Reykjavík Grapevine - 03.07.2015, Page 34

employed, Guðný tells me her insights
as we marvel at the beauty of Mt. Esja
in the breeze of a sunny early June day:
“Getting Napalm Death was a great val-
idation for Eistnaflug as a festival. They
are a big band, having played all sorts
of concerts and festivals over the years,
so scoring a thumbs up from them was
important.”
“Eistnaflug has definitely changed
the metal scene in Iceland,” she adds,
“bands are becoming more ambitious.
They really want to play the festival,
and in order to do so they have to prove
that they’re serious about recording
and touring, and not just occasionally
rehearsing in a garage. But, then, that’s
also part of what makes the scene what
it is. Because of the weather here dur-
ing the winter, you’ve got nothing to do
other than practice with your band.”
The scene politics involved can be
akin to sailing round Cape Horn in a
dingy. Current booker, Gísli Sigmunds-
son of Icelandic death metal pioneers
Sororicide (currently playing with Be-
neath) tells us his approach through
a crinkled Skype connection from his
home in southern Sweden:
“Our current mission is never to
book the same band for two consecu-
tive years,” Gísli says, before elaborat-
ing on Guðný’s point about only featur-
ing local acts that are very active and
have recent or upcoming releases to
their name. However, a glance at the
2015 line-up reveals that this is per-
haps more of a general guideline than
stringently enforced rule. Despite all in-
tentions, gut feeling still seems to play
the biggest part in Eistnaflug’s booking
decisions.
Breaking international ground
For the 2010 edition, the festival had
been advised to invite and host journal-
ists and photographers from prominent
European metal publications to raise
its international profile and document
the event for posterity. The majority of
the journalists that that came in 2010
maintain close ties to the festival, many
showing up year after year to continue
spreading its gospel.
Indeed, Eistnaflug now has a bevy
of friends and well-wishers that go out
of their way to further its cause. Gun-
nar Sauermann, promoter for leading
French independent metal label Season
of Mist and long time Eistnaflug devo-
tee says: “Whenever possible, I try to
return the giant favours bestowed upon
me by the people behind the scenes—
by pulling a string here and there, giv-
ing advice when asked, and contribut-
ing to the event.”
Terrorizer Magazine stalwart José
Carlos Santos remembers his first visit
with a grin on his chin: “A tiny, quaint
little town on a remote fjord in the East
end of Iceland, with 24 hours daylight,
all the Tuborg we can handle, and en-
thusiastic hordes of smiling, peaceful
Icelandic drunks. Do we even need
bands? Actually, we did, and we didn’t
even know it before we were blown
away by most of them.”
Another Terrorizer writer, Olivier
Zoltar Badin, concurs: “The fact that
few years later some of those people I
met and bonded with there are still very
good friends of mine—and that I still
value Eistnaflug as being one of those
rare one-of-a-kind festival in a one-
of-a-kind place—speaks volume about
what I found there. And believe me, I've
been to many festivals. But this one is
unique, truly."
As these players in the international
world of metal educate their combined
readership about both the wonders
of the festival and the prowess of the
local artists, bands such as Sólstafir,
Skálmöld and Angist make an ever
increasing amount of landfalls on for-
eign shores, where they
ravage faraway lands
like the Vikings of yore,
while acting as goodwill
ambassadors for the
festival that originally
supplied them with the
cloth for their sails.
“Sólstafir, for in-
stance, have been do-
ing this since the be-
ginning of Eistnaflug,”
Stebbi offers,” going
around and telling folks
it’s the most fun show
of the year. They’ve sort of acted as our
ambassadors abroad.”
Chowing down on a greasy burger
at American Style, Momentum front-
man Hörður Ólafsson echoes a similar
sentiment: “The addition of internation-
al metal journalists and industry insid-
ers with deep ties and a wide reach has
been instrumental in both the continu-
ous growth of the festival and the inter-
national success of local bands. Many
of these people have formed strong
relationships with key people in the
Icelandic scene—were it not for Gun-
nar [Sauermann], for instance, many of
the important deals and bookings local
metal bands have made in the last few
years simply wouldn’t have happened.
He has a knack for making the right
connections wherever he goes. With-
out him, I imagine both the festival and
our scene would be far less advanced.”
Uncertain future
Big things are afoot for Eistnaflug 2015.
With a record smashing eleven inter-
national acts—up from a mere four last
year—ranging from obscure Danish
post-metal crushers LLNN, to Polish
extreme metal behemoths Behemoth,
2015 is sure to fuck your face off with
extreme prejudice.
Local face-fuckers
of note include im-
minent international
breakout act Kon-
tinuum, perennial
death metal rippers
Severed, and gentle
comeback kids Lights
on the Highway.
Changes are,
however, inevitable,
and as the festival
expands beyond the
limits of the local in-
frastructure—manifest mainly in a lack
of guest and artist accommodations
and the relatively small size of the lo-
cal venues—the question arises; is it
still feasible to arrange such a massive
happening in a small, distant town like
Neskaupstaður? And, perhaps, more
pressing, could the festival continue
to thrive at a different venue in a less
scenic location, deprived of the metal
scene lore attached to the current one?
Pondering this conundrum, Gun-
nar Sauermann offers the following:
“It’s obvious from this year’s billing
that the makers of this metal party are
trying to expand the fun by carefully
growing a little and featuring bigger
names from abroad. Such ambitions
will probably be much welcomed by
the local island scene, while securing
more international media exposure, but
the growth will be naturally limited by
Neskaupstaður’s accommodation situ-
ation. Therefore it is quite likely that the
next three years will see more foreign
bands and guests—however, the great
and unique spirit of this festival should
remain intact.”
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34 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 9— 2015MUSIC
Eistnaflug is the leading and longest
running metal festival in Iceland.
The annual indoor event tradition-
ally occurs over second weekend
of July—its eleventh edition kicks off
on July 8 and will feature the biggest
line-up ever, with Icelandic rock and
metal’s best and brightest taking the
stage alongside a whopping eleven
international acts (a record number
of imports).
This year also marks the inau-
guration of a new and much larger
main venue to fit all the punters and
bands, with the festival’s previous
main site now hosting its official off-
venue programme.
A product of promoter Stefán
“Stebbi Hressi” Magnússon’s hy-
peractive disorder, the festival was
sparked by his creative vision of
injecting some much needed vital-
ity into the cultural sphere of his
then-hometown of Neskaupstaður,
where he found himself teaching el-
ementary school phys ed in the early
naughts.
Eistnaflug has grown to be an
important event in many respects;
for the region, for the Icelandic metal
and hardcore scenes, and, increas-
ingly, as part of the international
metal festival spectrum.
For Neskaupstaður, it has both
cultural and economic benefits. As
a domestic—and increasingly inter-
national—tourist attraction, its draw,
and fiscal turnaround dwarfs every
other regional event. It also serves
to lend its location sense of identity
and purpose.
For the Icelandic metal scene, it
provides a yearly high tide, a sense
of belonging, and a means for bands
to promote themselves both domes-
tically and internationally. By now,
securing a spot at Eistnaflug is con-
sidered a major milestone in an up-
and-coming Icelandic metal band’s
career.
Originally a destination for the
hardest core of the Icelandic metal
scene, Eistnaflug’s demographic has
expanded exponentially over past
last few years. While still attracting
that same core audience, Eistnaflug
attendees now come in all shapes
and sizes, including internet metal
nerds, curious tourists, locals from
surrounding fjords, mainstream
metal fans and road trip-hungry hip-
sters lured by the addition of non-
metal acts to the line-up.
What’s
An
Eistnaflug?
Eistnaflug has defi-
nitely changed the
metal scene in Ice-
land,” she adds,
“bands are becoming
more ambitious. They
really want to play the
festival, and in order
to do so they have
to prove that they’re
serious about record-
ing and touring, and
not just occasionally
rehearsing in a garage