Iceland review - 2002, Qupperneq 25

ICELAND REVIEW 23
“I was born in this building,” she tells
me, as we follow her father to his favourite
instrument on display, an unmarked accor-
dion nearly 100 years old. It’s #48 on the
exhibit list, and Ásgeir drove all the way to
the northeastern coast of Iceland last
August to retrieve it from 91-year-old
Jóhann Jósepsson.
“It’s my favourite one in the collection,”
Ásgeir says through his daughter’s transla-
tion, “because Jóhann was one of the first
Icelanders to play the modern accordion.
He popularised it by travelling around
Iceland to perform for all the people.”
The museum is packed with visitors,
some fans of the accordion, others are just
trying to find out what all the excitement
in town is about. Sigrídur informs me that
this is just a temporary exhibit and that
Ásgeir is searching for a permanent home
for his varied collection.
“Until there’s a museum, he will keep
them all at his home. But he has a big
house and if people ask, he will invite them
over to see them,” she tells me.
Night dancing
Ísafjördur is surrounded by mountains to
the south, west and east. To the north are
the fertile fishing waters of the North
Atlantic. During the summer, the step from
day to night goes relatively unnoticed
here, except for the wash of deep purples
and light pinks colouring the mountainous
skyline at dusk. Normally the sidewinding
streets of this northwestern outpost are as
empty as a desert well. And eerily silent.
Tonight, the carnival sound of accordions
fills the air as locals and visitors hit the
streets in force.
My friend and I are tagging along with
the filmmaker and his crew of one, bearing
witness to this odd festival that has all the
cheese of a Las Vegas convention. It’s
11:30PM and we’re standing in the parking
lot of Samkaup, the local shopping market.
In front of us is the body of a gutted-out
purple semi-trailer. Inside, a band of seven
accordion players plus a drummer perform
to a crowd of 30 plus. Some listeners dance
to the band’s polka sounds—a mother and
her son, an elderly couple dressed up for
the night out. Even teenagers too cool to
listen to this forgotten form of music
pause. We leave. Return within an hour.
The band has shrunk to three. The parking
lot has all but emptied. The trio plays on.
Most revellers have congregated inside
Krúsin Pub, located below the local movie
theatre that, as the sign reads, is only open
on Sundays and Mondays at 9:00PM.
Despite the fact that the clientele inside
the pub is pushing 90, the alcohol flows as
if this were a college graduation party.
Onstage, an eight-piece band performs
swing jazz. This bar is rocking so hard that
the humidity is unbearable - it has a sweaty,
velvety feel. I move to the lobby where pic-
tures of Rita Hayworth, Errol Flynn, Clark
Gable and Marilyn Monroe decorate the
walls. The under-35 crowd is represented
only by the four of us, who feel a bit like
intruders. Sweating and gasping for fresh
air, we retreat to the parking lot.
Indoors and outside, day and night, the
festival was a big hit.
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