Ok so no actual road tripping today, the day started very wet so we were glad we were in the same building as the breakfast room today, it’s an extension with a glass ceiling so the rain really hammered down. After breakfast we just went back to our room to chill, it was nice not to be rushing around to check out and head off somewhere else.
Once it brightened up we headed out to look around shops etc, there was a book I’d been after but bizarrely the shipping from Iceland to the UK can often cost more than the item, so it was nice to go into a bookshop to check it out. We also had a late lunch/brunch at stalwart Prikið as is one of our traditions. Unfortunately the menu has changed to a more limited version, and the coffee with refills no more.
The rest of the afternoon was spent mooching around Reykjavik, visiting the likes of 12 Tonar and photographing graffiti as I obviously didn’t want to expend all my energy before heading to Gaukurinn for Live from Reykjavik.
Live from Reykjavik was like a mini slice of Iceland Airwaves (we had tickets and everything else booked for Airwaves, when it got cancelled in September), for one night only.
Four venues, each with four acts, being live streamed – the only difference was that we in person attendees couldn’t venue hop on the night. We had selected Gaukurinn which had Gugusar, Inspector Spacetime, BSÍ and Reykjavíkurdætur (Daughters of Reykjavik) performing. I was aware of and looking forward to seeing 3 out the 4 bands, a rare feat.
It was a pretty cool and eclectic night, gugusar is an electronic artist recording and producing her own stuff at barely 16, managed to miss the start of her set but what I saw was great. Inspector Spacetime were kooky, almost where you can’t tell if they’re being kooky on purpose or accidental, didn’t help that one of the band was dressed like me circa 1995.
BSí were the third band and are probably what the NME would refer to as post punk. They even included a protest during their show – as it was being live streamed, calling out the festival sponsor – Icelandair for supporting/providing deportations for asylum seekers – tbh we were surprised to find out it all aired and wasn’t cut. I loved their album so much I bought it, check out Sometimes Depressed...But Always Antifascist here.
Finally we had the Daughters of Reykjavik, a various numbers (sometimes its 9 sometimes more, the membership varies according to I guess, schedules and other projects) all female rap collective. Given how I’m writing this 4 months later, you may also know them as the runners up in Iceland’s competition for a Eurovision entry. After one too many Krombachers I might have told some members of DTR how awesome they are. Not pictured here is the daughters in their final costumes which were nude coloured body suits, which to AI made them naked (I had my photos removed from Insta for them being too rude!). More recently the band have started mixing English with Icelandic which will hopefully widen their fanbase, but even when they’re not singing in English, you can kinda get the gist – worth looking them up on youtube.
Speaking of which you want a sneak peek of what the event was like, the Reykjavik Grapevine posted a short video -there doesn’t seem to be much else online.
Culturenator 