Reykjavík Grapevine - 21.10.2005, Side 15

tunes were dark and stylized, but the
surfeit of unmitigated gloom seemed to
fall on deaf ears: by the time the singer
paused to take a picture of the crowd
(“for our mothers”), there wasn’t much
crowd left. ¶ Afterwards, the venue and
crowd got mixed reviews from band
members, but most saw the show as a
point of pride for the local scene. “We
mostly play small places,” said Bacon
bassist Bogi Reynisson. “It was cool to
play a bigger place like this. now I want
to go home, warm up and come back to
see more great bands tomorrow.”
CHRISTIAn HoARD naSa >>>
Mannequins in a Vacant Lot <<< A
very slick band began playing at seven
thirty sharp, looking groovy and soulful
with their slicked-back hair and
expensive suits. They seemed like they
were going to start something
interesting... and then Bryndís walked
onstage. ¶ An unremarkable songwriter
with an equally forgettable voice,
Bryndís provided nASA with the
perfect opening act: quiet, utterly
pointless soul-funk performed by a
band that did exactly what was required
of them – no more, no less. For all their
soulful posturing, it quickly became
painfully obvious that they were nothing
but fill-ins, a session band for an
unimaginative musician. The intros to
the songs were by far the most
interesting thing in the set. Jerky and
stop-start almost to the point of being
arrhythmic, they let the rest of the
band’s scant light shine until the songs
actually started. ¶ A breath of fresh air
after the stale boredom of Bryndís’s
soulless soul, Dýrðin had it all:
Simplicity, energy, heart and precocious,
precious honesty. Hafdís and Sigrún led
their band through their cheerful girl-
guitar pop with enviable determination,
perfectly expressing the nature of their
music with song titles like Candyfloss
and Bubble Girl. ¶ Just as the simple
energy of their first few songs began to
wear thin, they went for a touch of
depth, expanding their melodies ever
so slightly to carry them home to the
greatness I knew they could achieve
when their set began. There were
moments, however, that a greater blood
alcohol level in the average crowd
member would have been appreciated;
it’s hard to maintain that high an energy
level when you’re playing in front of a
vacant lot full of mannequins attending
a funeral. By the time they walked off,
even Magnús, the bored-looking bassist
was having fun (how it’s possible to stay
that still when playing the astonishingly
cheerful crescendos he plays is beyond
me). ¶ Although people had gradually
been filing in all evening, Bob Volume
had no effect whatsoever on the crowd,
and rightly so; they blew. Profoundly.
evidently these absolute idiots had sat
down, listened to a bunch of prog, taken
every lame element they liked and
patched it together into the sorriest
collection of slimy guitar rock songs to
ever see the light of the nASA stage. I
could prattle on endlessly about
everything they did wrong, but my time
and the reader’s would be better spent
shovelling llama dung or doing
something equally productive. SInDRI
elDon >>> Mocking It Big <<<
Beautifully sad string arrangements
and the sea rolling into the venue on a
screen in the background raised
expectations of an epic rendition of
Daníel Ágúst’s solo material. What the
audience got instead was a set of
masterly crafted songs reaching their
brilliance only by the singer/composer’s
poking fun at them, overdoing it all by
dancing like a nymph dressed
completely in black with a feather-collar
and gloomy make-up. From pre-
recorded walls of harmonies to live
samples of his voice and trumpet,
Daníel Ágúst elated the crowd at the
packed venue. ¶ Plunging from tender
male/female duets into guitar-driven
rock spiced up with 80s keyboard
chords, epo-555 got the audience
dancing, not least by means of their
singer/guitarist Mikkel, who expended
so much effort he ended up lying on the
stage gasping for breath. ¶ Powersolo
vigorously tried to extend their
shortened set as much as possible,
which the audience clearly appreciated,
being greatly amused by the singer’s
impersonation of animals’ voices and
simple but rocking redneck songs. ¶
Junior Senior came onstage with a big
party consisting of a drummer, a bassist,
a second guitarist and two background
singers and left the audience partying
big. Their feel-good songs mocked the
styles of several decades of disco music,
including rapping, catchy choruses and
clap-alongs. The audience seemed
familiar with more than just their top
three single Move Your Feet and went
completely wild, managing to drag the
band back onstage for an encore.
JulIkA HueTHeR 12 tónar >>>
Crying Punk <<< At 12 Tónar record
store, local talent Þórir, a.k.a. My
Summer as a Salvation Soldier, played
for a full, albeit somewhat small, house.
Þórir is locally known as a member of
the Icelandic hardcore punk scene,
playing guitar for both Gavin Portland
and Fighting Shit as well as serving as
a member of folk punk heroes Death
Metal Supersquad. As a solo act,
however, Þórir is a far cry from
hardcore. Sitting by himself, guitar in
hand, he quietly strums through lo-fi
tunes in a broken voice that sound so
full of angst and desperation that it
brings you to the edge of tears. He
played a wrenching four-song set,
including numbers from last year’s
debut album, I Believe In This and his
newly released follow up, Anarchists
Are Hopeless Romantics. SveInn
BIRkIR BJöRnSSon >>> Zep Cream of
the Crop <<< Mike Pollock, a musician
who has been in the “biz” in Iceland for
an impressive three decades, opened
the evening with a series of Bob Dylan,
Hank Williams and Johnny Cash
covers, performing his original stuff in
between. Following Pollock’s act were
the telepathetics. Their performance
consisted of powerful, melodic rock
that was slightly reminiscent of early
radiohead, with excellent vocal
harmony between the bassist Hlynur
Hallgrímsson, and the lead singer eyþór
eyríksson. They also did a little acoustic
cover of Billy Joel’s For the longest
Time, while waiting for the guitarist to
replace a broken guitar string, much to
the audience’s amusement. ¶ Pan were
less melodic and more hardcore than
their predecessors. They played with
sincere ambition and enthusiasm, but
got frequent onstage visits from the
sound guy, due to a bass tuned so low
that it felt like CPR to the audience.
Black Valentine followed – their first
move was to create a little altar at the
front of the stage with a picture of
Jesus Christ, surrounded by candles.
And yes, every single one of Black
Valentine’s songs turned out to be
about our lord and saviour. What also
made this band an act of its own was
the fact that all five members sang
along in every song. Their sound was
simple and acoustic, with a box drum,
bass, kettledrum and guitar. overall,
their performance was fun and
humourous, and lead singer Pétur
Jóhann einarsson’s great voice made it
a pleasurable experience. ¶ Shadow
Parade specialize in slow, melancholy
rock. The band members played with
effortless ease and sophistication. The
drummer Magnús Magnússon, and the
bassist Andri Magnússon, who happen
to be brothers, had a tight connection,
which resulted in a solid, muscular
framework. Shadow Parade gave away
free CDs with four of their songs to
everybody in the audience. next up was
the power trio nr. núll, the only band of
the night who performed their songs in
Icelandic. The lead singer had an
impressive vocal range and was
arguably the best singer of the night to
that point. ¶ The last act was without a
doubt the Zep cream of the crop. Deep
Jimi and the Zep Creams were
absolutely mind-blowing. Their name is,
of course, compiled from the names of
Deep Purple, Jimi Hendrix, Led
Zeppelin and Cream, and they play epic
rock similar to these musical legends.
The huge line that formed outside of
Grand Rokk proved that they’re an act
worth seeing. Deep Jimi and the Zep
Creams had an unparalleled onstage
performance. Apart from Mr. Pollock,
they were the most experienced
performers of the night, which was
underlined by their confidence and
accuracy. Singer Sigurður eyberg was
like a force of nature on the stage, with
breathtaking vocals and amazing
interpretation. The remaining band
members, Björn Árnason, Þór
Sigurðsson and Júlíus Guðmundsson,
all had impressive stage presence and
incredible skills, resulting in a kick ass
rock’n’roll experience. The crowd
couldn’t get enough of them, and Deep
Jimi and the Zep Creams were cheered
back on the stage for an encore. In case
you missed them, they’re playing at
Dillon on Friday and Saturday night.
ÞóRDíS elvA ÞoRvAlDSDóTTIR
BACHMAnn
reykjavík! dropped punk barnburners
that set the singer’s throaty vocals –
one part thom Yorke, three parts
desperate screech – over speedy, deftly
syncopated stomp, with the guitarist
shouting coarse interjections like an
Icelandic Flava Flav. Their salvo of
jagged guitars and desperate wailing
was sometimes hard to take, but during
some well-conceived passages –
especially when the singer and guitarist
engaged in some syncopated call-and-
response – it was clear that reykjavík!
could have set a smaller venue on fire.
¶ Skátar – five jokester hooligans in
white biohazard suits – sounded like a
retro-minded punk-funk band with a
pocket full of eccentricities, kicking out
big Pil-style riffs and boomy beats
while the singer shouted dadaist rants
and dropped circus-like keyboard
squiggles. Things grooved by breezily
much of the time, but when Skátar
worked up a maelstrom of ice-pick
guitar, big beats and jokey war-whoops,
their art-school approach gained ample
forward motion. Too bad the crowd was
either too frigid or too reticent to
dance. ¶ Hafnarhúsið was packed by
the time hometown heroes apparat
Organ Quartet (really a quintet) took
the stage. Their well-received set was
an admirable mix of soft and hard, with
a loose-limbed drummer ploughing
ahead while the four guys up front
contributed a rainbow of cascading
organ lines, mechanized kraftwerk
vocals, and echo-ey keyboard
atmospherics. apparat’s set was
weighed down by too much techno
diddling, but they evoked the night’s
biggest cheers when they dropped a
soaring pastoral jam – all swirling,
heaven-bound organ lines and ecstatic
singing – near the end of their forty-
minute set. ¶ new radio came off a bit
like a curiosity: three skinny guys –
including the black-haired frontman,
looking like a goth street urchin in a
ratty black-and-white striped shirt and
a cartoonish top hat – manned two
cellos and an upright bass, respectively,
with the drummer dropping sturdy
hard-rock grooves much of the time.
Their songs ranged from dark, mournful
art-rock ballads with weepy string lines
to punk barnburners in which the cellos
sounded like overdriven guitars. Their
From pre-recorded walls of
harmonies to live samples of his
voice and trumpet, Daníel Ágúst
elated the crowd at the packed
venue. DANÍEL ÁGÚST NASA
They seemed like they were going
to start something interesting...
and then Bryndís walked onstage.
BRYNDÍS NASA
It was clear that Reykjavík! could
have set a smaller venue on fire.
REYKJAVÍK! HAFNARHÚSiÐ
{ 17 }Grapevine Airwaves 2005 Friday October 21 – Issue 1 of 3