Wednesday 18/10/06 Day 1 @ Iceland Airwaves, Reykjavik

Which mad bastard decided to put on a festival here? Scrub that, which mad bastard Viking decided living here was a good plan in the first place? When Kim Jong Il gets a bit itchy after one of those marathon crystal meth sessions he likes to indulge with His Excellency Bobby Mugabe and finally inputs FIRE and AMERICA into Windows Nu Clear, this primordial landscape is surely a fairly accurate blueprint for post apocalypse USA. Sub zero temperatures, steaming lagoons, geysers, malevolent chasms where the country is quite literally splitting in two; this is the end of the world with a scarf on. The fact that plants have made the decision en masse to not to decorate this isle says much about the wisdom of the Vikings dropping anchor here.

In such inhospitable environs, the denizens of Iceland have cleverly surmised that the only route through the physical hardship of their homeland is to not bother exposing oneself to it in the first place. In lieu of the British mindset of gurning about how shite life is and doing nowt about it, Ze Icelanders simply dedicate their existences to the finer things in life. Favoured national pastimes include eating lobster drizzled in rare truffles and 100 year old olive oil, supping 1982 Bordeaux and checking out art and bands and stuff. The post district Reykjavik 101 is the temple they’ve erected to all this and Airwaves is its Christmas. R101 is every hipster, the world o’ers, wank fantasy cum true: teeming with beautiful people, ultra modern bars, cafes, beautiful people and record stores - even the supermarkets look like Alexander McQueen designed them.

Every junior Icelander is encouraged to express their individuality when they’re young. No merging into a chavvy/goth backdrop here (don’t think I just throw these ‘facts’ in willy nilly, oh no, this is some well researched empirical shit: two semi-drunk Icelandic girls told me at least). This results in every one under 40 looking like they’ve just walked off of the set of an underground slacker movie staring Keanu Reeves.

Anyway, eventually you get bored of playing with your ace toys in your ace clothes in your acerer bedroom and want to show them off to your mates/the world; this is where Airwaves comes in. In essence, this festival is a testament to how good these people are at having a good time.  And, boy, they’re good. Conceived in 1999 as a vehicle to promote Icelandic dancemeisters Gus Gus, it’s swollen year-on-year to 200+ bands, 21 venues and a major source of tourism for Iceland.

For 2006, the promoters reduced capacity, yeah, you heard me Mean Fiddler, reduced capacity because when they weighed up the idea of creaming huge dirty profits against people having to queue to get into venues they decided their customers enjoyment was paramount. In a stinky world of ultra-capitalism, this is a staggering statement of intent and results in one slick bad lad of a festival.  The party’s hub is the media centre where tickets are collected, line-up changes announced, acoustic sessions indulged in, food consumed and models gawped at. From here the festival fans out in all directions: its 21 venues being found inside a square mile: they number art galleries, museums, coffee shops, record stores and bars. The bigger venues are pretty much queue-free whereas some of the wee sweatboxes have about a 5 minute wait at peak time. There’s mental shit going off all over Airwaves and to just steam in and out of venues at one’s leisure is akin to festival nirvana.