Reykjavik gets warmed up for Icewaves concerts

With only days before the opening of the Iceland Airwaves annual music festival, event organisers and the general public got an early taste of the action with a concert celebration at the Nasa Nightclub last week. The concert celebrated the release of the Iceland Airwaves program and helped to warm up concert goers for the real event, which opens on 17th October.

Last Friday, five bands got the party started. The Ultra Mega Techno Band Stefán, Motion Boys, Jan Mayen, Bloodgroup and Foreign Monkeys played the Nasa stage to an enthusiastic crowd.

The Airwaves program is available online at various locations around Reykjavik. The program lists the times and venues of performances by more than 200 music artists during the course of the festival.

In addition, it also holds information about Sequences, the annual art festival held at the same time as the musical event, from October 12th until the 21st.

A press release on the art exhibit says that it “lives from the creative unfiltered energy of the artists in Iceland.” The art includes visual art pieces as well as performance art.

The first Iceland Airwaves concert was held in an airplane hangar in 1999. Now it has a reputation as one of the best events in the world for new music. Of the event, it has been said that it is “the most innovative music festival since CMJ” and “as responsible for all of Reykjavik’s recent positive press as Björk herself”.

Notable international names like Fatboy Slim and the Thievery Corporation have performed in the past alongside Icelandic favorites like Sigur Rós, Gus Gus and Jagúar. In addition to the live performances, DJs from around the world spin tunes until the early morning hours.

For more information on Iceland Airwaves visit www.icelandicmusic.is

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