ByGD
Angist
Iceland Airwaves is rightly known as one of the premier indie music festivals in Europe (the world?). So I’m not sure how I managed to spend two days at such a kick-ass metal festival. But I did. Thursday and Friday of my festival consisted mostly of metal bands, with some very notable exceptions. Read More
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Planning emergency repairs
On Friday of Airwaves, I spent some time writing in the morning, where I overheard others in the hostel reworking their plans because all of the tourist excursions had been cancelled due to heavy winds. I ventured out to the media center and find out whether the press tour to Sigur Rós’ recording studio and Halldor Laxness’ house had also been cancelled. The walk that took ten minutes when I picked up my wristband earlier in the week took nearly half an hour this morning. This was partly due to struggling against the wind, and partly due to blocks of Laugavegur being closed while emergency crews cleaned up damage from the pieces of metal roofing and siding that had blown off buildings along the high street. Read More
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Waves crashing over the sea wall onto the waterfront path.
The wind, oh the wind wind wind wind wind wind. Oh the roaring and boring of the wind deep in to my bones in to my soul. Oh the wind wind wind wind wind wind.
Edgar Allan Poe should have written about wind instead of bells. Actually, now that I think about it, it’s really strange that he didn’t. Maybe he did and I just can’t think of it because I haven’t slept in days. Whatever historical fact may be, it is certain that if Poe had lived in Reykjavík, he would have written about wind. Read More
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Image of Harpa from Wikipedia
After listening to far too many wonderful sets while staring at walls or other people’s backs, I determined to stake out a venue for the evening. I chose Harpa, the exquisite glass sculpture of a building on the waterfront that houses at least three different performance spaces, and hosted the greatest number of acts I wanted to catch on Thursday night.
And besides, it was physically difficult to walk outside in winds so fierce that (foreign) people were starting to whisper the word “hurricane” doubtfully to each other.
The view from KEX along the waterfront. Harpa is the black building.
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Eldar
I started out with a list of back to back shows scattered throughout the festival, only to discover that venue-hopping has its drawbacks. The wind was picking up, which made the walks very cold, and gusts were strong enough to slow my progress. Despite careful triangulation, making it to every scattered show I wanted to see on Thursday wasn’t, um, possible. Read More