North and Down

By the time we had gotten our rental car in keflavik, Iceland, and began driving, it was already about 8:30 in the morning. We had a two-hour scenic drive through Reykjavik and some small little towns ahead of us, eventually arriving at our first hostel from Airbnb in a Cronus at 11 or so. At this point in time, the sun was actually just beginning to set. Our host was out of the country, but her son was there and was able to let us in without a problem. We laid down for a 2-hour nap to prepare our bodies for the festival.

When we finally got to Harpa Hall, Iceland's most expensive Concert Hall and akin to Sydney Opera House in Australia, we had to First figure out the confusing parking lot after figuring out the confusing streets of Reykjavik. This concert hall itself is the most expensive Concert Hall in all of Iceland, and the honeycomb design was meant to reflect the transparent fish scales of their biggest industry in the country, fishing. We parked for 6 hours, but purchased 8 hours for about 10 American dollars. 

The Bell Choir Playing at Night.

When we went in, there were a couple of free concerts that we went to see before going to see Sigur Ros. We wanted to see my moods and Alex Summers and Kevin Shields as well, but an additional wristband needed to be purchased that we were not informed of prior. We saw the Icelandic bell choir, or Bellakor Islands, and I got to speak to the director after she just got done speaking to the manager for Sigur Ros (which I didn't actually recognize as being the manager for Sigur Ros). They were going to start recording sometime soon, with a lot of the kids being big fans of cigarillos and a few of them actually being in the crowd of the concert. We also saw Oliver Donaldson perform some of his original music before we decided to get our first actual meal since leaving the states, which consisted of some vegan falafel bread and salad.

My dinner for the night - barebones, but effective.

After the dinner, we settled in to see sigur Ros perform. This was our second time seeing them perform, and they actually perform the exact same set that we saw them perform the first time we saw them. During intermission, I met a couple from Portland who had actually made a couple of local friends who were going to show them around. Sigur Ros themselves put me in such a euphoric trance with there for Brado, you and Z is the Seto, falsetto, the very Ambience drums, and The Impossible theatrics. One way to describe their sound live is cozy. Although they no longer have their string quartet or their keyboard player, the three of them put on such an atmospheric world of sounds whenever one is lucky enough to hear them.

Although the tickets were not necessarily cheap, we were enjoying our first moments in the northernmost capital of the world, at 66 degrees north latitude. Despite not having a huge budget to go off of, we were still able to see and do so much, and although this concert was are initial excuse for even going to the country, we still had 8 days to see and experience the wonders of this land first hand.