Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.10.2011, Side 20

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 16 — 2011
Eight Remarkable Visits To Iceland
Music | Dr. Gunni’s History Of Icelandic Rock: Part 31 - SPECIAL AIRWAVES EDITION!
By Dr. Gunni (Based on his book Eru ekki allir í stuði from 2001). We hear the
good doctor is working on an updated version of the book for 2012!
Iceland Airwaves is upon us once
more. For five days about 750 bands
and artists will perform in Reykja-
vík, of which you only knew three
before. The festival has been held
annually since 1999, and has gotten
stronger and more important by the
year. It's a focal point for the home-
grown artists, and a great way to
witness fresh winds from abroad.
Iceland has been fairly well served
by the outside music world. Here
are eight examples.
TONY CROMBIE AND HIS ROCK-
ETS, 1957
Rock 'n' roll had just gotten off the
ground, and was super fresh and excit-
ing. When Englishman Tony brought his
Rockets to Reykjavík their show was a
must see for every youngster, as it was
the first (and only) of the early rock
bands to visit the island. Drummer Tony
was a jazzist who had switched to rock
'n' roll when the opportunity arose. The
band knew all the tricks and blew the
roof off Austurbær cinema. The crowd
went apeshit and fierce rock danc-
ing took place in the aisles. About ten
thousand people eventually saw the
band perform at a total of fourteen
concerts and the Tuberculosis Associa-
tion, who had imported the rockers, got
a well-deserved cash injection.
THE KINKS, 1965
Eight years later, still at the Austur-
bær cinema, Beatlemania hit Iceland
in the shape of The Kinks. The band
had been booked six months earlier
and had since then become extremely
popular with three songs making it to
#1 in the UK. After two local support
acts (Bravo and Tempo), Ray Davies
and his men—dressed fabulously in
the latest Carnaby Street rags, with
their backs turned to the crowd as the
curtains were withdrawn—hit the open-
ing riff of ‘You Really Got Me’ and the
mass had an eargasm. Kinks played a
total of eight concerts at the cinema,
with shows happening every day at
seven and eleven pm (so their skimpy
gear had to be dragged off the stage
for the daily film showing at nine pm).
Every garage in Iceland filled up with
bands after The Kinks experience, and
Ray Davies wrote a song inspired by his
Iceland tenure, ‘I'm On An Island.’
LED zEPPELIN, 1970
The first Reykjavík Arts Festival includ-
ed Zep playing the recently opened
Laugardalshöll stadium. This was the
first foreign rock band to visit in three
years, so attendance was high: 5.000
people flocked to see Robert ‘Mr. Su-
per Shrill’ Plant and his men rock their
brains out. In hindsight this gig has
been painted in rosy red colours—"We
hadn’t seen anything like it before,"
etc – but at the time the local know-
it-alls weren't all that impressed: "I had
a strong feeling that they regarded us
as backwater people with very iso-
lated opinions on pop music," guitarist
Björgvin Gíslason remarked soon after
the gig in a local newspaper. At the
soundcheck the band was heard play-
ing a new song—“Ah ah ah ah...”—and
they apparently got the inspiration for
the lyrics whilst here with the midnight
sun and all that: ‘Immigrant Song.’
THE STRANGLERS, 1978
Somehow someone got the crazy idea
of taking The Stranglers to Iceland in
1978 to promote their third album,
‘Black And White.’ The band was riding
the spit-dripping wave of punk and in
Iceland lived up to the image of unruly
wildmen. The Stranglers gig in Laugar-
dalshöll stadium was an eye opener for
all the youngsters who had never heard
of punk before, let alone seen a punk
band play live. The generation gap
was evident with the Icelandic support
acts, comedy act Halli and Laddi and
Poker, an AOR rock band. Later that
same year, Iceland's first punk band
Fræbbblarnir played their first gig.
CRASS, 1983
‘We Demand A Future’ was a big and
important concert held at the Laugar-
dalshöll stadium, with England's punk
anarchists Crass as the main attrac-
tion. Gramm Records had been selling
Crass' lively punk records for a while
and the band had got quite popular
with Iceland's punk rockers. After a
long line of support acts—including
Kukl playing their first concert ever—it
was finally time for Crass. Instead of
playing their "hits," Crass opted to play
their latest opus, ‘Yes Sir I Will,’ in its
entirety. As it is one of the most bor-
ing albums known to humankind, most
of the audience had left when Crass
finally played some familiar songs by
the end. The concert was allegedly all
about peace and love, so many people
were perplexed by all the car windows
that got smashed outside the stadium
after Crass' performance.
HAPPY MONDAYS, 1990
Future Airwaves-boss Grímur Atlason
did his first bit of foreign band import-
ing when he got those drooling Man-
chester idiots to play the Hamrahlíð
College. When the band (and its posse,
including Shaun Ryder's dad) had fin-
ished most of the drugs they smuggled
in, Grímur was sent looking for more.
He was expelled from the college a
little later, after a police investigation.
It didn't help much that the band had
literally thrown the head teacher out
of the school when he tried to stop the
backstage partying. Happy Mondays'
biggest Iceland impression was not-
ing that shopkeepers in Laugarvegur
put a pair of shoes on display, not just
one shoe like in Manchester. They then
topped their moronic residence by try-
ing to steal Bubbi Morthens pricey
acoustic guitar, which had been bor-
rowed for their use. Grímur barely man-
aged to save the guitar from the idiots'
luggage at the Keflavík airport.
THE PRODIGY, 1998
All in all, Liam Howlett and his band of
dancing dummies played four times in
Iceland. First in 1994, then in 1995 at
the notorious E-popping Uxi outdoor
festival, then in 1998 at Laugardalshöll
stadium and at last in 2004. The 1998
concert was the highpoint. The band
was at the height of popularity with
‘The Fat of The Land’ topping charts,
and they gave their best in a memo-
rable concert. The bands' poppy dance
music had direct impact: local super-
stars Quarashi were as much Prodigy-
influenced music as they were Beastie
Boys-influenced, and Ingibergur Þór,
who would later edit the ambitious mu-
sic magazine Sánd, started his publish-
ing career with a Prodigy fanzine.
ERIC CLAPTON, 2008
During the recent banking bubble,
Icelandic music lovers had almost an
overdose of big foreign bands playing
the reef. The króna was flying sky high,
so it was dirt cheap to get big artists
to play here. After a slew of huge acts
(Metallica, James Brown, Pink, Lou
Reed, Kraftwerk, Pixies, Korn and many
more played here in 2004 alone) had
played, in 2008 it seemed only old farts
would visit. After John Fogerty, Paul Si-
mon and Bob Dylan's second show in
Iceland, it was time for Eric Clapton to
play the Egilshöll stadium. Few cared
for Clapton's homey blues though. The
collapse was imminent and the back-
stage was full of drunken banksters—
"we could hardly keep up with bringing
them booze," remarked a crewmember
after the show. The first foreign gig
post-collapse was with good-natured
Danish rockers D.A.D. All the income
went to benefit depression-struck Ice-
landic pensioners and students in Den-
mark!
Dr. Gunni
Photos:
1. The granddads and grandmothers
of today scream for The Kinks in 1965.
2. Plant and Page do their thing in
Reykjavik, 1970 (Photo: Pétur Hólm)
3. Two Crass guys meet Einar Örn
backstage, 1983.