Iceland

Reference:

Airwaves

Auroras

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Borgarleikhúsið

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Þjóðleikhúsið

Selected Flippist impressions of Iceland:

2025

Iceland Airwaves 2025
A Parish Chronicle
Verðbólga
Sódóma Reykjavík
Reykjavík Abstracts
#61
I Want To…
Red Dog Farm
Öx Redux
Echoes
Nine Muses

2024

Touch
Trilogy
Hívtur Dagur
Hótel Borg
Reykjavík University
Tombstone for a Child
Drekinn
Symmetry
Reykjavíkur
Your Absence is Darkness
Song in Blue
Cold Fear
Öx

2023

Fyrir ást á pylsum
Iceland Airwaves 2023 Index
Eleven Years Ago Today
Dreaming of Airwaves III
Blackout
The Dancer
Terra Incognita
Dance Party
Touched
Back to School
Be the Wolf
Granny Pants

2022

Search for a Dancer (2022 trip memoir)
Hekla
The Calm Before the Storm
Between Mountains
Hotel Borg
Hjartagarður
Hallgrímur and Silja
First Lady
Fríkirkjan
Listasafn Reykjavíkur
Faktorý
Sunrise Session II

2021

Harpa
Awesome Auðurs
Hand Knits and Wool
Kjötborg
Harbour Views
School of Housewives
IWR
Husavík
Peculiar Postcards
Sunrise Session
Jósa and Lotta

2020

Marta’s Dance
Jófrður’s Chicken
More Iceland in Autumn
The Dogs of Iceland
Poppy’s Return
She Made a Difference
Miss Iceland
New Dreams
Ghost Town
Hard Times in Ultima Thule
Reykjavík Calling
Virtual JFDR

2019

The Sacrament
Iceland Airwaves… Not!
Iceland Airwaves Begins!
Iceland Airwaves 2019
The Island
Alda’s Iceland Update
Faces in the Crowd
We Are Proud Autistic Women
Living the Dream
Valkyrie
Ófærð
Duos

2018

Pied-á-terre
Hot Dog Stand
Airwaves
Hitman’s Guide to Housekeeping
Páll Óskar
Iceland Airwaves Countdown #2
Iceland Airwaves Countdown #1
101
Snow Day
The Legacy
The Sun’s Gone Dim…
Woman at 1000°

2017

Things are Going Great
Either Way
Bokeh
Imagine…
Snowblind
The Undesired
Tour Guide
Pascal Pinon With Strings
Shadow District
Gnarr
Art Vs. Nature
Icelandic Invasion at ASI

2016

Jófríður Ákadóttir
Ekki vanmeta
Bolstaðarhlið 8
Dreamscapes
Sundur and the Circle
Reykjanesfolkvangur
Signs of the Times
Iðno at Night
Strangers in the Night
Table for One
Morning Commute
Tough Choices
All those moments…

2015

The Situation Girls
Ufuoma and Vigtyr and Me
The Batty has Landed
Vesturbæjarlaug
Heimkoman
Imagine…
Rúntur
Cats of Reykjavík
Fimm Konur
Shitstorm in Iceland
Thinking About Iceland
Vonarstræti
portal 2 xtacy
Alda Among the Hidden People
Reading Between the Lines

2014

Advent Calendars
Sugar Mountain
Dramatic Reykjavík
The Pets
Hallgrímur's Magnificent 7%
Unraveled
The Most Dangerous Woman in Icelandic Music?
The Whispering Muse
Alda on Performing Arts
Reykjavík by Bicycle
Doing the Math
Imagine 2014


2013

88
Samaris—Promise and Problems
Reykjavík By Night
The Stones Speak
Soléy at Faktorý
Iceland for Night-Owls
May Media Madness
Quiet Revolution
Two Women in the Dark
Do Not Underestimate
Patio Conversation


2012

Samaris
Ghost Suburb
No Photos Please!
Iceland Airwaves - 2012
The Future of Hope
From the Mouth of the Whale
The Blue Fox
Aldrei fór ég Suður
A History of Iceland

2011

Reverse Viking
Devil's Island
Full Circle
Convergence- Jar City, Geonomics, Under the Glacier
My Soul to Take
Under the Glacier
Mama Gógó
A History of Icelandic Literature
Interview
Eva and the Devil's Servant
Biophilia
Pascal Pinon on Parade!
Nordic Fashion Bash
Webcam Winter Wonderland

2010

Girl Group
The Icelandic Issue
Honour of the House
McSweeney's
Skólavörðustígur
Nordic House
Fríkirkjan
Pictures from the Past I
Pictures from the Past II
Siggi Ármann
Fan Letter
Cosmic Call


2009

Airwaves
Mals og Menningar
The Corner Kitchen
Frida in Iceland
Guð Blessi Ísland
Batty's Saga - I
Batty's Saga - II
Batty's Saga - III
Batty's Saga - IV
Iceland at the Crossroads
The Sea


2008

Jacobinarina
Búðir
Finding the Keys
Midnight Serenade
Windows of Brimness
Dreaming of Iceland
What You Can Do
Early Laxness
Icelandic Cinema
Parenthetical Sigur Rós
Sigur Rós and Heima


2007

Alex on Icelandic Music
Voices
Tickle Me Emo
Collectively Speaking
Halldór Laxness Top Ten
Björk's Top Ten
Volta
Jóhann Jóhannsson
Breakfast
Burning Down the House
Amiina in concert
Glacier


2006

A Most Charming Witch
A Piece of Iceland
High drama with Auður and Ibsen
An Evening in Sirkus
Water
Kaffi with Kristín
Brekkukotsannáll
Spying on the Russians
Midnight in Reykjavík
Another Night Scene
Drawing Restraint 9
Unravel
Hyperballad


2005

Dís and Cold Light
The First Time
Brave Little Yaris
The Parade
Dreamscape
...“It's not up to you… ”
Sigur Rós and Amiina in concert
Interview


2004

Three Women at Nauthólsvík
Kolaportið
Þjóðleikhúsið
Snow White
Nauthól Revisited
Adventures in Auto Rentals
The Flight Home
Swim Date
On Bolstaðarhlið
Má Mí Mó
Encounter with the Merchant Prince

Iceland Airwaves Update - Day Three

The day dawned bright and sunny again; positively balmy today... Simply can not get over how fortunate I've been with the weather...

22:00 Started off the night at the Reykjavik Art Museum again.

Baggalútur, an eleven piece country swing band led off. With an accomplished vocal trio (singing in Icelandic) and a hot fiddler, this gives whole new meaning to the phrase 'country' music. Well, Iceland is a country, right? A complete joy:

20:45 Benni Hemm Hemm, an even bigger band with an eight piece brass section comes on like a freighter sailing through- oceans of sound. Their energy level threatened to take the roof off. I'm swept up in the crowd:



21:30 Islands, from Canada, with a pair of fiddlers, guitars-bass-drum-keyboards and an occasional bass clarinet(!), gave the younger crowd what they want in a tightly choreographed set, only to be cursed with a bad vocal mix:

22:15 Apparat Organ Quartet. Four mad scientists playing vintage keyboards with a drummer assisting. COMPLETELY INSANE! They whip the crowd into a frenzy with their demented aural assault. This was one of my must-sees, and they exceeded all expectations. GREAT! GREAT! GREAT!

23:00 Jakobínarína These kids had the highest energy of any stage show, with well played pop-punk aimed at the teens. Titles like I have a date with my television and Nice guys don't play good music should propel them to greater fame. Now that they've finished their secondary education, and have a recording contract, the world awaits. They started to run out of gas toward the end of the set:



Exiting, I made my way to the National Theater Basement while Northern lights were shining above Austurvöllur:



00:15 Kalli. His performance in a word: Tragic?- too strong. Anguished?- still not it. Heartbroken?- no. Sad?- not exactly. Whining?- that's it. Or, in three words: Just Awful Emo.

01:00 Shadow Parade. With a Jim Morrisonesque lead singer, and the whole band dressed in black, this was angst done right. Very effective, surprisingly soulful singing.



01:45 Trost, from Germany. The wild card of the night. This drunken rock-cabaret-little-girl-lost turned the nightclub atmosphere into something really quite decadent. In a good way. Weaving on and off the stage on 4 inch platform heels, you had to watch just to see if she would even make it through her set. A very clever four piece band was a perfect backdrop for her amusing, if sometimes incoherent, story-songs. This went on until almost three. A great way to end the night.

Best music of the night: Apparat. Simply smashing.

Venues in Iceland -#3

Leikhúskjallarinn

The Theatre Cellar Cabaret Club.

Located in the basement of Þjóðleikhúsið, Iceland’s National Theatre, it is not well-known, and certainly not in any tourist guides I’ve seen. I suspect it was originally intended for exclusive use of the patrons of the National Theatre—it is rarely used for public events. Which is too bad, it is a very groovy place; intimate; 50s vibe. That aesthetic may be best illustrated by the ambiguous triptych that is on the walls of the club lounge area:

My experience there was in October of 2006, at Iceland Airwaves, when a small crowd braved the cigarette smoke (remember those days?) to see several acts perform, including the Doors/Radiohead-influenced Shadow Parade:

And the ‘little girl lost’ Trost:

She kept the crowd in thrall with her story-songs, aided by prodigious alcohol consumption and her teetering on 4 inch heels as she wandered through the crowd:

But the best act I saw there was the venerable (18+ years and still going strong) rockabilly/surf band Langi Seli Og Skuggarnir:

Twangy!

Here’s a funky video of Langi Seli and his group showing the band (and its audience) rocking out in the cabaret one night in October, 2006: