Day three of Iceland Airwaves was highly fulfilling, probably our festival’s climax. Day three started for us with Bedroom Community & Friends at Kaffibarinn. Nadia Sirota & Valgeir Sigurðsson played together four music pieces; one of the compositions, the most temperamental and also the one I personally enjoyed the most, was Valgeir’s own creation (hint: you can watch a video from that day of Nadia Sirota & Valgeir Sigurðsson performing Nico Muhly’s work on our Youtube channel).
Later on, Hauschka offered his audience another unforgettable performance after his show at the Frikirkja on the night before. Thanks to the off-venue’s intimate setting and low-pressure schedule, Mr. Bertelmann had enough time to play an encore and chat with his more than eager audience, giving humorous insight on his quirk for employing unconventional objects to mod the piano. Listening to him talk and observing closely as he was adorning the piano with a variety of impossible trinkets, like it were the most natural thing in the world, once again I couldn’t help wondering what kind of configuration must be at work in the brain circuitry of a musical genius. I ended imagining all sorts of nonsense that I will refrain from posting here.
When time came for in-venue program to start, I moved to Iðnó and I stationed there the whole time. Therefore, no walking around the festival’s venues that, just for your information, were full to the point of exploding by 22 (Harry took the time to drive from one venue to the next and only outside Harpa there were no queues).
My highlight for the night was Puzzle Muteson‘s excellent show. He was joined on stage by the other folks from Bedroom Community, Valgeir Sigurðsson, Daníel Bjarnason and Ben Frost. It was a well-thought and momentous performance, the instant the whole festival came together, in spite of slight technical issues — but the audience didn’t really seem to mind in any case.
A massive fanbase gathered at Iðnó for Owen Pallet, who was the venue’s headliner on Friday. Owen, who was once again supported by Rob Gordon and Matt Smith, played three previously unreleased songs: two of them he had already performed officially in front of an audience in a few other occasions; the other he premiered at Airwaves. One of the songs was introduced as Infernal Fantasy (actual title or a joke on his previous stage name? Both?). The three songs felt pretty much heterogeneous in sound and style.
Other strong presences for day three were Lay Low and Oy. Lay Low‘s set appeared to be suffering a little from the brief allotted time, but she managed to be totally charming and in great form as always. Oy put up a show that is really hard to place: she presented us with a blend of spoken word and music, which were connected through antics worthy of “voodoo lady meets theater of the absurd”.
And here are our photos from the third day of Iceland Airwaves.
Looking for the other issues of our Airwaves photo diary? Here , here and here.
All images (c) putheowl & Iceland Chronicles.
I would have loved to attend but Iceland is not round the corner ;(