Reykjavík Grapevine - 07.04.2017, Blaðsíða 25

On the first of April we attended a
concert at Húrra by kef LAVÍK: the
band has a sense of humour for sure,
but the music and performance that
night was certainly no joke. The
Auto-Tuned teenage angst blaring
from the stage was palpable and the
crowd was so dedicated you could of-
ten hear the audience singing along
louder than the singer on the stage.
The drug-fuelled melodramatic sto-
rytelling reached its high points in
singalongs like: “You’re such a bad
person/and ugly on the inside/it’s
good that I’m basically the same.” Al-
though kef LAVÍK have been churn-
ing out music for a long time, this
was only their second official concert,
but if the audience reaction was any-
thing to go by, the demand for more of
them is higher than Hallgrímskirkja.
–––––––––––
With the weather recently teasing us
with a fake spring, it got us thinking
about the summer ahead and the fes-
tivals that it brings. Secret Solstice is
the most summery festival in Iceland,
and we’ve yet to tell you about some of
the less talked-about acts that they’ve
announced. The line-up is heavy on
90s nostalgia and modern hip-hop.
We’re excited about the hip-hop/
funk of anderson.paak and the bea-
tle-esque psychedelia of Unknown
Mortal Orchestra. We look forward
to dancing to the old school house of
Black Madonna, and no force could
stop us from witnessing the fitness
of the one and only Roots Manuva.
On the west side of the island,
another festival will take place next
week that could be called Iceland’s
most wintery. Aldrei fór ég suður (“I
never went south”) has been held dur-
ing Easter in Ísafjörður since 2004.
This year's program is a diverse mix
of artists, including Kött Grá Pje,
Soffía Björg, Ham, Valdimar, KK
band, Vök, Börn, Mugison, and
many more. We highly recommend
this festival and also, it’s free!
Pedal to the Metal
Just don’t say 'Hillary' and don’t say 'Clinton'
‘From Top to Bottoms’
Debuts at Bíó Paradís on 20 April with
English subtitles
Imagine hundreds of Icelanders de-
scending upon rural America to partake
in what seems a very American pastime:
racing, crashing and rapidly rebuilding
oversized vehicles. Though this sounds
like a cultural exchange program gone
awry, it’s entirely authentic—so au-
thentic that this Nordic escapade is
the subject of a forthcoming documen-
tary entitled ‘From Top to Bottoms’.
Off-roading—the act of competi-
tively driving heavy-duty vehicles
across unpaved tracks clogged with
mud and rock—is not as quintessen-
tially American as one might think.
The sport, which is often criticized in
the US for marring national parks and
fragile ecosystems, has a long history
in Iceland: in the late 1960s, a Jeep club
in Akureyri started revving their en-
gines across marshlands and lava fields.
The activity became known as “tor-
færa”—which translates to “hazard.”
“I fell in love with the crowd and
how they act and talk,” says Andri Freyr
Viðarsson, the film’s director. “These
are unique people, basically lunatics.”
Andri grew up in eastern Iceland,
where kids in the 1990s ogled over tor-
færa and its kingpin, Árni Kópsson. “He
was the coolest guy; he won every com-
petition,” recounts Andri. “He used to
drive around the country and sign post-
ers and give kids Coca-Cola.” Andri had
three posters in his childhood room,
and one of them depicted Árni’s car.
When Árni retired in the mid 90s,
torfæra went underground. But the
sport still held sway over Andri: in 2015,
he was invited to be an announcer for a
competition in eastern Iceland. It was
there he heard that fifteen drivers and
their retinue of crewmen and relatives
were heading to Bikini Bottoms Off
Road Park in Dyersburg, Tennessee—
and what’s more, Árni was coming.
“When I heard he was going to bring
his old car back, rebuild it and go with
them after a twenty-year break, I called
him up, asked if I could go to his garage
and follow him to America,” says Andri.
The rest, as they say, is history: Árni
assented, the Icelanders crammed their
cars into shipping containers, and off
they flew to the land of the big, bombas-
tic and beer-guzzling. When they arrived
in Dyersburg, the motel manager gave
them three rules: don’t hold hands, don’t
say “Hillary” and don’t say “Clinton.” The
next night he showed them his guns.
Rather than provide a play-by-play
of the races, Andri wanted to discern
what makes torfæra enthusiasts tick:
many of the drivers work at sea for much
of the year, then spend all their mon-
ey on their cars during the summer.
“If it were me, I would be sitting on
a beach drinking beer, not going from
hard work in Iceland to work some-
where else even harder,” Andri says.
And the title? It’s not just a refer-
ence to the off-road park. It’s also a
marketing tactic. “A lot of horny people
will mistake it for a porno and buy it,”
says Andri.
SHARE: gpv.is/rur05
Words:
Óli Dóri &
Davíð Roach
Straumur,
Iceland's
premier indie
music radio
show, airs on
X977, Mon. at
23:00. Daily
music news
in Icelandic at
straum.is
Words:
Gabriel
Dunsmith
Photo:
Supplied by
Andri Freyr
25
Auto-Tuned
Teenage Angst
Straumur
CULTURE
NEWS
NEW
MUSIC
“A lot of
horny
people will
mistake
it for a
porno and
buy it”
Whose Line Is It Anyway?
Improv Festival
April 5-9, 20:00, Various Locations
2.000 - 4.000 ISK
If you’ve ever been to a drama
class, you’ll have tried improv. It’s
a sure-fire way to embarrass your-
self in front of a group of people…
no, a group of llamas!...no, a group
of E-coli!... no, a group of clouds!
If you have no idea what I’m on
about, boy are you in for a treat.
Head to the improv festival for
five days of workshops, shows and
jams! JS
Go Greased Lightning!
First Drifting Of The Summer
April 7, 19:00, Aksturssvæði AÍH,
1.000 - 3.000 ISK
Did you love that scene in 'Grease'
where Sandy is having an exis-
tential crisis and all the boys race
their cars and smash each other
up? Of course you did; it was before
John Travolta went crazy and the
world was a better place. Now that
summer has apparently begun in
Reykjavík, it’s time to dust off the
wheels and drag race like school’s
out at Rydell High. JS
EXTREME SHIT
AK Extreme in Akureyri
April 6-8, Sjallin, Akureyri, 5.900 ISK
Eat shit. Buy shit. Bleed shit. Con-
sume shit. Listen to shit. Shit shit.
Become shit. Sound a bit extreme?
That’s because it is—get ready
for AK Extreme, featuring people
skiing and snowboarding and
everyone’s favorite rappers Gísli
Pálmi, Sturla Atlas, and Emmsjé
Gauti. It’s so phenomenal, you’ll
blow your internal organs. It’s in
Akureyri, so dole out the dough
and cart your pasty, drug-infested
body to the north. GD