Iceland Airwaves 2011 in Photos Pt. 2

Hard to believe, but for Airwaves day two we had an agenda. In the afternoon, we moved our legs in direction of Kaffibarinn for Bedroom Community & Friends off-venue event. We had a really good time with Michael Wookey, singer, song-writer and multi-instrumentalist, an artist whose music we were not familiar with. He let us watch him play an assortment of instruments while his fingers bled badly, which was indeed quite thrilling. Puzzle Muteson played the next set, singing quietly with the accompaniment of his guitar alone, with the bearing of a romantic gentleman. The notes flowed lightly and it felt like it just lasted a few instants.

By the time Owen Pallett was calling his audience “cute”, the venue was incredibly packed. I was lucky to attend one of Owen’s one-man shows years ago and I could see a significant change in his present way of performing. I’m not talking about technique, but about stage confidence. Owen now feels more of an experienced showman than before and I assume credit goes also to Rob Gordon and Matt Smith — former bandmates in Les Mouches — who are not only helping him to expand his live possibilities, but are also a much more solid backbone to his music than a loop pedal alone.

Planning for the in-venue schedule was not as straightforward. The festival’s site clearly stated cloning facilities were not to be offered to people attending, so we had to make choices. Yes. After days of program-in-hand mumbling and ruminating, we went for the mix and match approach (sadly, that meant leaving out the concert at Harpa Elborg, which, we heard, was mind-blowing). Our first stop was thus the Fríkirkja.

Kira Kira opened the night with one of her highly hypnotic sets. With the support of a group of frequent collaborators — that included Samuli Kosminen on drums –, she turned the concave interior of the church into an insulated refuge, even though illumination was far from optimal to create a mood. Hauschka offered an extraordinary glimpse of the inside of an artist’s head. The contrasting image of the tree branches moving restlessly in the wind outside and the musician slightly bowed at the piano, with an array of bizarre knick-knacks and ping-pong balls flying about, was unexpectedly surreal, also in light of the overwhelming music filling the silence of the church. It felt pretty much like the end of the world as seen from inside a dream. Kind of eerie, in a way.

In the meantime, the queue outside the Art Museum had reached ridiculous proportions. We arrived before Retro Stefson started to play and we were lucky enough that we didn’t get killed: people waiting in line were furious at us for getting in easily thanks to the media passes we were given. Some people couldn’t manage to get in for Beach House, even though they were in line for a long time, under the rain and in the cold. This is one of the traditional issues of Airwaves. People buy the ticket for a band or two and sometimes they travel all the way to Iceland from other countries to attend their shows; then, they are led to think they can move with ease among venues and take advantage of all the fantastic music there is; in the end, more often than not, venues are too crowded and they cannot attend the concert they paid for. Organizers should perhaps work harder in the future to prevent situations like this to take place.

My personal anticipation for Beach House at Airwaves was moderate, but I was honestly curious to see them live, to understand if and how their sound could hold in a somewhat casual and rather animated situation. With the band showing little or no connection with their audience and hiding behind curtains of thick smoke and awful stage lighting, I could barely distinguish Victoria’s face and striped pants in the fog, but her voice was translucent and strong enough to place her in time and space. Not the same can be said of Alex Scally, who just remained seated — though with his jumpy legs in constant movement — at the left end of the stage almost the whole time, playing his few chords with the attitude of an introverted newcomer that doesn’t want to be noticed at his first recital. Some Beach House fans were entranced, while others looked quite perplexed or, at any rate, not fully gratified. In any case, the impression was that most of the band’s ability to captivate the listener is lost outside the album format or, perhaps, huge events are just not what suits their sound and spirit best.

Here are our selected photos from day two of Iceland Airwaves. We hope you enjoy.

More? Here , here and here

All photos (c) putheowl and Iceland Chronicles.