By Terrorizer Newshound on July 18, 2013
Situated in the eastern Icelandic fishing town of Neskaupstaður, Eistnaflug (which translates to, err… flying testicles) is an incredibly diverse rock and metal festival, with three days of everything from punk to black metal and even reggae played until the early hours of the morning in an isolated fjord where the sun never sets. Needless to say, it’s a magical experience, and a chance to discover some of Iceland’s hidden musical talents. Now, where’s the Brennivin?
After an 11-hour drive from Reykjavik, during which we stop off at waterfalls, spectacular glaciers and play Immortal for the final stretch through snow capped mountains (clichéd? us?!), we arrive at our home for the next four days – an apartment we share with the lovely Red Fang – and get down to business: as the music doesn’t start until the following day, we head to a party with the guys from Solstafir in… a building where AA meetings are held. As you do. Needless to say, with that pesky 24 hour daylight thing, figuring out what time you stumble into bed is tricky, but we’re pretty sure our colleagues back in London would have been on their way to work at the time…
On Thursday, the music begins, and after a breakfast of Tuborg to dust off our hangovers we venture outside to check out the bands, that today include Icelandic favourites Dimma and Plastic Gods. The majority of bands hail from this fair isle, but there are a number of international bands on the bill, such as Red Fang. Most bands play in the Egilsbúð venue, and the festival is for all ages – it’s the first time we’ve seen a blonde toddler with flowers in her hair wandering around a doom show in a smokey warehouse and, we imagine, the last. Said warehouse, the Mayhemisphere, is a short walk from Egilsbúð, and what a venue it is: a small, dark and dishevelled warehouse filled with smoke.
Inside, as well as bands playing, there is a corpse painting booth, and a table with markers, pens and paper so you can have a go at drawing some Satanic shit. What else!?
With smoke steaming out of the door and BM blasting from inside, the warehouse looks like a portal straight into Hell. It was here that we caught a special afternoon Solstafir show on the Friday, that was nothing less than spectacular.
On Friday we are also treated to a meet and greet between the journalists and bands, where Terrorizer and a group of other European metal journalists sit X-Factor style along a long table in the main venue. It gives us the opportunity to meet some of the bands playing this weekend, to find out more about what they do, and of course, to get our mitts on some of their merch and music so we can spread the word of their awesome-ness.
Needless to say, the guy from Saktmóðigur who gave us this definitely won us over:
As the weekend continues, we party with Kontinnum, see Skálmöld do some Slayer covers, watch Angist fucking brutalise the place and see Vintage Caravan do a Rammstein (see the pic below). And so, so many more bands, too many to mention here, but that you can read all about in our full review of the festival in Terrorizer magazine.
One thing we didn’t do, however, was pole dance.
At last year’s Eistnaflug, a local girl got a bit over-zealous with this here pole. The poor lass had had one beverage too many and twisted her ankle. For the sake of ankles – and dignity – of everyone at Eistnaflug, the good people of the town decided to warn others of the risks. Not that it stopped anyone at 5am…
Eistnaflug, you’ve been spectacular. A huge thank you from Terrorizer to our wonderful hosts at the festival, and to the brilliant organisers who made our trip there possible. We’ll be back!
Read the full review of Eistnaflug Festival in issue #239 of Terrorizer out August 8