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 meowing in Icelandic. I think he has a scam of wheedling treats from the patrons as they leave the coffeehouse. I went back to the apartment and had lunch. I was 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 scenes from tonight:

Here are the acts I saw:

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

Lúpína — Arty chanting(?) a 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 (Sam Beste)—Multi-keyboardist extraordinaire, he backed Amy Winehouse for years, at Iðno:

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

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