Reykjavík Grapevine - 17.10.2008, Qupperneq 14

950.- kr
At Jon Jonsson night you’d expect everyone to be in the mood to party
but BB & Blake might not agree. With sparkly costumes and poppy
beats, this duo tried in vain to get the audience moving. One song
insisted “you’ve got to dance” over and over again, but apparently the
placid crowd was not taking that command seriously. In fact, the au-
dience responded as if they were playing a funeral dirge instead of
their self-proclaimed 80’s pop. And here’s a general note:
To the woman at the front dressed in black, you know who you are:
Thanks for dancing.
From,
Those of us who couldn’t be bothered.
By the time Bloodgroup took the stage, there was not much room for
dancing but they managed to get things moving with their strong vo-
cals and heavy but effective use of electric echo—a favourite feature
on the Casio keyboard. Their high energy was infectious and it set
a perfect tone for the rest of the night. With a change to the line up,
kap10kurt gave an unexpected performance that matched the inten-
sity and fun of Bloodgroup. Before the second song, they announced:
“Now a song you will know. It’s not a good song but we fixed it.” Then
they played their freshly remixed version of Dire Straits Money for
Nothing. The verdict: they fixed it. Nordpolen’s slow start and weak
stage presence dropped the mood quickly, and for the first time there
was actually space to walk around as people took this time to head to
the bar. I heard a few key expletives thrown around but let’s just say
this performance was a letdown. After Nordpolen left the stage there
was a lull of about twenty minutes. As the crowd grew restless, they
started to chant, as crowds do, and there was a sense of both relief and
unbridled joy when Farmiljen finally came on stage. It was worth the
wait. The band was having at least as much fun playing as the crowd
was dancing and screaming out lyrics. These guys were so entertain-
ing I could watch them do laundry. Desiree anDrews
For a good portion of Friday’s show at NASA there was a man in
the back of the venue dressed in a trenchcoat insistently whirling an
enormous rubber chicken. The gesture was appropriate: all of the
bands on the bill seemed set on one simple but important goal –
throwing a good party. Fortunately, partying is what Motion Boys
do best. Their set was exhilarating, deftly manicured new wave full
of cascading synths and powered by taut, propulsive rhythms. Their
songs are bright and brash and accomplish the mean feat of recall-
ing ‘80s electropop without resorting to empty revivalism. On Friday
they were a wonder, vocalist Birgir Gunnarssson working the lip of
the stage, preening and pouting his lyrics directly into the audience.
The songs work because they rely on simple, singable hooks – it didn’t
take long, for example, to piece together the chorus of “Five to Love”
and even less time to learn the accompanying hand motions. As good
as Motion Boys were, they were handily upstaged by últra Mega
Teknóbandið Stefán. Their set was a 30-minute shot of adrenaline,
one neon-bright blast of hardcore techno after another, inspiring the
kind of frantic pogoing more commonly found at punk shows. By the
end of their set, the wall between audience and performer had col-
lapsed, and the stage was f looded with beery revellers. Clearly Últra
Mega Teknóbandið realise that sometimes the best parties are the
kind that end in broken bones. Likewise raucous and just as win-
ning were Retro Stefson. Their music was a patchwork of musical
styles, mostly from the 1970s – like disco and funk. Their set was vi-
brant and hyperactive, and vocalist Sigríður Thorlacius has the kind
of warm, rich voice needed to centre such free-spirited songwriting.
These New Puritans had a different kind of partying in mind.
Their doomy post-punk made for a kind of herky-jerk danse maca-
bre, apocalyptic rave-ups that inspired dancing despite the group’s
persistent and wearying rigidity. Much sunnier were White Denim,
whose garage rock base belied a deep fascination with the mechan-
ics of songwriting. Their set took odd, surprising excursions into
free jazz and post-rock, guitarist James Petralli often peeling off long
clusters of quick, f luttering notes. In the end it was the group’s row-
dier numbers that were the least interesting. Benni Hemm Hemm
knows that it’s not a party without friends – in his case, around 20 of
them. He filled the stage with musicians, creating an ad hoc orches-
tra to support his lithe pop songs. Lesser compositions would have
crumbled under the weight of so much sound, but Benni’s songs are
warm and expertly crafted, and the extra instrumentation served to
augment, not distract. Skakkamange’s party was small but invit-
ing, modest guitar-based pop songs that neither stirred up nor set-
tled down. The only sad sacks in the lot were Audio Improvement
who opened the night with a set of somber, self-important rap-rock
that could have used a bit more of both. It’s fitting, of course – every
party needs a wallf lower. J. eDwarD Keyes
Tunglið
Nasa
FRi
DAY
Leó
Viktor