Words by

Haukur S. Magnússon

@haukursm

Who are you? What can we expect from your Airwaves appearance, and what can we expect of you in general?
Mostly, we’re just Dynamo Fog. There seems to be this weird hype that we’re some kind of fist fighting britpop-esque supergroup that does mountains of drugs and sleeps with celebrities, and I guess that’s partly true in some ways, but more often than not, we’re just three guys in a band. The only really remarkable thing about us is that we’ve all been in more popular bands than this at one stage or another, and we use an electronic drum kit.
This year sees fewer ‘large’ international acts on the schedule. Do you believe this changes anything for the festival in general, and its spirit?
Uh, yeah. It’s probably bad. It seems to happen quite a bit that foreign bands come here, and people get into them because they play at the festival, and lack of international variety can only mean that people will stop listening to new foreign stuff as much as they do, and besides, we can see all the other bands the whole rest of the year.
For the tourists that come here for Airwaves, the foreign bands are probably more of a fun little bonus rather than the main draw, and an all-Icelandic music festival would probably be just as interesting to them.
A lot of our readers are first time Airwaves-visitors. Do you have any tips for them?
Reykjavík ingests, chews up and spits out bands and artists at such a phenomenal rate that just staying together for longer than two years pretty much guarantees you a following of some sort, and a following means an enthusiastic crowd, which means a good show, so if you see a band listed that’s also on last year’s schedule (if you haven’t used it for joint filters), go see it. As for off-venue activities, come party with us. I’ll be standing at the big construction project by the harbour drinking Scottish Leader and wearing a red-and-white varsity jacket. Make sure you have cash.
Given that most Airwaves-visitors won’t have a lot of time in their schedule to see the Icelandic countryside, are there any nature-havens close by that you’d recommend?
No. All the really interesting stuff is miles away. Just borrow someone’s car and drive around if you want to see some landscape, it’s all just as good.
Has a lot changed in the Icelandic music scene since Airwaves 2008? How about Airwaves 2004?
That’s kind of a loaded question, so I’m going to give the short version: every year, the scene grows more self-conscious, more arrogant, more post, more retro, more arty, more ironic and more new-wave.

• When: Wednesday 22:30
• Where: Sódóma