First things first, a massive congratulations to everyone associated with Airwaves on reaching their 20th birthday, and for celebrating it by having gender parity on the line-up. That’s a wonderful, and somehow Icelandic, message to give the music world.
This will be my 15th Airwaves birthday and boy do I regret missing those first five! You may have noticed that I have celebrated with a new look and address for deal old iceblah – a long overdue overhaul. None of the previous 14 editions that I have been at have been anything less than inspiring, spectacular and very, very tiring. I can’t wait to get over there, get working, see some incredible music and get together with friends.
The big change this year, of course, is that there are new owners in place. The business was sold soon after last year’s festival. It doesn’t seem like there will be huge and noticeable change straight away, which I guess was the fear, but here are a few things I’ve noticed.
- No big (BIG) international acts. I don’t mind this, I never went to see Mumford & Sons, Flaming Lips, PJ Harvey etc. but I don’t mind that they were there at all, I just prefer to spend my time mainly with the local bands in the downtown venues. There are fewer established bands of any size (like Arab Strap last year for example), the festival is going back to its roots a little in that sense by mainly concentrating on the new.
- Less off-venue. There were rumours that off-venue would be cut back, and even moved to be wristband only. The second part, thankfully, is not true but it does seem that there are considerably fewer off-venue venues this year. Still, I feared worse, and when the announcement came last week there were 19 venues on the list – I believe that they are spread further and wider around town, so you may find fewer central options during the day time (and yes, you will find me helping/getting in the way at 12 Tónar again this year). I’m not sure why the decision was made, maybe to cut the opportunity for too many bands to be seen without purchasing a wristband? That’s just me speculating, I’d love to ask someone involved.
- VIP passes. This is the first year I remember that I haven’t been given a media pass. That’s fine, I have benefited from great kindness from successive Airwaves managers in the past. This site doesn’t have the biggest reach in the world (!), I might get page views in the 100s just before and during the festival but it can be pretty dormant the rest of the year – I assume they’re setting the bar a little higher now. There is the new option to buy a VIP (queue jump) pass. I would have done that but they sold out before I knew about the media pass. Some people don’t love the ability of other to buy their way to the front of the queue. I can’t really complain, I would buy one another time.
- No ‘same as last year’ shows. I’m paraphrasing, but I have read that local bands will need to demonstrate that they won’t simply be doing the ‘same again’, that they need to have something new. I see the logic totally but, speaking personally, there are many Icelandic acts that I would quite happily watch doing the same wonderful show as last year, or indeed 15 years ago! There’s actually a pretty long last of fabulous local acts not on the line-up this year. I recognise that can be due to many reasons other than the one I’ve described but I will certainly miss HAM, GusGus, Sin Fang, Oyama, Dream Wife, Legend, FM Belfast, Ghostigital, Prinspolo and many, many others. Still, the line-up is amazing. I have managed to get my ‘must see at all costs’ list down to 14.