Airwaves Day 4 – Pixeled Passport

| 05-Nov-2016 | Headed out to meet our friend Leana for breakfast at Cafe Paris. It’s always fun to get the local low-down over American style breakfast and coffee. Fortified, we headed over to the Flea Marché to see what’s hot in used-new in RVK. Even the Flea looks like it had a bit of an upgrade – cleaner and brighter in years past. The cafe moved to a new location and the smelly food market is more isolated.

More urban artwork from RVK, including more of Wall Poetry 2016.

Early dinner tonight of ham and cheese sandwiches on rolls from Braud. I won’t lie, ham and cheese on European crusty bread may be my favorite meal when I can’t actually cook something. (Who am I kidding – it may be my favorite meal, period. 😀)

We picked put the cheese yesterday at the cheesemonger by the harbor – it’s locally made.

Made our way to Harpa for the 5pm show by the incomparable Björk. She’s doing her entire current album accompanied by strings from the Icelandic national philharmonic.

The first half was intense. Disjointed stings, downer lyrics, red costume, red lighting kind of intense. The second half was a little lighter and brighter. Overall an outstanding performance.

First up this evening: Gunnar Jansson Collider. Ambient. Psychedelic. Their backing media show was the most interesting we’ve seen.

Next up was Tonik Ensemble. Somehow we didn’t get any pictures of this one, but it looks like it has in previous years … except with a singer. Solid set by a well-established electronic act.

For a while we were sitting on the floor next to a couple of members of The Ills whom we saw play a couple of nights ago. They were thrilled to hear that we enjoyed their show. It’s always nice to be able to chat with the musicians at the festival and they’re always around.

Not sure what happened to Ben Frost, who was supposed to be up next, but the last minute replacement was Hermigervill. Always a fun set when Hermigervill is on the controls. Today he was particularly chatty which was entertaining. And a special treat, a one-song guest appearance by frequent collaborator, Berndsen. Bonus for us since we love the bearded wonder and we didn’t get a chance to see him this year.

Let’s Eat Grandma: two young ladies from the UK playing some very interesting art pop music. Unfortunately, the sound mix was off and the low end of their set pretty much killed the vocals. I’ve heard a couple of tracks on the radio and was really looking forward to seeing them here.

Interesting set from SG Lewis, a UK DJ doing a relatively un-DJ-like set. The 3-piece, backed by some pretty wicked beats mixed up a pretty slick, not-quite-techno performance.

Icelandic party band FM Belfast celebrating 10 years for Airwaves performances. Looks like the band has undergone some changes since we saw them last but they still packed Silfurberg to the limit for the 1am kickoff.It’s aways a train wreck to try to leave Silfurberg during a packed show. Despite having four entrance/exit doors for the room, for whatever reason Security always to pushes all the traffic through one …. on the side. So when we decided to leave we knew it was going to get ugly about half way across the room… and it did. I was holding on to Jeff and basically the crowd was holding me up as we attempted to weave through the dense crowd; trying to avoid a beer shower, stepping on feet and bags. I picked up a few people behind me who were also looking to get out, then we met up with another exiting people-snake coming up from the front of the room. Once converged, it was like a conga line to the exit. The lobby outside the door – empty. They are EXITS people, let’s use them. Also, by pushing all the traffic in through one door, there’a at least a third of the far side of the room that’s practically empty. Whatever; it’s like this every year.

Harpa looking amazing as it dances with color. Mostly rainbow, but it did switch to a blue/purple palette later in the evening.

2am pizza by the slice. The pizza place is in the heart of the clubs just across from “downtown” and usually full of drunks by this time of night on Saturday. Tonight was no exception – get in, grab a slice, and get out as fast as humanly possible.