous, certainly in Gøta and possibly the world, is of course Eivør, the Islands’ platinum blonde, elemental art-rock pioneer. There have been few G! Festivals over the years where Eivør hasn’t played, and her lack of main character syndrome is honestly refreshing; she doesn’t demand a headlining slot, though for many she’s still the biggest draw. This year she’s playing not just because she can, but because she has something new to share in the form of songs from her recently released eleventh studio album, Enn. Sung entirely in Faroese (the title is a word meaning ‘still’), with lyrics co-written with celebrated poet Marjun Syderbø Kjelnæs, it’s a concept album of sorts, exploring the destructive relationship between humanity and nature, sometimes leaning into the drama of a symphonic space opera and, at other times, going deep within the Earth to hear its pain.

Her performance is, as expected, flat out spellbinding. Wearing a flowing black cape with a black leather breastplate and scraped back hair, Eivør looks the part of an archetypal warrior queen, but there’s a softer edge to much of her set than that image would imply. Switching between rhythmic guitar and a large, handheld frame drum, she plays several of her new songs – the darkly ambient incantation “Jarðartrá” (Dust to Dust), synth-pop banger “Hugsi Bert Um Teg” (Still Just You), and the metal-hearted “Upp Úr Øskuni” (Rise from the Ashes) – along with crowd favourites from her work on the soundtrack to British TV show The Last Kingdom (“Lívstræðrir”, “Hymn 49”) and staples like the now 20-year-old “Trøllabundin”, perhaps her best-loved song. A seemingly rare outing for one of her most romantic songs in the encore comes as a surprise to most, but apparently not to the man who requested it and knelt down in the sand to propose to his girlfriend. She said yes!

There’s an electricity in the air over at the barn too, where Ragnar Finsson's performance probably triggers at least a dozen new crushes. Previously known as the artist Horrse and as one half of folk duo Raske Drenge, the 28-year-old packs out the room with a charismatic show of winningly quirky pop songs that’s a far cry from the rootsier vibe of his 2017 debut album. Delivered with a wink and knowing smile, it’s not hard to see why Finsson’s new direction saw him secure a place at this year’s G!. Accompanied by his girlfriend, Faroese–American artist Marianna Winter, on keys and vocals, he transforms older material like “You’re a Ghost” from slow-burning alt. folk into an amped-up guitar-pop singalong, while new song “POV NPC” could send TikTok into meltdown given half the chance.

Finsson later joins fellow singer/songwriter Dania O. Tausen on stage at the playground, performing songs from her two albums, including the 2024 Faroese Music Award (FMA)-winning ja​/​nei – og restin av vikuni (yes/no – and the rest of the week), on which he co-wrote six tracks. Tausen is a creative writing graduate, author and poet with playful song titles like “tú pj​ø​vist ikki at leggja alt tú hugsar á facebook” (You don’t have to put everything you think on Facebook) and “kann eg hava armin solei​ð​is her?” (Can I have my arm like this here?), and isn’t likely to be found writing in English any time soon. As such, it's hard to parse her songs beyond her pretty voice and patchwork indie-pop arrangements, but they’ve clearly hit a nerve with the Faroese youth, who turn out in droves to watch her despite the bucketing rain.

Tausen is also a member of experimental rap-punk trio Aggrasoppar, who took this year’s Great Escape Festival in Brighton by storm, winning a public vote that saw them awarded a bursary of £5,000 off the back of two explosive performances. At G! they expand into a wildly uncompromising seven-piece band, using every inch of floor space on the playground stage to express the blistering energy and passion of their self-described flower-punk axe-killer pop. It’s the third show in as many days for Aggrasoppar member Trygvi Danielsen, whose second album as Silvurdrongur (Silver Boy) was released the night before. The barn was too full to see him in action – and not just because word got out that Eivør would join him on stage – but it sounded gloriously unhinged from the outside.

Another homegrown Gøta artist already making waves internationally is Elinborg Pálsdóttir, younger sister of Eivør. She made her first appearance at G! in 2015, to mark the release of her debut EP, Spor, and has played several times since, as well as at The Great Escape and Iceland Airwaves. With a full-length album planned for next year, it feels like she's at a threshold, poised to take her emotionally loaded electro-pop to the next level. Playing in the barn, dressed all in black, she’s aided by the impressive Jan Rúna Poulsen on live and electronic percussion and Heðin Ziska Davidsen on bass and synths, the three of them creating an atmosphere so magnetically noirish that it would have felt wrong to have witnessed it outside. A laser show heightens the sense of drama during the stark and lovelorn “Sjórok” (sea spray) from her 2022 EP, Vera, cutting through the stale, cow dung-scented air with electric blue tension as Elinborg's mother and sister watch proudly on.

Star quality is abundant among the Faroese class of ’24. Even though Jasmine Mote, who once fronted the band JASMIN and now performs solo as jazzygold, isn’t on the official programme this year, having made her G! debut in 2023, her surprise pop-up performance at the TUTL record shop in Tórshavn over the weekend is a knockout. She has an outstanding voice, well suited to stand out from the crowded R&B / soul-pop field, and there’s a brassiness and honesty to her words that’s instantly appealing. Best of all is the as-yet-unreleased “Home Run”, a touching personal anthem drawing on the challenges she faced growing up as a woman of colour in the Faroes. Definitely one to watch.

We’re also treated to a riotous performance from the Iggy Pop-approved Joe & the Shitboys, on board the Faroese wooden ship Norðlýsið (Nordic Lights) as it sails out into Gøtuvík bay. Singer Fríði Djurhuus (aka ‘Joe’) may have less space to maneuver than usual but that doesn’t stop him from getting right up in people’s faces, swinging off the sail ropes and stalking the deck. Short, sharp shocks are the order of the day, with recent singles “MR. NOBODY” and “PLEASE SEEK HELP” acting as wake-up calls, albeit from opposite poles of intention, while unruly crowd favourite “Life is Great You Suck” still sounds as fresh as it did in the dark days of 2020. There was apparently some talk of jumping Joe-verboard at the end, but I’m glad it didn’t happen. Is hypothermia by proxy a thing? Brr.

There’s no chance of getting a chill for those watching Teitur Lassen perform the entirety of his 2003 debut album Poetry & Aeroplanes, iconic among the local music scene for being the first album by a Faroese artist to be released by an American major label. His hair might be greying now, but Lassen’s voice is still a fine and heartwarming thing. By contrast, there’s not much warmth to be found in the music of Faroese doom metal band and G! Festival regulars Hamferð, who are touring behind their first album in 6 years. Men Guðs Hond er Sterk (But God’s Hand is Strong) is an epic concept piece inspired by a tragic accident from over a century ago, involving two whaling ships that capsized off the coast of Sandvik on the southernmost Faroe Island, Suðuroy. Vocalist Jón Aldará is an absolute force, switching from goose-pimpling growl to searingly clean singing in an instant, while the band rise up to the occasion, as treacherous and stormy as the origin story implies.

The international card at this year’s G! is mostly filled out by acts from other Nordic countries, with notable exceptions being Malian bluesman Samba Touré and the wonderful Personal Trainer from Rotterdam, who attack their 45-minute set at the playground stage with dizzying fervour and skill. From Norway, there’s industrial-pop band Das Body, whose second album True Vulture was released earlier this year, ambient electronica duo Aiming for Enrike, rising rap star Ash Olsen, promising R&B artist Nelly Moar, and two-time Norwegian Grammy winners Highasakite, who put on a dazzling pyrotechnic display of flamethrowers and fireworks for their headlining set on the Friday night.

A dozen years on from their debut, Ingrid Håvik’s voice is as potent as it ever was, lending a sense of desperation to the heart-needling classic “God Don’t Leave Me” and weight to the clubland-leaning “Autopsy” (from their most recent album Mother), a track with a six-minute instrumental section that makes much more sense in the live setting. As the band plays, video screens show an animated dove that grows more and more incandescent until it ultimately bursts into flames. It’s an emotionally highwire set, following the passing of their longtime lighting tech the day before, and Håvik often runs off stage between songs. But, even going by spectacle alone, their performance is a triumph and a tribute all in one.

Denmark is well represented at this year’s G!, with rap group Specktors on the main stage, independent Afrobeat artist JJ Paulo at the playground, and ambient artist Songs From Tin Pan Alley, who seems to have a blast running an interactive workshop in the barn with modular synths and tape loops, and later playing live on the beach. From Greenland, there’s death metal quartet Sound of the Damned, tear up the playground stage to huge applause. From Iceland, we get a rare live appearance from Nanna Bryndís Hilmarsdóttir’s still-nimble crew Of Monsters & Men, who headline the closing night at the beach, and the brilliantly abrasive next-gen punks GRÓA, who put the play into the playground as one member strips down to her homemade underwear and sprints over to the climbing frame and zipline, causing momentary mayhem.

From Sweden, it’s only queen of quiet Alice Boman this year – except she’s not that quiet after all. With expert backing from fellow Malmö-based musicians Hey Elbow, songs like “Don’t Forget About Me” and “Over” have a punchiness that brings them into sharper relief. Simon Raymonde of Bella Union Records proclaimed it one of the best sets of the festival, and the Pálsdóttir sisters seem to agree. “I’ve been a huge fan of Alice since the beginning, she’s wonderful,” Eivør tells me afterwards, as we wait out the rain at Tøting. It’s her 41st birthday a few hours later, where we gather at the playground to cheer and sing for her just as Omar Souleyman takes to the stage for the last show I’ll see at this year’s G!. It’s certainly unique, as the Syrian techno dabke artist doesn’t do a great deal to command the crowd. As others before me have said, he moves like a politician and expresses almost no visible emotion, and yet he still connects – he still brings the party – and the effect is strangely hypnotic. I’ll be humming “Warni Warni” for weeks.

Like all the best festivals, G! whizzes by way too fast and there’s never enough time to do everything you want. It’s a mammoth achievement that Sigvør Laksá and her team can fill these three short days with so much to do, year in, year out. The logistics can’t be easy, but the rebel spirit wins through. G! has been proclaimed as “probably the wildest event on the festival calendar,” and that might well be true, but it’s definitely the one with the biggest heart. I spoke to many artists over these past few days in Gøta, and not one could think of any other festival that even comes close.

“G! is all about the music,” says Eivør, and I don’t even need to ask to know she means it synonymously with community. That’s just a given in Gøta. There may be little room for ego here, but there’s so much to be proud of all the same. So, if you’ve read this far and are still wondering if this trip is for you, all I can say is do whatever it takes. Invite your crush. Invite your best friend’s other best friend. Invite your parents if you must. Just don’t take maybe for an answer.