Reykjavík Grapevine - 13.04.2012, Page 38

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 4 — 2012
Festivals | Aldrei fór ég suður
“It’s such a treat for us,” Sigurlaug
Gísladóttir of Mr. Silla and múm
said. “All the companies in Iceland
have an annual party and we don’t
have that as musicians, so this kind
of feels like one.” Sitting backstage,
jam-packed with members of other
bands and friends, brimming with
smiles and laughter, it was easy to
see how the Aldrei fór ég suður mu-
sic festival would make you never
go south (as the name essentially
translates).
It seemed like everyone was in
Ísafjörður over Easter weekend. As we
rolled into town late Thursday night, the
city was swarming with packs of beer
can-clutching revellers. The celebra-
tion was in full swing as we arrived,
everyone having just returned from the
festival’s kick-off party stand-up show
with Anna Svava Knútsdóttir and Hu-
gleikur Dagsson. Between the six-hour
drive and a terrible hangover of my
own, I hit the hey to rev up for the next
day’s show!
WHO DOESN’T LIKE
pLOKKFISKUR!?
On Friday morning, after a quick cof-
fee and mini-breakfast, we were off
to make the rounds and meet friends.
First stop was over to our hosts for the
weekend Magnús and Ragnheiður’s
seafood restaurant Tjöruhúsið on
Neðstikaupstaður, the oldest part of
town, famous for its killer dinner buffet
and arguably the best plokkfiskur in the
country. Their whole family takes part
in this operation, and we even found
Bóas Hallgrímsson, singer of Reykja-
vík!, sporting an apron in the kitchen.
Once totally stuffed, we jumped
over to Edinborg, restaurant and cultur-
al centre, to meet up with Gang Related
and Morðingjarnir drummer Helgi Pétur
Hannesson. He and his family recom-
mended we take a quick trip through
the longest tunnel in Iceland to Flat-
eyri. On the way out, we ran into Ása
Dýradóttir of Mammút in the entrance,
glowing with excitement over finding
a dead raven in Flateyri. “I’m going to
make art!” she said. So we went there
too, and it was lovely, but we didn’t
bring back any bird corpses.
We got back to Ísafjörður in time
to hit up Edinborg again for a kick-off
beer—which was grossly overpriced,
but what are you going to do. Over in
the room across from the eatery I ran
into Kristján Freyr, drummer of Reykja-
vík! and festival coordinator, who told
me a short conference on music in Ice-
land was about to take place. He invited
me to stay and flippantly demand the
panel to switch to English but the show
was about to start so we hit the road.
CAN’T RAIN ON OUR pARADE
We got to the show while the second
band was playing—the mighty Mugi-
son! Mugison and his father master-
minded the festival back in 2003 and
got it happening with the help and
goodwill of their fun-loving friends
and neighbours. When I run into him
later on I ask if it’s still exciting for him.
“Yeah, when the weekend comes and
everything is smooth,” he said, “there
are so many things to get done. We’re
just eight guys doing this and we juggle
the whole process. It’s one of these
things where you postpone a lot, but
finally when you get to it it’s not that
big of a deal. A couple of weeks later
everybody’s like ‘what the fuck?’”
The weather had started out seem-
ingly bearable, but as the evening wore
on, despite all the beers, we were wet
and freezing so we squeezed our way
inside for the end of Páll Óskar’s set.
Next up were Gang Related who knew
how tough their spot was to fill. “I am
freaking out and really, really excited,”
said their frontman Albert Hauksson,
“This is a hundred times more people
than we’ve ever played for. I hope we
do a good job. We were joking that he
[Páll] was here to open up for us!” They
damn near stole the show when the
festival’s announcer Pétur Magnússon
lightly coaxed the drummer’s three-
year old son onto the stage, rocking a
tiny two-stringed guitar perfectly to the
beat. That pretty much topped the night
right there.
AMERICANS AND LOVERS
The show on Saturday started two
hours earlier than Friday so we ignored
our minor hangovers to take in as much
of the town in the daytime. The liquor
store was finally open so it all started
with a mandatory stop there to grab
whatever was left on the shelf. After-
wards we decided to check out the
Westfjord Artfest. At Edinborg we ran
into exhibiting artists Þorvaldur Jóns-
son and Björk Viggósdóttir supervising
the Phobo Phobia exhibition, a collec-
tion of posters from different artists il-
lustrating various phobias. A collection
of individual, large artworks—mostly
paintings—were also on display over at
the Nordic Bakery.
We made it to the gig in time to see
the end of opening band Pollapönk, who
are the only children’s music band ever
that rocks. We’d never heard of the next
band, Ketura, so we thought it would be
some local kids, but it turned out to be
an American electro-rock duo. Accord-
ing to Kristján Freyr, a friend of theirs
from Súðavík who played the previous
year was responsible. “There’s a re-
ally nice guy from Súðavík named Eg-
gert who rents Mugison’s house when
Mugison is in Reykjavík,” he said. “Ba-
sically he just asked us really nicely if
Ketura could play! We didn’t know any-
thing about them, but we said okay.”
For better or for worse, they played to
the children like they were the headlin-
ers. It was something else.
After running off for an incred-
ibly delicious buffet dinner back at
Tjöruhúsið, we spent the next solid six
hours at the show. The weather was
no better than the day before but ev-
eryone was boozed up and feeling re-
ally good. There were seemingly no
bad vibes, even when the police were
trolling about with their “drug-sniffing”
dog that seemed more adept at smell-
ing teen angst than Mary-Jane. The
love-in hit its peak during Reykjavík!’s
set when a couple was called onto the
stage and got engaged. Then Retro
Stefson gave their most top-notch per-
formance to close the show and every-
one went off their tits. Sadly, in a few
hours, we had to go south.
Words
Rebecca Louder
photography
Alísa Kalyanova
Ísafjörður’s 100% Free Good-Time Family Festival
Aldrei fór ég suður is the place to be!
“There were seemingly no bad vibes, even
when the police were trolling about with their
“drug-sniffing” dog that seemed more adept
at smelling teen angst than Mary-Jane. The
love-in hit its peak during Reykjavík!’s set
when a couple was called onto the stage and
got engaged.”