And the festival begins. Reykjavik is once again engulfed in music. You can hear all types of music as you walk down the street. Coffee shops, clothing stores, and restaurants all partake in the off-venue part of Airwaves during the day. Stripped down small sets of not only the Airwaves festival bands, but quite a few other local bands as well.
And at night things were in a full swing, I really enjoy the return to the old feel of airwaves. Running to and from individual venues and stopping by other venues for a quick listen. My schedule last night was only 60% followed, but consisted of Cyber, Benny Crespo’s Gang, Ceasetone, Ruxpin, and Högni.
Photos say a thousand words they say, so for this year’s Airwaves I will just let you look at the pics, and leave the write up for the wrap up. You can follow me on Facebook for photos, comments, random photos, and band information, or you can see all the photos on Flickr:
Unlike past years, Iceland Airwaves will be in two cities this year, Reykjavik and Akureyri giving festival goers a chance to see more of the island, and from the looks of it, bringing more Icelandic bands from all over together to play. You can now look at the schedule here. And here are my tips to make the festival more enjoyable.
I will be photographing the festival this year and if you follow my Facebook page you view at your leisure. You can see photos from Airwaves past here.
218 bands have been announced so far of which 162 are Icelandic. I make this page as a quick reference and it’s a good thing to bookmark while you’re at the festival. There will be times where your plans may not come to fruition and you can look at the app, find a band you’ve never heard of for plan B, and use the quick reference here to see if you dig it.
With Icelandic bands it can always be hard to categorize their music styles as one of the greatest things about them is their ability to snag and grab their favorite things from all over the musical spectrum and make it work for them. So these lists are just general nods in the direction you may be looking for, for example, the Dance table, they sit right on the edge of electronic and dance pop/rock and beats. But I tried to focus on the prominence of a lead singer and the beats of the bulk of their songs in deciding which side to place them.
I’ve also made a table of just Möller Records and Thule Records artists as they have quite the strong presence this year. Both of these record labels have continually brought amazing electronic acts out of the Icelandic woodwork for years and I’m really stoked to visit their stage and get my fill of their collective music.
Categorizing some bands can be extremely difficult as they run borders are freely through genres, so if you feel a band needs to be moved into a different category let me know and I’ll change it.
And, the final announcement is out. Almost 230 bands will be at Iceland Airwaves 2015, and while we’ll definitely miss Björk and Mammút, The Airwaves staff have outdone themselves with the roster this year. This is the most bands I have seen yet, 155 of the 230 bands are Icelandic, and they span the spectrum of every genre. Here is the new announcement, Directed, edited and created by the wonderful Ingibjörg Birgisdóttir, Sin Fang once again is credited with the music, and… Now we all know who Gangly is.
Also announced for this year is a festival within a festival. On Sunday, the final night of the festival,the mini-festival called Extreme Chill will happen at the Vodafone Hall. One last hurrah and “laid back” night of music, featuring Hot Chip, Introbeats, dj. flugvél og geimskip, Agent Fresco, Emmsjé Gauti, Sleaford Mods, Úlfur Úlfur and FM Belfast. You can learn more about it here. It’s a fantastic idea, because if you have done Airwaves right, nothing will sound better than only having to go to one place to finish off in musical bliss.
As I did for 2014 and 2013, I’ve listed all of the Icelandic bands playing into loosely divided into genres on this page. Clicking on their name will open a new tab with the Iceland Airwaves info page for that artist, which includes Soundcloud, Social media links, and a short bio.
This list is just the Icelandic bands playing, if you want to see the full line-up go to the Iceland Airwaves Line-up page.
You can listen to all the bands playing this year via Iceland Airwaves Spotify playlist here:
And here are the previous video announcements:
Video four was Directed, produced, and shot by Máni M Sigfússon, starring Kælan Mikla, with music by Sin Fang:
Video three was produced by Les Frères Stefson, directed and written by, Unnsteinn Manuel Stefánsson And the banker was Haraldur Ari Stefánsson:
Video two with Hrafnkell Örn Guðjónsson drumming away as band names float across the screen:
First announcement with Dj. Flugvél og Geimski:
I would suggest getting your tickets sooner than later, especially if you are planning on doing a package you’ll have more hotel options in the beginning now than you will in a month. Typically the festival sells out, but with the line up looking as good as it does this year, I would imagine it will sell out sooner than later. I’m sure you wouldn’t want to be on the wrong end of “you snooze, you lose”
If you want to see what the past has been like, here is a link to all my Iceland Airwaves related posts. And here is the link to the Iceland Airwaves Flickr page if you want to see just how fun this festival really is.