Reykjavík Grapevine - 25.08.2006, Qupperneq 21

where
whO
whEN
Ölfushöll
Trabant and
Stuðmenn
August 12th
2006
“You know you’re at a Sveitaball when someone is
vomiting outside and the show hasn’t even started
yet,” a friend and veteran country boy informed me
around 11:30 p.m., 30 minutes after Trabant were
supposed to take the stage.
Surprisingly enough, though, nothing was hap-
pening. The concert space, a massive “riding palace”
for horse competitions, was empty and freezing cold.
We sat in brown leather chairs at one of the 20 long
wooden tables set up beside the stage where small
Christmas candles, along with the stage and the bar’s
refrigerators, provided the only light in the dusty
grey air. So far, I had counted more bouncers than
people, all dressed in black t-shirts of varying degrees
of tightness, stationed at every door and corner of the
building, including a nook at the far end of the barn
where the stage lights couldn’t reach.
The Selfoss locals slowly spilled in, and a few
stragglers wandering in alone headed straight for
the topmost rows of the benches standing ten metres
above the ground along the wall opposite the stage.
There, they sombrely surveyed the room until a famil-
iar face, or group of faces, loudly arrived. Hovering
around the tables in tipsy excitement, these familiar
faces collected people from all directions like magnets
until the 50 or so kids in attendance had been consoli-
dated into four or five groups. It felt just like a school
dance.
As the bouncers dutifully reminded us at every
turn, exiting the building was highly frowned upon,
since re-entry would not be granted once you had
come in contact with fresh air. Yet between trips to
the bar, the bathroom and the aforementioned dark
abyss past the stage, people kept busy. They sat,
sang songs, enjoyed being drunk. In the background
catchy eighties dance hits shuff led on a short repeat-
ing list. An older couple, in their 30s, got up to do
an awkward back-and-forth shuff le as the last notes
of the climactic “Morning Train” by Sheena Easton
banged through the speakers. After the song ended,
they continued on blissfully in the silence as the playl-
ist hesitated, searching for its next one-hit wonder,
then deciding suddenly to abandon its eighties theme
and burst out with Silvía Night’s “Congratulations
Iceland” before beginning the list over again.
It was as my two Reykjavík-local friends, return-
ing from the crowd now accumulating in the lobby,
enthusiastically reported to me that they had just
met the coolest local guys, “They knew every Raggi
Bjarna (eternally youthful 70-year-old ‘country’ enter-
tainer) hit ever made!”, that the show began.
Sprinklings of electronic synths began f loating
from the stage, singing out like trumpets announc-
ing the band’s imminent arrival. About three people
recognised the overture for what it was and stumbled
towards the stage just as the five members of the band
strutted into the barn each waving sparkling firework
fuses in the air with one hand, looking up at the
golden lines they painted in the dark, seemingly in
tune to the synthetic waves raining down all around
them. It was the majestic entrance, and even more
triumphant return, of Trabant.
“Welcome all you horse people,” singer Ragnar
began onstage, drawing confusedly enthused cheers
from a few in the crowd. He exuded an irresistibly
amusing confidence, swaying slightly before the
microphone with a bewildered smile on his face. The
crowd was spread thinly over the large f loor, keeping
a safe distance from the stage. “Yes...” he laughed and
looked around him at his bandmates with a mischie-
vous smile, “Welcome horse enthusiasts and, well,
Jesus, this is just like a David Lynch film.”
He chuckled. The audience muttered. Ragnar
fell to the f loor of the stage in an exaggerated fit of
laughter, as his bandmates grinned behind him. Half-
apathetic, half-confused, the 30 audience members in
the front stared at him blankly.
Close by, huddled around the tables, a hundred
kids were eagerly and inebriatedly engrossed in each
other. In the lobby, a slightly smaller chorus of men
held the attention of dozens more kids as they sobbed
their way through a series of Raggi Bjarna songs a
capella. About five metres from the stage a pair of
women in their 40s quit talking to each other and
looked up at the man dressed in white from head to
toe.
The smile had not left Ragnar’s face. Not half
as confused as he was entertained, he continued,
“Indeed, thank you all for being a part of this David
Lynch film. Now we’re going to play a song about
love.”
And so Trabant launched unabashedly into their
electronic hurricane of a set. Instantly juiced up by
their music, everything about their presence onstage
was heightened, every move dramatised, every glance
eroticised. Through their exaggerated heartthrob
pouts, the five of them practically glowed with bliss.
Trabant’s delivery is so self-indulgent and
drenched in enthusiasm that, even as their stage antics
border on embarrassing and downright pervy, every
minute of it is enthralling. Half-naked and soaked in
glitter and confidence, the five members of Trabant
have found their element onstage where, performing
as if their every note had been hand-picked from the
mouth of God, they effectively exploit the importance
of a passionate stage performance, amazingly enough,
without looking or sounding cheesy.
Ragnar steadily lost articles of clothing, cham-
pagne was sprayed and spit, tubes filled with confetti
exploded, lewd gestures were made, and for the
most part, the small crowd was loving it. When it
came time for Ragnar, by now wearing nothing but a
gold-sequined Speedo and white tube socks, to mimic
oral intercourse on band member Gísli Galdur, the
ridiculousness was almost too much for them to han-
dle, and, for a moment, both they and the audience
hesitated. As Ragnar, now on his knees, drew closer
to Gísli, the two performers couldn’t help but laugh.
The audience opened up their eyes wide.
If David Lynch had been there, I think he might
have stif led a tear.
After managing to translate the silky radiance
of their catchy electropop into an equally radiant
performance, the band spit out their last glittery note.
The dance had nearly tripled in attendance since the
beginning of their set, but the audience on the actual
dance f loor had remained humbly fewer than 40
people. Still, the set was, quite literally, golden. Once
they realised just what level of seriousness the show
best deserved, the audience, and, as it seemed, the
band members themselves, started to remember just
how alive a live show could be.
The rest of the population of the barn was far
away, about ten metres in fact, from that realisation.
In the sitting area, most had much preferred socialis-
ing to taking part in the concert, and a few, I found,
had instead taken to writing in my notebook. Among
other things, including a short poem about a bunny
rabbit, I found the following note scribbled in sloppy
handwriting with my blue pen: “Mummi Þjöl (a
bouncy country-dance-type song about a man who
owns a mandolin and becomes a fisherman) is the
most genius creation known to man. Take a record
with Hemma Gunn with you when you go home,
wherever that is in the world.”
When Stuðmenn took the stage, the crowd react-
ed immediately. “Welcome lesbians, welcome gays,”
lead singer Egill Ólafsson began, making obscure
reference to the fact that today was the beginning of
Different Days (or Gay Pride) in Reykjavík. He then
mumbled something about how this was a remarkable
day, and how much Iceland is improving itself, “Now
Halldór (Ásgrímsson, former Prime Minister and
Progressive Party member) has quit, and soon Guðni
(Ágústsson, Minister of Agriculture and Progressive
Party member) will be gone and things will get even
better!”
But people weren’t listening. In drunken bliss they
scrambled towards the stage, falling over themselves
and each other at every opportunity. Egill continued
rambling, every once in a while stumbling into com-
prehensible territory with interjections like, “It’s best
to be hot and sweaty!”, spoken with a poetry-slam-
type dramatic pause between every word. Meanwhile,
the crowd had formed a giant pit. And somehow, in
the midst of this excitement and burst of poetic and
political creativity, Stuðmenn began their set.
It seemed almost embarrassing that what Trabant
had half-mocked, Stuðmenn embraced wholeheart-
edly. Looking at them, I had no doubt in my mind
that they thought they were gods, but somehow, when
Trabant had acted that way, it had been enjoyable.
“I feel like suicide,” my friend from Reykjavík
said as he stared in horror at the scene unfolding. I
looked at Birgitta Haukdal onstage with a permanent
look of delighted surprise on her face as she clapped
her hands and shook her shiny maracas at random
intervals, smiling so wide I could count all her molars.
Something was wrong here.
Noticing my distress, my country boy informant
jumped in, “You have to realise that this is a meat
market, everyone in here is just looking to meet some-
one, the rest is just, whatever.”
Apart from the four of us, not a single person was
sitting at the tables. Right in front of us, not able to
make their way into the mob of people in front of the
stage, a few older women were dancing, moving their
hips quickly from side to side while mouthing all the
words with a look of serious concentration. Maybe the
point was that everyone knew the words. Maybe they
couldn’t help it.
“For those of you tonight, out there looking,”
Egill shouted into the microphone, “aren’t things
coming along?” And the crowd cheered.
review

The Night Horny Electronica Lost
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Hornafjörður is a thriving community in the realm of Vatnajökull. Besides the
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From the beginning of May until the end of
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Glacier Exhibition
in Höfn
www.joklasyning.is
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