When you’re desperate to have a nice holiday, and the sky is grey and rain is coming down in sheets, you can make yourself believe that Love Guru, a portly goofball hip hop persona from Selfoss is entertainment embodied. This year, though, the weather was decent, and the music had a hard time catching the crowd’s interest.
The main difficulty was the same as happens when any municipality organizes a large music festival: the music was supposed to be for everybody, and therefore it satisfied almost nobody. The early concerts briefly convinced the crowd to look at the stage instead of the sun or their own children, KK Band gave a spirited blues performance that goes well at any festival, and Hjálmar played good reggae for good weather.
Beyond this, Papar and Stuðmenn clowned around well, though Stuðmenn’s introduction of Icelandic Idol winner Hildur Vala was unfortunate—she was asked to sing songs obviously out of her range. And Mínus showed their patriotic spirit by playing their hearts out despite a sound system that did them no justice whatsoever.
Not far from the festival, members of the staff stumbled across the true musical highlight of the evening: the performance of the Accordion Club of Reykjavík, ten accordion players with bassist, guitarist and drummer, giving dance music for hearty older locals.
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