Reykjavík Grapevine - 27.07.2007, Page 22

RVK_GV_11_007_REVIEWS_76_REYKJAVÍK_GRAPEVINE_ISSUE 11_007_REVIEWS/MUSIC/LIVE
The Culture House - Þjóðmenningarhúsið
Hverfisgata 15, 101 Reykjavik
Tel.: +354 545 1400, www.thjodmenning.is
MEDIEVAL MANUSCRIPTS – EDDAS AND SAGAS. EXHIBITION AT THE CULTURE HOUSE.
Open daily between 11am and 5pm
Eddas and Sagas
Iceland’s national treasures
The admission fee grants entry to all exhibitions at the Culture House. Adults ISK 300. Senior citizens ISK 200. Students ISK 200.
Free entry for children 16 years of age or younger. Admission is free on Wednesdays. An open guided tour of the Manuscripts
exhibition is offered every weekday except Wednesdays at 3:30 pm.
“This song is about my mother,” began Þórir
with his eyes on the floor, “Who unfortunately
has never sat in Parliament.” The audience’s
eyes, consequently, were all on him, clutching
his guitar as he stood hovering delicately above
the microphone. Halfway through his short set
at 12 Tónar record shop, Þórir, or as he calls
his one-man-band, My Summer as a Salvation
Soldier, looked quite uncomfortable.
Beginning this song, like every other, with a
slow and pensive picking at his guitar, the shy
looking twenty-something looked as though
he was mentally preparing himself. Leisurely,
his strumming grew into a melody. His voice,
steady yet sensitive, crooned over the close
crowd.
Delivered with the sort of genuine non-
pretension that one can’t help but praise,
Þórir’s simple and delicate cogitations, heav-
ily reminiscent of Bright Eyes, are impressive
mostly in their candidness. Each short song
manages, at its most sensitive of moments, to
transcend the gritty clumsiness of the singer’s
present, filled with more conviction than you
thought him capable of. Slow, haunting, and
painfully raw, like a dance with your crush at
senior prom, Þórir’s songs are guiltily enjoy-
able.
“I’m going to play two more songs, then
I have to go to work,” Þórir whispered. The
adoration of the crowd climaxed with the
apparently well-known chorus from one of
the songs off of his newest album, Anarchists
Are Hopeless Romantics. “After all that we’ve
been through/ these are the memories that
I will have of you/ when the years are dead
and gone, not a single conversation just this
song.”
His lyrics were impressively grounded, a
testament to the importance of good song
writing, clever without being excessively ironic.
“I’m feeling sick, I’ve had too much to think,”
and “What are we in this world, what are
we but our words?” being especially memo-
rable.
He began his last song a little less than
thirty minutes into the set. It was nearly 6. A
group of kids ran past the store screaming, al-
lowing a biting contrast to the soft atmosphere
inside. The audience stood cosily, holding their
plastic cups full of free rose-wine courtesy of
the record store. It was as if we had all taken
part in a group meditation session and now,
with the end in sight, were huddling together
for one last song before being forced back out
into the harsh, rain-wet streets of Reykjavík.
For now we watched, easily entranced by
this the last, and undoubtedly the best, song
of the evening. Þórir was surely about to disap-
pear as quietly as he had arrived and we were
quite enjoying watching him, as uncomfortable
as that may have made him.
The song was ending yet the night was
young, and it seemed that Þórir, surprisingly
enough, was going to leave us with a nugget
of hope.
“And I’ll never sing the same old tune, my
friends did before me/ I’ll be as true to this, as
anyone could be.”
I believed him.
Hopeless Romantics
Text by Valgerður Þóroddsdóttir Photo by Gulli
Who: My Summer as a Salvation
Soldier
Where: 12 tónar
When: July 20, 2007
Rumours about the imminent break-up of
Mínus, Iceland’s biggest rock act, had circu-
lated for weeks before second guitarist Frosti
and bass player Þröstur recently quit the band
– citing artistic differences. The three remaining
members recruited a new bass player (Sigurður
Oddsson, formerly of Future Future) and de-
clared on their myspace.com site that they
would “re-invent the Mínus art machine,” as
a four-piece. This was their first real test.
Musically, I think everyone can agree that
it was not the band’s best performance to
date. But, my feeling is that nobody cared as
much about how they sounded as the fact
that they were there to play in the first place.
The band tore through material from their
nine-year career, displaying their early metal
core roots from debut album Hey Johnny and
their breakthrough Jesus Christ Bobby, as well
as the more refined stud rock sound of Halldór
Laxness and the newly released The Great
Northern Whalekill.
New bassist, the clean-cut Sigurður, is
steadily growing into his own as Þröstur’s re-
placement and will find his footing with the
band. As for the guitar situation, there were
two tracks where I thought to myself that
another guitar would have made a real dif-
ference. But eventually, I suspect the band’s
image will suffer more for the loss of their
former bassist’s menacing presence and hard
rock aura than it will musically with the loss
of a second guitarist (or Þröstur’s bass playing
for that matter)
But the real difference in seeing this band
play now and when I last saw them play three
months ago had nothing to do with music.
There was a moment towards the end of Mi-
nus’ show that put their whole night in per-
spective. Singer Krummi, by now half-naked
and heavily perspiring, thanked the audience
for coming out to see them with a contagious
look of joy on his face. What their performance
lacked in the flawless and professional execu-
tion Mínus has developed through the years,
they more than made up for with sheer joy
and enthusiasm.
The choice of venue might have played a
part in their transmittable glee. Grand Rokk
is the smallest venue this band has played in
quite some time. Standing on a stage that
is hardly more than a bulge in an otherwise
tiny floor area, Mínus was face to face with
their fans. The tight conditions in Grand Rokk
created immediacy with the audience that the
band has lacked when playing bigger stages.
I hope I will soon have an opportunity to see
them under such conditions again.
The Mínus art machine still runs. It may
need a little fine-tuning yet, but after nine years
of revving at high rpm and a lot of mileage, it is
only natural if some of the parts are worn out
and need to be replaced. Once the overhaul
is finished, I think the engine may turn out to
be just as powerful as it ever was.
Passing the Test
Text by Sveinn Birkir Björnsson Photo by Gulli
Who: Mínus
Where: Grand Rokk
When: July 14, 2007
When you identify your band as
“rock,” you’re automatically recog-
nizing your own fated mediocrity in a
way. It almost predetermines the kind
of grungy shows you’re designated
for and just how big (and eclectic)
your fan base will get before either a)
your sound matures or b) you break
up. It is an indulgent genre, with sim-
ple chord progressions, rhythms, and
an altogether lack of musical patience
and restraint.
Café Amsterdam offered the
worst of the rock genres last Saturday
night – the self-defacing Pub rock, the
abysmal Nü-emo, and borderline OK
“indie rock.” The surprising variety
of the musical vacuum didn’t suck
in a surprising number of people; I
don’t think the crowd exceeded 50
the entire night.
I entered maybe one song late
into the set of the ambitious Vafur-
logi. It became clear after just a few
songs that Vafurlogi had a formula: a
simple chord progression, change the
rhythm maybe once, and then add a
guitar solo with a new effect pedal
for each song. Repeat for 50 minutes
and you’ve got a Vafurlogi set.
The Nü-emo Ten Steps Ahead
speak the teenage language of
sweepy bangs and eyeliner – the
yelling, the My Chemical Romance,
the bass player’s skull bandana. It was
all too much for me and I had to go
ten steps outside for a bit. I still have
to hand it to these guys for playing
their hearts out – and there’s always
something to be said for the sincerity
and authenticity of emo music. It’s just
not going to be said here.
When headliners Wulfgang came
on, the crowd had dwindled to around
40 people, who were either friends
of the band or members of Vafurlogi.
I speculated that Ten Steps Ahead
must’ve inspired everyone to look at
their watches and hit the bars, and
it was clear that the boys didn’t even
stay to survey the damage done.
Wulfgang was entertaining
enough to watch: frontman The Mind
(they’ve all got English rockonyms)
shakes and contorts himself in ways
that might give him the title the Elvis
of Iceland. But, the bass was way
too high during the set and it was
disappointing not to hear the clever
guitar lines that are distinct on their
self-tiled debut. Suspecting that it
wasn’t Café Amsterdam’s fault, I later
received an explanation from one of
the band members that the guitarist’s
brand new amp had blown just be-
forehand.
It seemed that the respectable
Wulfgang were settling when they
decided to play this gig, for their sake
I hope that next time they choose a
venue higher up on Laugavegur, with
much better opening bands.
Borderline OK
Text by Chandler Fredrick Photo by Gulli
Who: Wulfgang, Ten Steps
Ahead, Vafurlogi
Where: Café Amsterdam
When: July 20, 2007
Step into
the Viking Age
Experience Viking-Age Reykja­vík a­t the
new Settlement Exhibition. The focus of the
exhibition is a­n exca­va­ted longhouse site which
da­tes from the 10th century ad. It includes
relics of huma­n ha­bita­tion from a­bout 871, the
oldest such site found in Icela­nd.
Multimedia­ techniques bring Reykja­vík’s
pa­st to life, providing visitors with insights
into how people lived in the Viking Age, a­nd
wha­t the Reykja­vík environment looked like
to the first settlers.
The exhibition a­nd
museum shop a­re open
da­ily 10–17
Aða­lstræti 16
101 Reykja­vík / Icela­nd
Phone +(354) 411 6370
www.reykja­vikmuseum.is