Live from Reykjavik – Iceland Airwaves at Home

My first trip to Iceland was for the Iceland Airwaves Festival in 2012. It was a lifechanging experience for me for many reasons. It also seemed like a pretty kid-friendly festival, so I came home fully intending to come back another year with my family. And although I’ve made it back to Iceland many times, once with kids in tow, I’ve never managed to catch another Airwaves. During the pandemic lockdown, I realized that my oldest only has one more year of high school, which seems like a deadline for all sorts of family things. I swore to myself that the next time it’s safe to go to Airwaves, I’m taking the whole family no matter what else may be going on. A few days later I saw that Airwaves had gone online with a two-day virtual Live from Reykjavik mini-festival.

Live from Reykjavik

Here’s how it worked. The performances were recorded live in an assortment of empty Airwaves venues. Tickets were time zone specific, so wherever you lived, the shows started at 7:30 on Friday night. Which meant you weren’t actually watching a live stream. But it did allow for some video editing, that maybe made up for Live From Reykjavik not really being live. On the other hand, if it’s not a livestream, I would rather have the freedom to watch it at my own convenience during a window of availability. As it was, I had to skip other things I had planned to watch it at the broadcast time, and there’s no going back to see favorite parts again. I guess that replicates the live experience in a way, but it’s not the good part of live shows.

Day One

Hjaltalin has been around forever, but this was my first chance to see them. Thanks to Cell7, my kids were thrilled to discover that Iceland has people of color and rap music. Mugison was another familiar name that I hadn’t really heard play before, and I loved their traveling set that moved from a church to a theater, with music all along the way (the kids were delighted to see a push broom used as a musical instrument). It was one of those things that works better on film than real life, although I could imagine a very small show dragging audience members down the street.

Bríet was entirely new to me (I still can’t find her music anywhere online). Her folky melodies accompanied by pedal steel guitar and dobro are solidly in my wheelhouse. Emiliana Torrini & Friends surprised me. Somewhere along the line, I had associated her name with boring techno music. But she actually plays the folky indie music Iceland is known for that I love. So I’m glad that misunderstanding got cleared up. My first experience with Kælan Mikla was at Eistnaflug in 2014. They were a pretty raw punk band back then. But they’ve grown into a gothy synth-centered creature that I really enjoy. Asgeir’s newer music isn’t the revelation his first album was, but my affection for those old songs still runs strong. Mammút is a favorite band I’ve written about a lot before. Same goes for Ólafur Arnalds. I’d kind of lost track of him during the Kiasmos era, and it was great to hear his classical stuff again.

Day Two

The second day started with “Off-venue Highlights.” It was a cute reference to the off-venue scene that thrives during the festival, often exceeding the official shows in both number and quality. And I was not previously familiar with any of the these bands who each played a single song.

Vök, on the other hand, is one of my favorite pop bands. Curiously, despite Júníus Meyvant being a KEXP favorite, I had never heard any of the songs in his set. Auđur was not what I expected but counts among the music discovery successes of the festival. Hatari sparked a lot of discussion. Mainly the adults wondered what’s shocking about a band that sounds just like any of a handful of industrial electronic bands we listened to more than 20 years ago and my teenager being shocked and offended by their abrasiveness.

I confess to being prejudiced against Dađi Freyr because Eurovision is trash (don’t @ me). But their set was actually a ton of self-aware fun and now I’m a convert. GDRN was another name I’d heard but never listened to, and despite similar nomenclature, doesn’t actually sound like JFDR at all.

And of course, Of Monsters and Men. I saw them the first time in a club in Seattle a week before My Head is an Animal was officially released. I was only a few feet from the stage when we sang “Happy Birthday” to one of the band members who had just turned 19. The second time they headlined one night of Airwaves, playing a huge room so packed I barely got in and couldn’t even see the stage once I did. I’ve listened to all their albums since, but never got another chance to see them play. They’re all grown up now.

Different But the Same

One thing I noticed was that many of the bands seemed to be performing somewhat subdued versions of their songs. Everything seemed to be just a bit softer and slower than I remembered. Was it just an effect of filtering through technology? Or has the pandemic got everyone craving comfort over intensity?

Another thing that was kind of weird was the set times. Maybe it was meant to replicate the experience of wandering into a venue and just catching part of an unfamiliar artist’s set. But some artists played for nearly an hour. Others only got a couple of songs, and I didn’t really like it. My kids were really enjoying Cell7, and lost some of their enthusiasm for the festival when she was only on screen for about 10 minutes. Similarly, Mammút is one of my favorite bands. They even have a new album out on Bandcamp to promote. But they only played a couple songs.

It was fun seeing performers in a variety of venues, both familiar and unfamiliar. And of course, the music itself is the main draw. I got to see some of my favorite Icelandic performers like OMAM, Mammút, Vök, and Ólafur Arnalds. I got to check out bands I’ve heard of but never listened to, like Mugison and Emiliana Torrini. And I discovered new music I’d never heard of before like Bríet and Auđur. So it was almost like the full Iceland Airwaves experience.

Except I didn’t freeze my ass off walking between venues. Or get to eat skyr at KEX for breakfast. Or agonize over the Tetris of my show schedule or strike up conversations with strangers about music, art and life. In a way, my kids finally got to see Airwaves in 2020. But it made me even more determined to be there in person next time.