Iceland Airwaves 2012

ICELAND AIRWAVES: A MUSICAL JOURNEY

Preface: How I almost didn’t get there.

I fell in love with Iceland in February of 2012. As with all true love, this was neither expected nor planned. The unique combination of energy and visual calm found a place in me on so many levels, I knew I had to return for more — and, as a musician, what better time than Iceland Airwaves, the annual late fall music festival featuring indie, hip-hop/electronica, industrial metal, and singer/songwriters from Iceland, Europe and the US and Canada.

I inhale music. I dissect lyrics and am constantly making playlists. I sing in a band. Songs have been my soundtrack and my best friend since my mom drove my sister and me around 1960s Milwaukee blasting top 40 from the tinny radio of her baby-blue VW Beetle. Which, when you do the math, makes me probably . . . a bit more mature than your average Airwaves participant, I fear.

My traveling companion Matthew, fellow singer and bandmate and some years my junior, expresses his concern that the music/crowd/vibe might be too young for him. I have to laugh. Really? I do not state the obvious – what this crowd are going to think when they see me: ‘Oh look, there’s the lead singer’s Nana. How sweet. Too bad about her hair,’ and then return to ingesting/inhaling/imbibing their mind-altering/mood-altering liquids, gels and powders.

Hmm. Having said that, maybe in their altered states they won’t even notice me in the darkness/with the pulsing music/if I cover my face with a knit hat.

So: decision made in May. Tickets purchased, flights booked, plans made.

Fast forward to late October, and Frankenstorm Sandy.

And, okay, so maybe I don’t always see things clearly. For instance: the black and grey bandage dress that looked so great when I tried it on in the Anthropologie dressing room while the awesome Band of Horses song played – that, when I got it home, climbed too high and dipped too low and was too . . . much. And those nerd glasses I knew would make me look wry and ironic – that, after I got them home, pretty much just made me look like a nerd, but older.

And, most recent case in point, the Weather Channel-generated cone of horror showing Hurricane Sandy bearing down on central Manhattan. “Hype,” my mind says. “The Weather Channel’s shameless attempt to drum up advertising dollars. It will probably limp ashore,” I assure myself, packing blithely for my departure from New York in a few days time (Monday, October 29, Imminent Hurricane Sandy Landfall Day).

I am a victim of the blind confidence of the hopeful traveler. Surely Icelandair, hardy representative airline of a nation of fierce, fearless adventurers, won’t let a little wind and rain keep them from landing at JFK on Monday evening.

And so the delusion begins, fueled in part by the “don’t worry be happy” attitude of my friend Gudny at Icelandair Holidays, with whom I have been emailing about my situation. “Don’t worry!, “ she comforts me with exclamation points — “Fingers crossed! Have fun at Airwaves!” How can such cheerful confidence mean anything but, “Yes! We will get you there!”

Is that pure Icelandic fortitude I hear, or the barest hint of desperation?

Thankfully, by mid-Saturday sweet reason takes over: I cancel New York plans and find space on the Sunday night Icelandair flight from Washington Dulles to Reykjavik. Since Icelandair has no contingency rebooking plan in place, I pay $545 for the privilege (what price exclamation points, Gudny?) and the peace of mind.

Day One: Escape from Dulles.

My kind and longsuffering husband (sound engineer for our band, so you get the level of commitment here) volunteers to drive me the six hours from Wilmington NC up to DC. At one point it occurs to me that he will pull into the driveway of our home about 30 minutes before I touch down at Keflavik.

Weather in DC? Overcast. No rain. No wind. No Sandy.

Once on board, as in February, I am in awe of the kind but no-nonsense demeanor of the face of Icelandair, these fierce Nordic warrior women with their upswept blonde hair and traditional flight attendant hats. Make no mistake: these are not the stewardesses from Pan Am – not in any way. (Nor were the check-in counter personnel any less fierce – my suitcase weighed probably 55 pounds, and the [slim, tall, blonde] Icelandair representative hoisted it onto the conveyor belt behind her like it was made of Styrofoam].)

As we taxi out and the pilot speaks to us in Icelandic (a combination of Russian and running water), I just want him to keep talking. I believe every word he says – whatever they mean.

And it occurs to me that everyone on this flight looks like they are in a band, wants to be, or once was. Everyone. And none of them speak English.

I am still on the ground at Dulles and already it has started – the pull of the peace, the settling calm. It could be due to the pillow with the Icelandic lullaby about swans, little children and lambs at play. Or the array of fascinating Icelandic facts flashing on the screen in front of me: for instance, the Prime Minister’s phone number is in the phone book. Every Icelander can trace their lineage back to the original settlers (and I find out later that there is even a website young single Icelanders can consult so they don’t mistakenly date their cousin). Fifty percent of the population still believes in elves.

I settle in to hope for sleep and the last things I see are the illuminated no smoking signs above each and every seat. Are they meant to be nostalgic? Ironic? I remember the days when I thought I could keep a plane in the air through sheer force of will. No need for that now, as my eyes shut and I wonder about Airwaves, the vibe, and just who we will meet in daylight and who will emerge only at night.

Day Two: Really still Day One, but longer.

It’s an hour by Fly Bus from Keflavik Airport to Reykjavik, and if you are on a 6 am arrival chances are you’ll sleep (after checking email, since these buses have wifi) instead of taking in the view – which doesn’t matter because it’s pretty much still night until 9 am this time of year. The desk staff at the Reykjavik Centrum (www.hotelcentrum.is) are kind and allow me an early room.

Later, sitting in Kaffi Kvosin inhaling a veggie sandwich and fruit tea, I notice that everyone on the street looks like they’ve been on at least one episode of VH-1 Behind the Music. I am reassured to see many ages on the faces I see. The women (and by women I mean 20-year-olds, including the hyper-stylish front desk clerk at the Centrum) have perfected the short black skirt/boots/great leather belt that looks like it’s just been artfully torn from sharkskin (but not a real shark, if such things offend you) look, and I am glad I have left my ski weekend clothing at home. Reykjavik is not Aspen, nor even Park City: cold, yes, but sleekly cosmopolitan.

One more mug of hearty tea (Twinings? Really?) and having rubbed shoulders with several Airwaves artists (did they all go to the same Vibe the Musician stylist? Neatly tied wool scarf around the neck for men? Yes. Females with – surprise — black tights and boots? Yes.) I’m out the door to photograph the charming incongruities that are Reykjavik – the Irish Buffet restaurant tucked behind traditional Scandinavian architecture featuring artfully carved wooden waves bearing aloft a one-dimensional Viking vessel.

The buses are so appealing here, in their bright yellow paint and boxy futuristic frames. Come away with me! Let me transport you to a magical place! Hitvelir, for instance! OK! I am ready! If only I knew where these places were! County jail? City dump? Outskirts of town? Hinterlands? I had to decline. Clearly I do not have the genetic makeup these early Icelanders had – people about whom this poem was written, found on the wall inside Hallssgrimkirkja, Reykjavik’s landmark Lutheran church:

FOOTPRINTS Soundless the snow is falling outside the cave inside I hear the echo of the forefathers when the tide is low I search for their footprints looking for drops of blood soon covered by white sheets of heaven travelling through a wide open land a new journey of no return

This is the part of the soul which emerges in Iceland – the part that rushes towards the unknown, the unusual, the unimagined. What I’ve learned: you can never come to a place expecting to be healed, cleansed, lifted and released. This comes when it comes. I sit at Te & Kaffi nursing a cup of steaming fruit tea and work to get my head straight in terms of what I can accomplish here. A safe place, yes. A place where thoughts with no resolution can turn and turn into themselves like taffy in the arms of a kneading machine.

The truth is, I am damaged: I have arrived on the heels of a workout injury that has kept me immobile for the past month, relying on wheelchairs outdoors and pushing myself around on my wheeled desk chair at home and at the office. That I am here at all is still processing, and I am finding my head rearranging to make room for confidence and momentum that I has been missing for some time. Healing comes when it comes, I know.

I began to feel it as I walk (I am walking!) slowly along the waterfront to the harbor, staggered by the brace of wind that pushes against me the minute I leave the shelter of the buildings and approach the water. The sky in Iceland changes by the minute. Clouds chase by, blue bits flirt, then there are clumped puffs that look like the side of the marshmallow when it’s been toasted just enough. And then suddenly everywhere it’s that solid gray that equals winter. I have my camera ready to capture every quick change, and I remember my last visit and scrolling through photos spanning an hour’s time that go from sunshine straight to snow.

Later that evening I sit in my cozy room at Reykjavik Centrum and scroll through news websites on my laptop as my cynicism about The Weather Channel’s relentless Sandy coverage and warnings turns to horror at the flooded devastation. Shame on me.

Day Three: Preparation

The weather is what I expect, and always a surprise. Bundled to my eyebrows in winter gear and necessary scarf, I am excited that the day has started clear and blue and icy cold – and my hopes for perfect Northern Lights viewing this evening are high until the ever reliable Bjorn (Extreme Iceland, http://www.extremeiceland.is) emails to suggest we book another day, since this evening doesn’t look promising. He sends along two links, one to the sad radar showing creeping cloud cover, and the other indicating bottom-of-the-spectrum NL potential. I am not worried. We have five more days.

I find a spot by the window at Uncle Tom’s Cabin http://www.i.ja.is/uncle-toms-cabin , a ten-table café featuring a comfy sofa and the promising background whoosh of milk being foamed for coffee. As I sit writing these notes, surprising snow falls from blue skies and blows down the side streets, circling around the feet of the strolling shoppers. I remember that this is what people look like in Milwaukee in winter – except transplanted to a painting where they are surrounded by colors and light – the clothing is as bulky, the cheeks and noses as red, but the faces are different. Okay, and today features plenty of plaid flannel, facial hair and ironic yet functionally warm headgear. And this is when I finally realize exactly where I am: a musicians’ convention combined with spring break for Ph.D. students.

The music in Uncle Tom’s Cabin is like trying on perfume: you hear the first bits, spray the first spray and get the essential essence, then as your skin warms to the scent you are so pleased to find those smooth, warm, sweet notes that make you want to inhale again and again. I don’t recognize the songs and can’t decipher the language, and yet I am captured.

The force that is music placed in a setting such as this can only equal settling, and I welcome this. It’s been almost 24 hours, and my head is finally slowing down to keep pace with my heart. Let the Airways adventure begin!

I don’t know what to expect in terms of venues – or of the entire Airwaves experience, exactly. The idea is intriguing – to be in the middle of such a diverse musical experience. Excitement! Mind expanding! Woodstock on ice, except featuring clothes!

I wander into the CenterHotel Plaza, the pick-up point for Airwaves wristbands, and feel the energy immediately. Signs point the way for participant registration, stacks of schedules and separate postcard ads for bands occupy every table, and I find myself gravitating in the direction of the registration room for artists – dark and promising in a way only another musician can understand. My brain appreciates that clearly I will never perform here, but my soul hopes differently. Again the Icelandic magic: the line is blurred between nothing can change and anything is possible.

Favorite moment: Having my Airwaves wristband attached. The woman behind the counter greets me with the cool half-smile of the music venue worker and a kind Hello and I say, Hi, how’re you? Based on her puzzled and amusedly exasperated look, she has had this greeting before, and yet she grapples for a response – am I serious? Do I know her? Why do I care? Apparently Hello is all that is required or desired here – this natural segue into inquiring after someone’s emotional/physical/mental state that occurs in the US simply is not done. I smile. I thank her.

(When Matthew collects his wristband later that day from the same person, we both have a giggle after he, always courteous but perhaps expanding it a bit in this instance, extends the same greeting and receives the same facial expression: Really? How am I? Seriously? You Americans wear me out!)

Day Three: The app that made Airwaves.

The next morning at Kaffitar, what has become our go-to coffee/breakfast/lunch destination (www.kaffitar.is) , enjoying porridge and quiche, we overhear a fellow Airwaver refer to Iceland as exotic. It isn’t, my mind says, still anxious to try to verbalize the substance of the place, and quickly scribbling in my notebook: it’s minimal, stripped down to the basics of existence: air, water, land – but land when it’s first born: black, jagged, pebbled, covered in baby down moss, spring green and dark underneath.

And, through my magical sunglasses on the drive that afternoon to Blue Lagoon, the earth looks rich loamy brown and freshly tilled, fertile and ready to plant – only here it’s planted with hopes, dreams, self-realization, clarity and promise.

(You’re thinking this hyperbole is due to my newly mobile state or release from the chaos of everyday schedules and pressures – or the memory of the ridiculously delicious fortification of porridge and quiche and berry tea – and, okay, you may be partially correct. But – and you can ask Matthew – the air here is filled with history and promise, and it’s impossible not to notice and be affected by this place.)

Where else can the pool full of steaming runoff from an electrical plant – thermal, of course – turn into one of the world’s great tourist attractions? Here I am again at Blue Lagoon (www.bluelagoon.com) , and after an in-water massage – as extraordinary this time as it was in February– and fascinating conversation with my masseuse Emma, an Olympic soccer player from Northern Ireland, I am left to soak up firelight, warmth and orange/lemon water, along with chocolates and fresh locally-sourced fruit in the Exclusive Lounge (swim-out access to the pool without the frostbitten walk to the water, private changing/shower facilities, and relaxing lounge space featuring leather chairs apparently designed by the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man). And, the fruit: where was the last place you saw a cumquat? Exactly. I’ve decided cumquats exist for one reason only: presentation. Their leaves are the embodiment of fall, bounty, cornucopia, harvest. That it is November and I am eating fresh Icelandic watermelon, grapes and blackberries is not amazing enough. The baby strawberries are so pink and sweet, the last time I tasted berries this tender and good was in my grandmother’s garden in Germany when I was three.

Our host in the Exclusive Lounge is Brandon, who is happy to talk about why he no longer lives in Cleveland: his father is Icelandic and, in a complete departure from what I have grown used to here, his family had settled in the US and only he has returned — has lived here exactly one year, he states – and happily. In such a place, how can this not be, I agree. And yet, moving to a foreign place – family ties or none – that’s the same spirit, vision, grit, faith, determination that settled this island country. And on this late Halloween night, Matthew and I soak in hot silica-infused magical water, swim to the far end of the lagoon and find ourselves fighting strong waves, sea spray and gales to get back to the lounge – faces swamped by wave after wave of stinging water and wind so hard it took the sound of our laughter. All this drama in a 3200-square-foot body of water about 4 feet deep! (But I am not overstating the gale – the winds were clocked at 52 mph that night.) Everywhere you turn, an adventure.

This is the night we have planned to try Northern Lights again – and our kind driver meets us at Blue Lagoon with the sad news that the forecast is grim indeed. Oh, well. We still have four days.

And tonight, on the eve of the event, it becomes necessary to invoke the Airwaves app, an amazingly useful tool (iPhone or android) Matthew maneuvered throughout our stay. Imagine a way to view the Airwaves venues, map them, see live shots of the crowds at each venue, sample the artists, access performance schedules, and translate all of this into a customized day-by-day schedule of who/where/when, complete with updates, and reminders 15 minutes prior to showtime: You are scheduled to see My Bubba and Mi in 15 minutes at Nordic House. Brilliant.

Day Four: It begins.

It’s Thursday afternoon, and things are ramping up. How does the scattered venue scenario work? We find it a bit of a challenge. There is an effort to group performances by musical genre – or in the case of our first venue visit, origin, as this set is introduced by the Canadian ambassador to Iceland and features Canadian acts – but if your personal taste runs to one act only and you’re 20 minutes from the next venue where the set begins in ten minutes, then it’s a bit of a catch-all – or sometimes desired acts bookend unlikely ones, and you’re basically a captive audience. Nevertheless, it’s nice when this happens and a band strikes up and my first words are, “Why didn’t I choose this band for my lineup?” Which is the case here, listening to Half Moon Run, where the singer’s voice is reminiscent of the Script lead singer, and the music is ethereal and substantive, with heavy bass and full, rich vocals and sound that wraps around you. Meanwhile, I am a non-statuesque 5’4” and at the very back of the tented space built off the back of a restaurant/bar, which means my view consists of the Iceland Airwaves logo above the stage and I have to ask Matthew what the lead singer is wearing (plaid shirt, fitted tartan scarf = hipster lumberjack). I take a photo of this aspect to remind myself how it doesn’t matter.

Two hours later we are huddled on a couch in Backpackers Hostel, noses thawing, coats still zipped, listening to YLJA sing their low-key brand of Icelandic folky magic. We are on the check-in desk side of the hostel facing the wall, and the artists are in the next room, and I couldn’t tell you what any of the band look like (I just You Tubed them; there are three band members; I had no idea!)– and, again – it doesn’t matter. Music flows through conversations and artists come and go, delivering and carrying off instruments and equipment. There is no sense of haste or jostling for position. It’s just the music, and sharing it.

This is when I begin to realize what Airwaves is all about.

Fisfelagid (Fish Company) (www.fiskfelagid.is) for dinner, a charming eclectic restaurant just off the main square. If you are fish-avoidant or fish-allergic, as Matthew is, there’s no need to be put off by the name – the menu is broad and contains delicious surprises, especially once you arrive at dessert.

Purity Ring is a late addition to replace a band who couldn’t make Airwaves (perhaps they were based out of New York?), and the Art Museum venue is a perfect showcase for their brand of music-as-art-as-music. Again, due to the scope of the venue and my lack of height, I only caught glimpses of the band – in this case it mattered since performance art wove together with the electronic music and the vocals. No doubt because of my proximity to the floor, I enjoyed the end of the performance most – flattened beer cans (Tuborg, of course), shadowy lighting, and darkened legs and feet leaving the ballroom made a dreamy reminder.

No Northern Lights tonight. Sleep instead.

Day Five: My Bubba owns my heart; Tilbury + Matthew 4Ever.

The road to Nordic House is a frigid, windy walk through brutal arctic tundra unbroken by trees or buildings – the closest I’ve felt to Midwestern winters of my childhood, but with a higher sky. As we thaw and listen to the wind howl around the building, we are warmed by the charming Icelandic/Swedish duo My Bubba and Mi as they serve a tongue-in-cheek mash-up of clever lyrics combined with crystal clear vocals smoothly dipped in latte, accompanied by lightly strummed acoustic guitar and upright bass. The two singers, Bubba and Mi (I know, but that’s how they introduced themselves) are so connected when they sing that they seem like life partners – and the beautiful harmonies and clear vocals create emotion – not melancholy, but possibly poignance and certainly a desire to hear more, more. I’ll be honest and admit I didn’t like the sound bites for this band – their recorded songs featured a sharp twang that was not present in the charming sweetness and feather-light touch of their live performance – and so they became another Airwaves surprise, and kudos to Matthew’s good ear in choosing this band, who become my favorite Airwaves artists.

Sometimes the venue dictates the quality of the experience, and this is true as we return to Backpackers for Ghost Town Jenny. The singer (whose name is not Jenny) has an extraordinary voice, wide and rich, which blends well with the strings that accompany her – they occupy the same sort of aural space in terms of tone, but the small venue pushes the sound back on itself so that, while the vocals travel carefully, the violins make them seem to plod and trudge.

Stay tuned for the second time we see Ghost Town Jenny, where the vaulted ceilings and wide spaces of Harpa Concert Hall exactly suits this band’s vibe, and the vocals and violins soar together to create exactly the sound that defines them. (And the silhouette of the cello player’s extraordinary dreadlocks will stay in my memory for quite some time.)

This evening is what we have called the triumvirate – three bands/singers whose audio snippets have captivated both of us, and whom we are anxious to hear. My mobility by this point has been significantly tested by the back-and-forthing to venues, and so I prop myself up against the wall and prepare for three hours of shifting back and forth on two legs, then defaulting to flamingo position when the pain becomes extraordinary.

Deutsche Bar does not disappoint as a venue – elevated stage, elbow-to-shoulder (or, in my case, head to armpit) standing room only fan space, and great sound. The people pushing themselves into spaces where they don’t fit (i.e., in front of and around Matthew and me, as we sigh and reposition and angle for the view of the stage we had before the extremely tall and obviously professional photographer and his blonde chatty friend and their [thankfully] short and equally as chatty friends stood close enough to us to be clothing) were only annoying for a second because primary was the music, and we were ready for the triple play.

I won’t say the first performer, Borko, exactly disappointed, since there were a few charming moments in his set, but he (and his three-brass-instrument contingent of trombone and trumpets) appeared to have put his band together that morning, and was a few too many steps beyond casual for my taste. Blouse, on the other hand, set a moody bottom-heavy tone woven through by the lead singer’s deep and agile vocals. Which made the next band, Tilbury, a perfect tie-up for the evening: I am at a loss for how to describe this band, which featured what we are beginning to realize is every Iceland band’s obligatory brass instrument (in this case, trombone) and a clean, California-inspired wall-to-wall sound wrapped in ‘80s sensibilities with a bit of alt spice. The sound bites for this band did not in any way prepare either of us for the impact of their live performance, the energy, the animation, the focused intensity. Plus which, they were clearly having fun.

By this point I should have been in flamingo mode, but instead I found myself in front of the stage in a sea of fellow fans. I am suddenly 23 years old and carried away by the energy and power of the music – though I don’t remember having this kind of access to music or musicians at that age; it was a completely different music scene then, with formal seating (stand on your seat, as I did back then, and you are a rebel) and here I am struck by how music makes us all the same age; music as communal emotion. So instead of being the music critic, journalist, oldest person in the room, I am just one of the many.

This delusion continues until I realize that music does not actually touch everyone in the same way. How I know this: at the end of Tilbury’s set, tall photographer dude and chatty blondie and their friends/our second skins are tapping on their respective iPhones/Androids and rating the past few artists. To whom, due to their incessant chatter throughout each performance, they have not been listening. At all. When Blouse receives a 2 of 5 rating at their hands I realize that, for some, Airwaves is just a way to spend a Friday night. But for us, and many others, here instead was a chance to connect with our inner selves and with others like us. Another Airwaves surprise.

No Northern Lights tonight. More sleep.

Day Six: Oh, Harpa.

We had been avoiding Harpa gigs until this point because of the fear of corporate-itis. I read “concert hall and conference center” and in my mind it translates to meeting rooms converted to venue space. You know the feeling: rows and rows of brown plastic formed chairs with metal legs and splayed feet. Uninspired carpet. Tweedy ecru walls. Low ceilings. Those awful cork acoustical tiles.

But Matthew had a serious Tilbury Jones, and Harpa was the venue, so off we trekked into the wall of wind pushing from the waterfront.

And of course, as with everything else in Iceland, Harpa proved unique. Here is a building that sits perched on the edge of the sea, tiled in angled, slanted glass, colored clear and some blue, surrounded by lava rock and reflecting mountains behind, like those who searched for the site chose specifically how it would pull its own presence from the visual and physical elements around it.

And lest you think I am once again guilty of hyperbole, I have included pictures of this architectural homage to linear space – cubes – lines – air. Words can’t describe it, but music can, and it is at home everywhere here.

Ghost Town Jenny performs in an open corner venue where cantilevered steppes set with couches and chairs meet glass and light. Her voice fills the wide expanse, and the violins that seemed heavy and unnecessary now carry the clear bell of her voice through its poignant swoops and indie twists. There’s no way to categorize her sound; to call it country is definitely off the mark.

I am surprised to hear that the acts are repeating their sets, and it always comes as a surprise when the respective artists announce “this is our last one” when they seem to just have started. How else to fit so many artists in, and yet it seems such a small taste when we’ve found someone whose sound we love. Another revelation: Airwaves is musical tapas.

Here we are trapped in the Airwaves Bookend Conundrum, where two good bands flank a question mark. This time it’s an experimental music experience, during which I realize that this genre is like modern dance – you have to be in the mood, and it probably helps to know the guy in the leotard (or, in this case, playing the autoharp – who, in this band, is the one behind the bassoon) (which means this band is clearly not Icelandic, or it would be a trombone).

After inhaling another sterling performance by Tilbury, after which Matthew has a multilingual chat with the lead singer (‘We are on the Facebook. We are on the Twitter.”) we decamp to the adjacent restaurant, Kolabrautin (www.en.harpa.is ) . This was Matthew’s favorite meal, and it truly was excellent food – made that much more interesting by the Harpa visual linear vibe – in here, a ceiling made of angled mirror tiles reflecting the windows, the black night, colors, lights and tops of the heads of strangers at adjoining tables.

Inside Harpa it was easy to feel separate. The schedule had every room full , but everywhere we walked there was . . . space. I wandered around several times looking for restrooms (Snirting, in Icelandic) and was completely alone in many corridors. I wondered about the wristbands that marked us all as one, and whether they actually had any function, until we stepped into the elevator at one point and met a burly guy seated in the corner, asking for our floor. Apparently close attention actually was paid to how things ran and who had access.

No Northern Lights tonight; sleep.

Day Seven: The party’s over.

This morning we feed my My Bubba & Mi obsession and see them one last time at Hex, a hostel near the waterfront. When we arrive they are singing about getting over a hangover, and that’s how the whole town feels today. Everyone has done several days of drama and walking and drinking, and they are done. Everything is moving slowly.

The little house in the plaza has no musician on the schedule today, though Airwaves banners still proclaim from the windows of the media center. It’s clear the frenzy has calmed. We sit with coffee and tea, respectively, writing fiction and a record of this event. Out on the street it is Sunday afternoon and the women of Reykjavik are walking, many pushing children in strollers. There are parental and grandfatherly types. Locals.

The exhaustion creeps in but doesn’t detract from the still feeling of having been part of something significant.

What I’ve learned about Airwaves:

The wristband that was initially an ann

oyance was, by the end, a part of me that I was unwilling to remove, like the ski lift tickets from my college winter coat’s zipper pull. A cool kid label. My ID bracelet of hipsterhood. A member of the club – whatever it is, and however broad the membership.

There was a contingent of older musicians here, and being a musician I know the desire and need to make music never ends – and so I get this. What’s nice is when the music is given credence despite the age of the musician.

The disparity of venues gave each musical experience its own cachet. And despite the fact that sometimes we were on our neighbors like Velcro, there was still enough mental space between you and everyone else that you could be having your own experience exactly separate of someone right beside you.

Music at its best is communal.

Sometimes live is better. Usually this is true, especially the first time you meet it.

Don’t always trust the sound bites because sometimes the real thing will surprise you:

My Bubba & Mi was softer, purer live with a charming sweetness that, studio produced, is lost between the insistent guitar and the twangy twists.

And 1860, tight and charming in person, loses their personal union in favor of the studio mix.

This does not mean the recorded artists are not good – I know well what the studio can do for/against/with/to a vocal and I can only imagine with a band like Tilbury, who also were mixed down and pushed back in favor of what the engineer might want – or even what they might want.

Live music is very much alive.

Airwaves is the place to find it.

Day Eight: Farewell Iceland

So we start our trip home waiting with our luggage in the hotel lobby, and it is raining and there’s that element of what if and a bit of the dread that comes at the start of every long trip. Then the lovely man from Reykjavik Excursions comes smiling and asking our names, and even despite the rain it is a wonderful day.

And even though we didn’t see the Northern Lights, they were still there, so the magic stays.

Airwaves 2013 dates: October 30 – November 3.

http://www.icelandairwaves.is