Wow

So another year of Iceland Airwaves is over. I've got a load of notes and a load of (occasionally good) photos and even some shaky video and I'll get to it and get something (a lot) posted once the mists clear, the ears stop throbbing and sleep patterns stabilise.

It's a fair summary of the mood and brilliance throughout the week that the festival ended on Monday morning at about 1am with about 20 guys on the stage (and being carried around the crowd) in Nasa in just their underwear, singing what must have been the 20th chorus of FM Belfast's alternative national anthem for Iceland, "Underwear". This after a set that included a few new tracks, most of their debut album and an amazing array of cover versions of songs by Technotronic, Snap, Guns n Roses, Paul McCartney & Stevie Wonder, The Teenagers plus their classic take on Rage Against The Machine's festive song.

They were the second act to bust out the cover versions. One of the many absolute highlights of the week was watching one Icelandic band perform an entire set of cover versions of another. Brilliant work by Sudden Weather Change taking on the work of Ghostigital and somehow, thrillingly, pulling it off.

For now though, huge thanks to everyone who contributed to another amazing (the best yet?) Iceland Airwaves, particularly…

• IMX for proving the festival is in safe hands.
• Whoever arranged that my wristband had the word "darling" on it.
• The Grapevine newspaper for being so damn up to date.
• Reykjavik! for working as hard as ever and dedicating a song to iceblah!
• Door and bar staff for being so much friendlier than ever before.
• All who attended the brunch of legends… Bob, Wim, Elly & Katie – fine work all week!
• The website gig-blog.net which has the best photos I've seen yet (3 of which used here – thanks!)

The week in numbers:

Bands seen :       55
CDs acquired:        9
Hot Dogs:        2 (a record low!)
Pizzas:            2
Beers:           unknown
Free beers:        2 (thanks Hjaltalin)
Brennivin shots:        1
Björk sightings:        1
On-stage mentions:    1 (thanks Reykjavik!)
Days without rain:    0

MORE SOON…