Reykjavík Grapevine - 21.09.2007, Qupperneq 19

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The second annual Skullfest festival will likely
be remembered as the year’s sweatiest show,
which is a good thing.
TÞM, the night’s venue, closely resembles
a storage basement: four walls, no windows
and, as logic dictates – when you cram in more
than 200 people – no oxygen; the perfect
setting for this kind of show really.
“I wanted to put on an ‘end of summer/back to
school jam’ where I gather the most interesting
bands from the alternative music scene and
bring together different styles of music for
people to enjoy,” explained promoter and I
Adapt’s singer Birkir. The goal was achieved,
for the most part, with varied acts representing
the furthest peripheries of the mainstream grid.
A night like this offers a great opportunity to
see what’s brewing beneath the surface.
Sadly delayed, I missed the opening act
from Skítur entirely. I caught the tail end of
the death-metal band Diabolus who displayed
their authoritative metal mastery. The band is
clearly influenced by the New-Canadian wave
of death-metal and vocalist Egill has the tools
for the craft. Diabolus sound brutal – although
gore-ridden lyrics and song names usually make
me cringe – and it will be interesting to see
how these youngsters move forward.
Retron is comprised of two guitarists and
a drummer who play instrumental hero-metal.
Riff after riff and blaring drums interlocked in
a metal symphony, I love the concept. I even
loved listening to them for up to 15-minutes,
but after that it became redundant and I lost
interest. On one song they added keyboards,
which added much needed diversity.
This marked the first time I’ve seen the
metalcore band Celestine live, and although
I could see glimpses of excitement in their
aggressive delivery, I did not manage to connect
with the band and found the whole thing
rather uninspired.
Kimono stuck out like a sore thumb on this
bill. Their progressive indie rock sound, with lot
of time-changes and off-beats, was a refreshing
change of pace however. Kimono delivered
a great set, highlighted by two new songs
that might cement their status as the most
interesting indie-rock band in the country.
By the time the next two bands had finished
their set, the already hot TÞM was positively
steaming. So steaming, in fact, that the
Grapevine photographer could no longer use
the camera. First up were Philly, PA, hardcore
act Blacklisted who delivered an emotional
and energetic performance that made me
remember why I think hardcore is important
to begin with. They were immediately followed
by Icelandic hardcore act I Adapt, who, despite
ripping the bass drum in the middle of their
set, set everyone’s ass on fire. This was possibly
the best one-two punch I’ve witnessed since
Gojira-Mínus at last year’s Airwaves.
Metal veterans Drep did just what veterans
should do, and played a very solid set of very
solid metal music. Long time punk mainstays
Dys, however, surprised everyone and premiered
a new song, the first one in over three years,
adding to their arsenal of politically charged
anarcho-punk sing-a-longs. That’s a joyous
occasion.
Who Needs Oxygen, Anyways?
Text by Sveinn Birkir Björnsson Photo by Gulli
What: Sköllfest
Where: TÞM
When: September 11, 2007
The two-person mosh-pit gyrating to Jako-
bínarína’s Jesus was spilling beer onto the
crowd. It wasn’t their beer, they definitely
didn’t look old enough to buy, but the man in
the crisp grey suit with freshly groomed hair
and an even fresher beer in his hand had a
strangely bemused smile on his face as for the
third time the two pubescent boys slammed
their sweaty bodies into his side. The beer
splattered again over the dense crowd.
It was a bizarre scene, as the jacket-clad
thirty-somethings began strutting onto the
standing room floor of NASA with a beer in one
hand and their badly dressed up girlfriends on
the other. I wasn’t sure which stereotype was
more hateable, the businessmen pretending
to have an interest in ‘hip young people music’
by securing a pair of the most hard-to-get
tickets of the summer, or the too-cool-for-
school punks spilling the beers they were too
young to buy. Either way, I suppose neither
type was in the majority. They just happened
to be bumping into each other. The social
commentary was writing itself.
Jakóbínarína were gracing the stage look-
ing just as young and exploited as we’d all
imagined, but had kicked off their set with
an undeniable and consuming energy, fuelled
perhaps by a seeming enjoyment of the music
they were making. Their apathetic and doped-
up-looking faces soon got the better of them,
however, as their set slowly dwindled into a
well-rehearsed but tragically unconvincing bout
of angsty noise. Tragic, because the band has
obvious talent, which, I fear, will soon go to
waste when they actually become too cool
for school… the point at which you actually
stop going to school, and are forced to ask
yourself: why are you fucking making music
if you pretend to hate it so much?
When Franz Ferdinand finally took the
stage, casually dressed in a way that I think
no one expected of such a glitzed-up name,
two years of anticipation and expectations
bubbled to the surface of everyone’s mind in
the sold-out venue. They kicked off with Cheat-
ing On You, a song off of their premier album,
but seemed to have a hesitant, nervous glint
in their eyes. Every other song that followed
was a newbie, a fresh Ferdinand being tested
out on Reykjavík before being taken into the
studio, interwoven with the golden oldies,
Michael, Matiné, Walk Away and then the
show’s pinnacle with Take Me Out, where at
one moment the hundreds of people crowding
NASA were all jumping simultaneously. At ten
songs in, the band was still sizzling on stage,
and at the start of Darts of Pleasure, someone
actually threw a black lacy bra at singer Alex’s
face. As if that wasn’t enough, the bra then
fell off his face and slipped perfectly onto the
microphone, where it hung by one strap for
the rest of the song.
At the end of the night a hearty encore fol-
lowed. The two most clichéd names in Iceland-
ers’ recent music memory had just informally
duked-it-out on stage, and who would have
thought that it would be the boys in Ferdinand
who proved that they were something worth
hyping about.
Something Wort Hyping About
Text by Valgerður Þóroddsdóttir Photo by Gulli
Who: Franz Ferdinand
Where: Nasa
When: September 14, 2007
and a delicios lobster
at Fjörubordid in Stokkseyri
by the sea
Sp
ör
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hf
. -
R
ag
nh
ei
ðu
r Á
gú
st
sd
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glaumbar - tryggvagötu 20 - tel: 552-6868
www.glaumbar.is
As a live performer, Chris Cornell is an ontological challenge.
By all accounts, he is a grunge-god, a member of a selected club that
includes him, Eddie Vedder and Kurt Cobain. But, as Cornell himself pointed
out, this show covered “a lot of songs, a lot of different albums, different
bands, and a lot of different time periods.”
As I watched him tear through songs from his rather industrious career,
his early days with Soundgarden, the one-off Temple of the Dog record,
and a few Audioslave songs, I was forced to consider the question as to
whether watching Chris Cornell and the session squad could recreate with
some authenticity the feeling of seeing any of these bands live.
Through out his career, Cornell has been lucky enough to play with
some great musicians, in particular, guitarists with a unique style, such as
Kim Thayil and Tom Morello, whose sound is not easily replicated. Would
it be the same without them? Or would the Chris Cornell entourage share
a similar fate as the latest reincarnation of Guns N’ Roses?
It turns out that the session squad (I can’t recall the name of a single
group member, although Cornell took the effort to introduce them all twice)
did a good job with these songs. For the most part. It was mostly during
the delivery of songs from Soungarden’s Badmotorfinger, in particular the
fast paced Jesus Christ Pose and Rusty Cage, that Thayil’s presence was
missed. The more traditional-riff based Outshined came through fine, and
the night’s version of Slaves and Bulldozers was actually very cool.
Obviously, when Cornell performed songs of his two solo albums this
was not a problem. And about halfway into the show, he emerged with an
acoustic guitar and played a few songs solo, including an inspired version
of Fell on Black Days. It was not a problem then either. In fact, I would have
loved to see him perform a solo set entirely.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Chris Cornell has sole writing
credits for almost every major song that Soundgarden released, besides
writing most of the Temple of the Dog album, and contributing heavily to
Audioslave; so in a way these will always be his songs, regardless of who
he elects to play them with.
So, was it a good show? Yes, it was actually. Cornell is a great singer,
backed by a capable band, performing both new material and songs that
have stood the test of time remarkably. But more than anything, it just made
me wish I had been old enough to see Soundgarden play in their heyday.
The Cornell Challenge
Text by Sveinn Birkir Björnsson Photo by Leó Stefánsson
Who: Chris Cornell
Where: Laugardalshöll
When: September 8, 2007