Sour Grapes & Stuff: Issue 17

Most Awesome Letter
Hej!  I was in Reykjavik on the 5th of october and I saw a band playing out on the streets in the middle of the day. At first I thought they where playing for tips, but they didn’t seem to be. I saw them later on down in the harbor and stopped to listen, there were two women singing and playing instruments and one guy just playing. I stopped to listen to one song and I really got goosebumps, not only from the cold wind 🙂 I really liked them but I never got the name of the band or any of their songs. I tried googling but I haven’t been able to find out anything! I thought you guys might know more!
I remember that the guy was blonde and one of the girls had red hair and a norweigan style sweater. They seemed to be icelandic and also spoke english. There was a girl with a small handheld camera filming them and the crowd and two other guys taking pictures while they were in the harbor.
And if you know who they are or meet them somewhere, tell them they are awesome!
//My from Sweden
Hæ, My!
We at Grapevine are rather proud of our collective musical knowledge, and when we read your letter, we immediately thought of…well, no one. The thing is, there are an awful lot of bands in Reykjavík, many of which feature blonds, women, instruments, and Icelandic/English speakers. However, we really did want to try and help you find your goosebump-inspiring trio, so we put our heads together and came up with a short and not at all comprehensive list of Icelandic bands with three members (or more…maybe they weren’t playing as a full band), which fit most, if not all, of the basic requirements:
• Amaba Daba
• amiina (redheaded member)
• Angist
• Boogie Trouble (ginger lead singer)
• Benny Crespo’s Gang
• Hjaltalín
• Kjurr
• mammút
• múm
• Oyama
• Pascal Pinon
• Samaris
• Sykur
It is, of course, perfectly likely that you just saw the inaugural show of some as-yet unknown up-and-comers. So if you don’t find the band you’re looking for in the list above, maybe you’ll find something that you’ll enjoy just as much. Let us know if you figure it out!
—
Hi,
I recently arrived home after visiting Reykjavik for Airwaves ’13. It was my fourth visit and by far the most eventful.  Soon after arriving I was struck down with fever and abdominal pain. Hoping it would pass I tried to recover with rest, but it soon became clear I would need treatment.
Taken by ambulance to hospital I was treated absolutely superbly by everyone involved. The Paramedics were fantastic, the doctors and nurses I came into contact with couldn’t do enough to make me comfortable. Not only that but the speed and how I was kept updated about diagnosis was very impressive. I felt totally safe in your hands.
I would like therefore to say a huge thanks to everyone that I met at Landspitali. You are a credit to your profession and a credit to your country.
As for Airwaves 14….when are early bird tickets on sale?
Kind regards
Adam Fielding
Hæ, Adam-
It isn’t often that a person forks out a load of money for a pass to an international music festival, flies across an ocean, gets struck down by the kind of pain and suffering that requires a hospital visit, and then feels so positive about the whole thing that he sends complimentary letters to local papers and starts planning a return visit. We are happy that the good people at Landspitali made you happy. Sadly, there are all too many countries in the world (cough—AMERICA—cough) where medical care for *citizens* is neither as prompt nor as comprehensive…let alone for visitors.
We hope that you got to see a bit of Airwaves before you were laid low, and are glad you’ll be back for another round of music madness next year—minus the ambulance.
Hafðu það gott!
The Grapevine