Reykjavík Grapevine - 02.06.2006, Qupperneq 22

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whO
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Laugardalshöll
Ian Anderson
May 22nd 2006 Arriving at Laugardalshöllin to see the Ian Anderson
concert, I felt like this was the opening night at an
oversized old folks’ home. Most of the people there
had 50 or 60 years of experience listening to music,
many still believed they had a full set of hair and talked
loudly about the Led Zeppelin concert in Iceland some
30 years ago. Tonight, you knew they would go home
after the show and watch Easy Rider and light up a
joint they’ve been saving since Woodstock. Like many
of the younger people there, I went to this concert with
a parent.
This was not Ian Anderson’s first visit to Iceland.
Jethro Tull played at Akranes in 1992. At that time,
only 12 years old, I decided to see Black Sabbath, who
were also playing the previous night. I have always
regretted my decision not to see Jethro Tull. Now,
finally, I had a chance to make up for it.
The show started, and I thought to myself, what
have I gotten myself into, an instrumental Irish ethnic
concert. I felt no nostalgia, only sickness. The first
song was some crap from Anderson’s solo album.
He managed to save face with some good humour.
Then he started playing one of Jethro Tull’s classics
“Living in the Past.” But a smile turned into a frown
when I discovered that Ian Anderson was like many
of the people watching, burned out. His flute playing
was really good, but so what? People could have seen
Joanna Newsom and Coco Rosie for the same amount
they paid for this fiasco. Then came the violins and
orchestra. Then a young and sexy solo violin player
by the name of Lucia Micharelli was introduced. She
played a song from the Godfather soundtrack in gypsy
style. I was really moved and then Anderson started
playing his wretched flute. I just wanted to shout at
him and tell him were he could stick that flute.
Ian Anderson kept on making people laugh at the
expense of Lucia Micharelli. He started off when she
bent over to pick up her violin with the great middle-
aged man one-liner “Please don’t bend over.” Then he
introduced a song she was going to play called “She
Is Like the Swallow” with, “I didn’t say she likes to
swallow, come on.”
He was like a dirty old man. Lucia smiled at his
every joke, but I think it was more out of pity for the
man who could once in his life get every girl he wanted
but was now reduced to harassing the hired help.
Lucia played a solo composition by Sibelius. I
got goose bumps in the good way. And there was no
sound but the emotional breathtaking violin playing
of Lucia, the 22-year-old goddess. Watching her for
two hours would’ve been worth the price of admission.
She touched me in a way that no woman has ever
touched me. I cried. There was no escaping it, and, for
three minutes, my life was complete. Then started that
damned flute, once appealing, now, like Coldplay, just
irritating.
Mozart’s Rondo alla Turka was to be the victim of
Mr. Anderson’s cruellest of jokes. Ian raped Mozart
that night. This was yet another joke that went too far.
The high point of the night was Led Zeppelin’s
“Kashmir” mixed in with Micharelli’s interpretation of
Jimmy Page’s guitar solo from “Whole Lotta Love.”
Just when I was starting to enjoy myself it turned
out that Ian Anderson was not satisfied with raping
classical songs, he also wanted to rape his own once
and that’s a little like incest, the greatest crime of all.
The musicians were great but not even the immaculate
sex appeal of Lucia could make up for Anderson’s
awful singing, which could best be described as Dylan
with Tourette’s syndrome. People got a good show and
seemed to like it, but, then again, people are idiots.
People like the Eurovision song contest.
Finally, the concert was over and people stomped
and applauded, maybe because he was leaving. At least
that’s the reason I clapped. Then came the encore, and
I fell asleep. I woke up and witnessed Mr. Anderson
sexually assaulting one of his songs. This time one of
my favourites “Locomotive Breath.” I walked out.

Fat Old Guy Mocks Pretty Girl
By Helgi Valur | Photo by Skariwhere
whO
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NASA
Heavy Trash,
Powersolo,
The Tremelo
Beer Gut
and Fræ
May 26th 2006
It was my deep respect for Palli, guitarist from the
pop band Maus, that led me to restrain a section of
the audience from launching a surprisingly heavy
ashtray (note to Nasa, remove heavy ashtrays when
you have shit bands scheduled) at his head as Palli
strummed out the most mundane of repetitive light
rock melodies over the rapping of an atonal band
mate in the band that officially qualifies as an
aberration, Fræ (Seeds). How do I explain how bad
Fræ are—the most obvious description is this, they
sound, look, and have the stage energy of a Christian
rock band trying out hip hop. They even have those
kind of dance moves.
The experience of showing up to see tricked
out rockabilly and getting Christian rock is such
an unforgivable bait and switch, again, especially
when the people causing you the pain are friends or
acquaintances.
Fine, fine, fine. You make it through Fræ. You
figure it’s like a kidney stone. Easy breathing, try to
clear your head and think of nothing, kind of like
the band members and lyricist, and you get through
it. But to be given Tremelo Beer Gut immediately
after that. Damn.
Tremelo Beer Gut have a great name and a big
fog machine. And they play surf rock. And they
seem really annoyed that nobody gets how great they
are. Surf rock. Not good surf rock, I mean, come on,
these guys are called Beer Gut, you aren’t expecting
Maestros. No Dick Dale here. No, just adequate
surf rock. Like Dick Dale played real slow. And
mixed badly. With fog. For an hour. With a bunch
of Danes in the audience. In ski jackets. Doing the
twist.
Then we got to Powersolo, who have a decent
CD, Egg, and who came to last year’s Airwaves and
gave a great 15-minute performance. In fact, they
pointed this out as soon as they got on stage, that
they played for 15-minutes and now would play a
long set. A very long set.
Powersolo, made up of Spencer’s Heavy Trash
bassist Kim Kix playing guitar, obviously his second
instrument, along with two friends, is not the kind
of band that pulls off long shows. Bass players
shouldn’t play guitar for a long time. Not when they
don’t have a bassist or lead guitar player playing with
them, or when they don’t have lyrics, or songs, or
dynamics. Kim Kix seemed like a nice guy. Helluva
guy. But coming on 2 am, his music just made you
think of the joy of silence.
And then, finally, our man Jon Spencer came
on with Heavy Trash. Hallelujah. He started out,
and he was going strong from his new album. But,
almost immediately, something was wrong. The
music from the album sounded like the new album.
EXACTLY like the new album. Spencer’s take on
rockabilly was to play live like you’re in a studio,
keep the solos under four bars, keep the mix right,
stay exactly on beat. And it all sounded extremely
restrained and tired.
Sure, the Danes danced, but the rest of us,
especially when we realized that the sound guy was
playing back-up guitar and keyboards to fill out the
sound while Spencer posed, we got annoyed. And
this went on, until 2:45, when the last few dozen of
us were left, and Spencer ran out into the audience.
And that’s when Jon Spencer woke up. And sud-
denly we had a show. As it happened, I was standing
next to the sound guy, giving him dirty looks, and he
stopped playing because the set list was done. And
Spencer started finally getting into playing music
instead of doing manual labour, and Matt Verta-Ray
finally let his perfect tone and fingering take off.
And at 3 am, they were done, and I had seen what
Spencer could do. And I have this to say: fuck off,
Mr. Spencer.
Fuck off, Mr. Spencer, for your May 26th show
in Reykjavík. I mean, Jesus fucking Christ, we got
the tickets, we bought the CD, we wrote about you,
we told our friends to come, we swore up and down
about your integrity, and you made us sit through
5 hours of absolute hell before we finally got what
we wanted… at 3 am. Mind you, at 3 am, you, Mr.
Spencer, were a God. With Matt Verta-Ray taking
off on his massive hollow-body guitar, and you sc-
reaming out rockabilly like a preacher who stumbled
into a Southern California prom in need of salvation,
I mean, that was something. And Kim Kix, the man
on the double bass, the ghastly skeleton who could
add a slap note to damn near anything, that was just
perfection. But that was at 3 am, mother fucker! 3
am! We showed up at 10 pm. And it’s not like we
waited in silence. That would have been fine. Maybe
sitting in chairs full of glass shards or something
to prove our devotion. That would have been fine.
But no, we, music lovers, fans, had to listen to pale
imitators, (in both senses of the word), and the worst
hip hop/ light rock band this side of an Orlando,
Florida megachurch, to get to our moment of Spen-
cer. So fuck you. I’m done. I’ll buy your CDs. But I
don’t need this shit.

15 Great Minutes
By Bart Cameron | Photo by Gúndi
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