Reykjavík Grapevine - 18.10.2008, Page 14

950.- kr
The bands that Kaffi Hljómalind had booked this day were more on
the hard side, especially metal and punk bands.
Morri just played one song of atmospheric post-rock, which was
somehow disappointing. The Tentacles of Doom, which were up
next, served straight up punk-rock with female vocals and did a solid
job doing that. The Fist Fokkers came up with a surprise, as they had
invited a trio of elderly gentlemen with brass instruments for their
first song. Although they did not play very precisely, their mixture
of raw rock like The White Stripes and chaotic punk like The Bronx
sounded quite interesting. The next band, The Pen, also presented
punk, but put its trashy side in the foreground. Unfortunately, An-
archy symbols on blank bodies and undressing during the show do
not make a good punk band. Way more convincing was the gig of
Iceland’s oldest punk band, Saktmóðigur. These guys have been
around for about 20 years, which you could see in their experienced
performance. The audience got screaming and singing along with
their songs – the perfect proof that this band is an Icelandic legend.
The definite highlight were the subsequent DYS. Iceland’s most po-
litical hardcore band draw so much attention that people were actual-
ly standing outside Hljomalind’s back room, enthusiastically watch-
ing the show through the window, while the crowd inside completely
freaked out. Their last song somehow marked the start of the metal
part of this afternoon. First on were Muck which impressed with
ultra-slow, down-tuned songs. Hopefully there will be soon heard
more of this band. They were followed by Dormah, which served
their metallic hardcore properly. After this band, Swords of Chaos
hit the stage and delivered a powerful show with punk attitude, rock
riffs and the morbid atmosphere of later Breach. The most annoying
thing about Plastic Gods, the next band, were the black-metal vo-
cals. Also apart from that their stoner-doom missed their examples
of hypnotic heaviness. Shogun did a quite good performance playing
new material for an audience that also wanted to hear it. After them
were Celestine, which managed to sound like a steam-roller in spite
of the generally bad PA at Hljomalind. Gavin Portland were the last
band playing and they made a good ending to this heavy day. FloriAn
ZühlKe
On a night in a cafe that featured dead animal headgear, hillbillies
and Wulfgang, the EMO-tinged opening performer, one of the bands
hailed from South and another just went south. Andrúm started oh
so gently, too much so after Wulfgang’s dramatic ‘Streetcar Named
Disappointment’, but their gradual progression towards 70s-tinged
shoegaze was exciting and dramatic, especially when a mammoth
riff intertwined with the vocalist’s gentle whispers. The small front-
of-stage space in Hressó began to fill and Borkó’s performance was
the best-attended of the night – the rest attracted a sparse crowd
of fans, friends and passers-by at best. It was also the most accom-
plished as they swerved around a variety of progressive rock and in-
die styles, sounding like the sort of avant-garde, timeless music a
Tarantino film might feature, piercing trumpet and all, but anything
sharp and tuneful would have saved the ensuing Ultra Mega Tech-
nobandið Stefán from being the biggest disappointment of the whole
festival. Their start was auspicious, with a slowed-down version of
‘Story Of A Star’ promising to lead to the sort of high-energy show
their reputation strongly suggests, but after less than fifteen min-
utes of slow, badly-sung, tuneless nonsense they unplugged their
keyboards and thankfully made way for Soundspell. Billed as sound-
ing like Coldplay and Keane, they bore no resemblance to either (Ra-
diohead would be more accurate) and could be one of next year’s hits
if they can repeat their impressive mix of beeps and guitars in 2009.
‘The Key Ingredient’ is a work of great promise. Contrarily, nobody
knew anything about Southside before they arrived at Hresso for
their headline slot, so an extended hillbilly rap during their “public
sound check” was a welcome bulletin. They took an age to all get
on stage and, like the poster you had at school depicting the ages of
man – from knuckle-dragging primate to upright Homo Sapiens –
the six members of Southside showed us a sort of hick life-cycle in all
its Southern glory. Starting with a fresh-faced mouth organ player,
obviously the most normal member of the group, we could also see
the middling point of hickdom in the leather-clad singer, who had
a large dead animal in the shape of a hat balanced on his head, and
the final stage – a crazy old man with a platted beard who sat by his
monitor supping wine from a Pepsi bottle for almost the entire set.
He did get up to perform a poem, accompanied by the band playing
Hendrix’s ‘Little Wing’, but that just confirmed that the authorities
at Kef lavik must have been on a coffee break when he f lew in. “We
are the fucking storm generation, the storm generation!” was the
crux of the poem, and it was as bad as it sounds. After settling down
they did play some fine blues rock and the eccentricity was actually
endearing. After all, without a sense of fun you’d up performing the
sort of set that Ultra Mega Technobandið Stefán tried to pass off as
party music. Ben h. MurrAy
Hljómalind:
off-venue
Hressó
sat
urDaY
Emma
Emma