Airwaves Portraits — I

GDRN:

Elin:

Hania:

Katrín:

Lúpína:

Salka and Hekla:

Iceland Airwaves 2025 — Index

Tourists waiting to board the Flybus, BSÍ station, Reykjavík

The last day of a vacation involving flights can be chaotic. This time I’m early and the airport is nearly deserted, eerily quiet. They have a Pylsur stand in the airport now, I just had to get “eitt med öllu” before I left:

Due to image posting limitations, sometimes posts will not show up in the month index. Here is an index of all the 2025 Iceland posts, Airwaves and otherwise:

Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six
Day Seven
Day Eight
Day Nine
Day Ten
Portraits I
Portraits II

Iceland 2025 — Day Ten

A daytime moon was shining over Vesturbæjarlaug this morning.

Notice the woman/fish statue to the left of the doors.

Had some lively conversations in the pool’s biggest hotpot with some fellow Iceland Airwaves attendees: Troy from Texas who had known Tina and Barry (see yesterday’s post) for years. A German and a Finnish woman were very sociable as well. After a while Troy left (to do laps) and the talk turned from music to horses, so I made my exit as well. After an afternoon nap I attended another play in Tjarnarbíó (in English this time) Dead Air by Álfrún Rose:

Since Alfie’s dad died, he’s visited everyone’s dreams but hers. Rude. Desperate to talk to him, she uses AiR, an AI chatbot for the dead. A heartfelt, funny, and glitchy deep dive into grief, ghosts, and digital obsession.~ from the Airwaves guide

A good premise, somewhat defeated by an unintelligible voice-shifting device that Álfrún used when she was ‘streaming’ her dead father. The hour+ performance became a litany of dysfunctional family tropes, even more disturbing because I suspect they were all true. Because the show started late and ran over, I missed getting in to see Pussy Riot at Smekkleysa.

No worries, more music tonight!


Ms Obama — Heavy bass and dub step, my standing next to the sub woofers in Iðno to get a shot might have affected the sharpness of the pictures!

Hania Derej — A young pianist/composer from Poland:

She was completely enveloped in her music, scarcely raising her head from the keys. After her fantastic performance she was overcome with emotion from the enthusiastic response of the Fríkirkjan crowd.

I spotted fellow concert-goers Troy, Tina and Barry across the venue. They are true kindred spirits, we sat together for the next act, JFDR:

JFDR

Of all the Icelandic performers I’ve followed over the years, Jofriður Ákadóttir is, simply, my favorite. From a plucky schoolgirl to a mature performer, following her development in music and lyrics has been an education for me in genres I probably would have never explored.

Dozens of FITK posts have been written over the years about her (and her twin sister Ásthildur), Pascal Pinon, Samaris, Gangly, and, of course, JFDR. She had a new ‘band’ tonight composed of friends and previous collaborators as well as her husband Josh.

They performed some new songs, one of which had intricate harmonies and was simply breath-taking. The packed church was spellbound. Jofriður also did My Work, Spectator and The Orchid, each with a new arrangement. She was in a great mood and this was a perfect setting for her performing style:

The group received a well-deserved ovation, one of the most memorable of the 100s of Iceland Airwaves shows I’ve seen over the last 20 years:

I would have gone out again to see some more acts but they would have been letdowns after this.

My 2025 Iceland Airwaves is over.

More Icelandic trip coverage will be posted in the coming weeks after I’ve returned home.

Iceland 2025 — Day Nine

After the pool today I took another afternoon nap, I am starting to feel my age.

Afterwards I did some random off-venue hopping seeing chantuse Frið at Smekkleysa:

Mukka (A Rock Band!) at Hresso, and rockers Markús & The Diversion Sessions at 12 Tónar:

The first Iceland Airwaves act I saw tonight (at Fríkirkjan) was Sean Solomon from California. Sean is sort of a retro-techno geek, accompanying himself on guitar and VHS tape player (“If I make a mistake I’ll have to rewind”) with his clever animations and glitchy videos. Sean is also a cartoonist of some note. Hard to explain his act but it was really quite touching at times:

Between sets I met Tina and Barry, a couple from Yorkshire, who have been in the background of numerous photos I’ve taken at Airwaves in years past. We had a nice talk comparing notes on past shows.

Here they are, sitting behind The President of Iceland and the director of Iceland Airwaves: 

Next was Iðunn Einars, a singer/songwriter, with a three-piece band. She was great singer, even getting down with a little boog-a-loo:

And then: Magnús Jóhann.

Great keyboardist and composer. I saw him at Lucky Records in 2023 and was blown away. If switching between piano and synths wasn’t enough he played a FREAKIN’ ONDES MARTENOT!

After the overwhelming experience of Magnús I went on a tour of short stops at various venues:

Outdoor Disco, The American Bar, last night:

Nabeel, Iraqi/American Grunge at Iðno:

Atli, a laid back troubador at Bird:

ian, Dallas-basedrapper with great rapport with his fan base. In The Art Museum:

Jana, gave it a game effort, but the noisy and overcrowded Gaukurinn was not her ideal venue:

Babymorroco, auto-tune raps and gymnastics at the Kolaport venue:

Flesh Machine, hard grooves at Bird:

The final show I saw tonight was in Iðno: Mermaid Chunky. A techno/acoustic duo, these women are from another planet, or maybe Gloucestershire. Intense, funny, original and mesmerizing:

A great way to end the night.

Iceland 2025 — Day Eight

Ate breakfast with the faint sounds of a sound check coming from Firíkirkjan, one of the main venues for Iceland Airwaves. The church is only 100 feet away from where I’m staying so it really wasn’t that loud.

When I was at the pool when one of a group of six ‘mature’ women smiled at me when she saw me entering the hot pot: “We were just talking about you—you are the one who goes to see plays in Icelandic when you can’t speak the language!” Talk about being felt welcome! We talked a bit about Icelandic drama and culture, including Halldór Laxness, of course. One of the women was close friends with Halldór’s daughter Guðny who has an AirBnb near Gljúfrasteinn, Laxness’s estate. Later, I sat with a gang of six Danish festival-goers (you can tell by the wristbands) and we compared notes. They come almost every year for the last 12 or so years. We were going to see some of the same acts tonight. On the way back from the pool, outside of the coffee house, I made a new friend—Leo:

He was very talkative, although his vocabulary was limited to Icelandic meowing. I think he has a scam of wheedling treats from the patrons as they leave. I went back to the apartment and had lunch. I’m ready for another day and night of music.

On the advice of one of my water-sharers at the pool I learned of a Symposium on Halldór Laxness on the 70th anniversary of his winning The Nobel Prize. An interesting mix of people attended:

It was hosted by Halldór Halldórsson, Laxness’ grandson:

More on that on another day.

Now that the Iceland Airwaves festival has started in earnest there is a lot of phone checking of the schedules. I just use an old-fashioned notebook and pen, having the whole schedule on a device is just overwhelming:

A few crowd scenes from tonight:

Here are the acts I saw:

Geðbrigði — teen-aged feminist punk rockers ripped it up at Gaukurinn. Lots of rage, lots of heart and even some punk trombone:

Lupina — Arty dub step(?) very stylized show at The Art Museum, the sleek music matched her “look” perfectly:

Rakel — Mellow pop-folk, she is being promoted as the next big thing, winning awards and prizes (with monetary value!) I’m not knocking her, but I didn’t sense any greatness; the band was very bland:

Sigrún — Bird. Eerie wailing, verry, verry good at what she does:

Cyber — at The Art Museum. EDM sex-positive gyrations with twisted pop lyrics, gauzy lighting, the crowd loved it:

Ólóf Arnalds — Folk troubadour, Fríkirkjan. I saw her in 2006 in Iðno and 2011 in Seattle, she has maintained her musical chops:

The Vernon Spring—Multi-keyboardist extraordinaire, with Palestinian roots, at Iðno:

GDRN — Fabulous singer, she sang yesterday morning at Grund. Tonight she was in her more usually mode, even getting funky at times:

It’s midnight, that’s all for Thursday.

Iceland 2025 — Day Seven

Morning at Grund

Airwaves started with a mid-morning concert at the senior residence Grund. The President of Iceland, Halla Tómasdóttir, spoke, first addressing the children in the crowd and then the seniors and festival goers.

When Halla finished the first performer was GDRN, a brilliant singer/songwriter who had the audience mesmerized with her traditional songs in Icelandic:

The elderly gentleman on the far left was no doubt once a pianist, he played “air piano” along with the band:

Bríet played some pleasant folk-pop songs in a verrry furry suit:

Then I was off to the pool again where I talked with several other festival-goers and a violinist about the festival, its performers and the politics of Icelandic musical acts getting into the festival.

In the afternoon I saw Anderverel at Lucky Records. He is an ex-pat from Mexico, and has lived in Iceland for eight years. His songs were filled with a sense of melancholy and longing, his drummer gave a lesson in precise underplaying:

I then heard the quirky keyboard/drum duo Mag og Tómas at Reykjavík Records. Notice the music box piano in the foreground and the red rubber chicken to the left of the keyboard, both were used in the performances:

After taking a close-up of Mag's ring I caught a bit of Elin Hall warming up at 12 Tónar:

At Space Odyssey, the French singer Roukie was barely visible playing with Ulfúr, who was invisible in the low-ceiling room:

Smekklysa had the trippy K.Óla, a bass/keyboard singing/performance duo, they performed Art-songs about longing abetted by some clever choreography. Original and very sweet:

After dinner, I went out to catch some theatre again, this time to Tjarnarbíó. In the lobby a man greeted me thinking I was someone he knew from 30 years ago. I hated to disappoint him, he seemed like a nice guy. The lobby there is very nice, almost homey:

The play was the stylized comedy 40.000 Fet, it was about two female flight attendants and their flight crew. It was quite bawdy at times, with a more serious ending addressing mortality. A nice twist was that when you entered the theatre space the actors portraying the flight attendants greeted you in character, as if you were the passengers:

One more show tonight, this time at Iðno. It was an Airwaves warm-up show featuring acts from Marvaða, a female-oriented record label. Mr. Silla,  and Salka Valsdóttir, both fine singers, performed:

Then, to my delight, I spotted Hekla Magnusdóttir, virtuosa thereminist hiding in Salka’s band. She played an achingly beautiful solo that stunned the crowd:

A pretty good day overall, all the musical acts were rewarding, with GDRN delivering the most professional and touching performance. And Hekla was the icing on the cake.