Reykjavík Grapevine - 20.10.2007, Page 18

A lido in England is a kind of municipal swimming
pool – the kind of place where you don’t swallow
the water – and last night’s festival program at
Lídó slapped together an engaging mix of styles,
from the easily digestible to the aural equivalent
of something annoying, black and curly that gets
stuck in your throat for a while and just won’t go
away no matter how much beer you drink.
If Travis grew balls like a celibate sperm whale
then they’d begin to write songs like the evening’s
first performer, Iceland’s Sverrir Bergman. An im-
pressive set of vocals and a competent band threw
the next group, Fabúla, a minor challenge that they
almost met with a series of pleasantly dull, parent-
friendly compositions which slotted echoes of
Damien Rice (even down to the gravity-adding cel-
lo accompaniment) together with a voice that had
a suggestion, particularly on songs such as ‘Skate-
board’, of Kate Bush’s vocal gymnastics. Unlike the
coal-haired beauty fronting Fabúla, Lay Low might
not be able to blast the ice out of the older audi-
ence’s Diet Pepsi at will, but she is rightly known
as the princess of Icelandic blues and with Benny
Crespo’s Gang she’s an integral part of something
best described as loud electro rock created by boys
(and, of course, one girl) with their toys and a
whole battery of satisfying cannon shots let off by
a drummer who is either very angry or gloriously
talented. It’s probably a combination of the two.
With the venue buzzing after Benny Crespo’s
Gang and the middle of the room thick with bodies,
Pétur Ben then proved his reputation as a trouba-
dour par excellence, with a short but dynamic per-
formance culminating in ‘Something Radical’ and
a cover of The Doors ‘Break On Through’ that he
smoothed out in typically impressive style. Through-
out the virtuoso strummer’s set the legendary Siggi
Baldursson demonstrated, in contrast to the previ-
ous band, that a great stick-wielder doesn’t always
have to treat his kit with the level of brutality you’d
use if you wanted it dead before dawn, but any sort
of brutality would have been a welcome change
to the next two bands, The Tremolo Beer Guts and
Heavy Trash. Playing, respectively, a repetitive mix
of acid surf movie soundtrack and quiffed-up, self-
important rockabilly, they did little to goad the au-
dience into anything greater than mild disinterest.
Ben H. Murray
Lídó
Feature Review
Top: Benny Creso’s Gang by Skari. Bottom: Heavy Trash by Skari