From Iceland — Johanna Persson's Favourite Live Photos Of Eistnaflug 2015

Words by

Photo by

Johanna Persson

Iceland’s annual metal music fest, Eistnaflug, may be done and over with, but we at the Grapevine are neither done nor over it. Grapevine photographer Johanna Persson was busy snapping away through the whole festival, and she sent us an assortment of her favourite shots, along with some notes on each.

Muck – There is something about how grungy guitarist Indriði looks that I found to be really cool.

Brain Police ‐ singer Jens spent a lot of time making eye contact with audience members which at times, frankly, looked insane.

Úlfmessa II – This was by far my favourite show of the festival, but at the same time it was incredibly diffcult to photograph. I was very happy about how good this photo turned out in black and white.

Auðn - One of the very first bands to play at the festival and I wish they would have gotten a later slot so more people had seen them.

FM Belfast - Because this band is anything but metal I decided to not take any photos of them, but as the last song came on I couldn’t resist. They are so colourful and happy!

Outside Scene - This photo captured a very Eistnaflugian moment: it either very early or very late, people are outside, drinking beer and rolling cigarettes, they have corpse paint and are wearing icelandic sweaters, and you can see the mountains in the distance.

Vintage Caravan - This band showed up in full drag and I love how you can see bassist Alexander wearing lipstick and tights—and you can see his leg hairs very visibly.

Sinmara - I hadn’t seen this band before, but I loved how dirty they looked.

Behemoth - It was hard to get a picture of this band as they didn’t allow photographers in the pit. But that was maybe not a bad thing since then I would have been sprayed with spit and fake blood.

Kælan Mikla – I loved Kælan Mikla. I think they were super cool and had a great show at the off (off) venue. I was sad however to see that they were one of only a few bands with female members in it at Eistnaflug.

Off (off,off) Venue - The festival has been through a lot of changes and is growing, but there is still plenty of attitude to go around, as could be seen with this pop-up garage concert.