The first band request

Experienced an Underworld concert for the first time this past weekend.  Tremendous show.  Pics to come later, but this would be big name highlight for Airwaves 10.   No, they’re NOT too popular…

10 years of Airwaves, what would you do?

Suppose you are Mr. Destiny for a moment. (This supposes there actually IS a Mr. Destiny, as opposed to being the name of the company.) You’re in charge of an increasingly successful music festival, so what’s your plan for next year? Is there any additional significance for the 10th anniversary? Yes, it’s 2008 and the first one was in 1999, but count it on your fingers and it will make sense. Not that I did that mind you…

Do they sit around a conference room full of high end Scandanavian office furniture, having ditched the Ikea a couple years ago, plotting out the future? Do the discussions take expected sides? One group that says we need to milk this success for every last kronur. This is the bigger, better, faster crowd. We may never get this chance again, so let’s go for it. Bigger bands, more venues, more everything. No more places to play in Reykjavik? No problem… We’ll put up temporary venues, big tents that’ll come down after the last show. It worked for the media party last year, it’ll be great!  (And SXSW has been doing it for years.)  These folks are dressed better, drink only high end cocktails and wine, and are convinced that they can nail a couple more big sponsors if they could just book Feist.

So while we are stereotyping, the other side of the table is uncomfortable in their Sun Records t-shirts and frayed jeans, because Airwaves could “lose its soul” if it goes to commercial. See SW,SX. Yeah we could probably get much bigger acts this year, but to what point? Local acts will be the ones squeezed out, and they are what makes it ICELAND Airwaves. This is the last festival that is about the music man, let the vulture sponsors follow US! The fans will come no matter what, and they WANT this show to stay the same. Plus if it gets too expensive our friends will be forced to see the free day shows only.  And that just blows.

This passion annoys the business pragmatists, who snottily, and even worse, correctly shoot back that more people came to see Bloc Party than the Nanas, and Grapevine slagged them both. (I saw the latter, and it was deserved.) And that they don’t get paid with passion. The “it’s all about the music” side kicks back from the table and just as arrogantly insists that unchecked popularity can lead to the demise of great music festivals. (Lollapalooza anyone? And just try to get around CMJ and SXSW these days. Screw the insiders man.)

What do you do? Make a big splash with Sigur Ros, Bjork and reunite the Sugarcubes? Or go in the other direction and keep booking a mix of untested up and comers, taking the risk that you get the “never will be’s.” What’s Icelandair have to say about it, if anything? You think the dates were picked out of a hat? Au contraire. There was a hole in the Icelandic/Reykjavik event party line-up, and it was filled by Airwaves. Icelandair wants full planes, the hoteliers want to hang the “no vacancy” signs, and I want Sirkus to re-open.

Sorry lost my train of thought for a second.

Any predictions? 10th anniversary extravaganza or the usual mix of headscratching (in a good way) when you read the pocket guide?

An open plea to Mr. Destiny

I beg of you, please do not book Vampire Weekend.   It’s not personal, they might be a swell bunch of musicians, and perhaps they can’t help the increasingly insufferable hype the surrounds them.  (See Strokes, The)   The band may even be on a faster popularity trajectory: unknown to hipster fave to wannabe hipster fave to mainstream fave to inevitable backlash all in a few months.

If they are lucky, they will be dating Hollywood tartlets starlets at any moment, and for that there is no shame.   In fact it is probably one of the main tenets in the “why you are in a band” code.

The only silver lining for Airwaves would be that the lines and crowds will be smaller for whatever acts were playing at the same time.

There’s already a Facebook group for 08′

Here

07’s 

And it’s listed is “Music-Religioius.”

Festival fans take this event seriously…

650 reasons to like Airwaves

SXSW is $650 for a pass this year. Damn.  Cue the music for the loud lamenting over where SXSW “has gone.” There’s an excellent front page story in the WSJ from last Friday on this very topic, and the paper even a blog on the festival.  The best quote from the blog so far:

“Twenty-one years after the first festival, it’s now an overstuffed parade of big names who don’t need the gig, successful touring bands that are compelled to play an internationally renowned event, and talents great and small eager or desperate for recognition.”

I know, it’s a business, and a wildly successful one.   And yes, I miss the early days of SXSW, where you could  sample a slew of relative unknowns, and truly unknowns as you ambled from bar to bar.  It’s a circus now, a crowded, expensive one that definitely has an “in-crowd.”  If you’re not one of them, SXSW is an entirely different experience.

Airwaves also has humble roots, if the lineup of bands is any indication, and they probably wish they had the popularity problems of SXSW.   (They’re well on the way.)  I’m pretty sure the organizers use SXSW to scout Airwaves bands too.   But unless Reykjavik expands exponentially, and quickly, Airwaves will still probably be the contained (not constrained…) event for the truly discriminating music fan.  Right?

Let us begin

Using “Redoable Lite” for now, thank you Dean Robinson, whoever, and wherever you are.

Expect continual messing with the color scheme. “Scheme” being defined as “playing with colors until I get it right.” Or merely bored with trying to make it pretty.