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 spacey
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 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.
