Eamon McGrath, Lake Forest and Oyama live @ Bar 11, Reykjavík, June 18 2013

Full disclosure: I booked and organised this show and I did play drums for Eamon McGrath and Lake Forest.

The premise: Eamon McGrath got in touch with me and asked if I wanted to book a show in Reykjavík at the very end of his euro tour. Already a fan of his music and especially the great Young Canadians LP, I said yes. But I had ideas of my own. I knew his tour would be one where he'd play on acoustic guitar, traveling by himself on trains and buses. I proposed putting together a band for him that'd would require little-to-no rehearsal time. Why? Because the "full band songs" on his albums are brilliant and knowing myself, listening to acoustic versions of his rockers would leave me yearning to the point I'd have to bite my knuckles. Don't get me wrong, his acoustic renditions of said "rockers" are precious and have won over thousands of people but... Maybe I just wanted in on the action. Here's a guy I'd band with without hesitation. Here was my chance to make it a reality, if only for one night, I'd do it.

Fast forward a couple of months and he tells me of Will Whitwham, who's solo artis name is Lake Forest. This Will is also in Wilderness Of Manitoba, a band I had heard of. He goes on to inform me that Mr. Whtiwham too wants to play Iceland, and they will be sharing dates on the euro tour and both figured I could book both. Two solo artists. I can do that, I thought, having booked all dayers, fests and tours in my heyday. Sure. I'd just have to find them two electric guitars (thank you Gummi for Jaguar and Valdi for the SG).

I suggest the band idea to McGrath and he agreed this was a good thing. I submitted asking Whitwham if he'd join as a second guitarist. He immediately said yes, and I concluded here was a guy with confidence and tune-memory. My whole deal was, "we are all good enough and experienced so we won't have to rehearse, really." To further that belief, I'd employ a bass player of my choosing that fitted this confident and cocky criteria. A motherfucker of a bass player, might I add, one Valdi of infomous loud as hell whatever rockers Reykjavík! (The exclamation belongs in the band name, mind you, but oh so fitting). The guy is a multi-instrumentalist, a dancer, a man of the world with tune-memory and with looks to my a tornado of carefreeness around him. I knew he'd fit my fantasy band. He sure as hell did.

With the band assembled, I awaited the two Canadians to arrive and dropboxed Valdi a bunch of songs (which he later admitted not to have listened to all that much, but hey, it's Valdi and he can get a way with murder and make it sound good). They arrived two days prior to the show. The day before the concert, we got together for the first time ever, played together for the first time ever and suffered and enjoyed a long ass rehearsal, where this, amongst other things, happened.

We jammed Hüsker Dü's "Celebrated Summer" and decided we include it in our set list. Mind you, this video features a bunch of mistakes (most by yours truly), but we had only played it two or three times there and later we worked away a lot of these snags. But, it's cool, eh? This song is so much fun to play, I'd "loose it" increasingly every time we played it.  Eamon too. Due to his spirited enthusiasm he lost balance and almost feel over backwards onto the amp stack.

The rehearsal (video) went famously and it didn't take long for us to start jamming Lake Forest songs. Will showed his three compadres his song, "Death Makes A Winter Out Of You." Thus the song was tried and played in a very improvisational manner. The idea was to tie this song into Red House Painter's "Make Like Paper," without stopping. This they did, "fails,"misplaced and unplayed accentuations notwithstanding. Matching the tempos of the two songs yielded a very satisfying groove to fall into for all of us, eyes closed and whatnot. Will then played us another song of his, "Highway Drmz." I immediately sensed a HUM vibe, which came as a surprise to Will. Again, a song with a nice tempo and dreamy currents throughout. We gave it a go. Judging by moments of hesitance misread cues, the recording you are about to listen to probably features our second or third attempt of the songs. The results was caught on Will's iPhone. Hope you enjoy.




We kept in the rehearsal space for five hours, propelled by the excitement of new friendships made, music and Steðji beer (a new and worthy local micro beer). It got pretty damp and gnarly, no windows to be opened, no air condish nor fans of any sort. At the very end, our heads were spinning, eyelids heavy and the collective was in a trance-like state. Especially the Canucks because little had they slept on their tour, and they just got of the plane. The day after we were guests on two radio shows, Harmageddon on X-ið 977 and Virkir Morgnar on national radio 2 (watch a gut wrenching Neil Young cover below, recorded during said interview). With that out of the way, we took to the practice space and ran through the program once and thereon, caution was thrown to the wind.
Thank you Regla Hins Öfuga Pýramída, Klikk, Logn, World Narcosis and Bjór Og Bland for graciously lending us you gear and place to play.

By Mike Crossley (link)

Fast rising local stars Oyama (see the related stories at the end of this post) were very ready to open the show, no doubt drawing a sizeable amount of natives to the event. Not only that, they provide a large part of the backline as well. For that I'm eternally grateful. It made everything easier in the end. Oyama is a particular favorite of mine, and I've sung their praises right after they came out of the gate as a band. Feels like a good long time since they hit the scene, what with the numerous locals shows, festival performances here and abroad and handful of tours. They've really hit the ground running. It is pretty amazing.
They were the first band on stage, 10min after 10pm. That night they played mostly new and unreleased stuff, music that would constitute as post-early days Oyama, even if they are still in their early days as a band. The new jams usher a new mood in the band's sound for sure. It's going to be interesting. As far as their live performance went that night, maybe it was the fatigue of the grind preceding this show,  but it felt as if they weren't going for the jugular. Who can blame them? They made like troopers anyway and I'm glad they were there. The band is now in hibernation. Watch this space for future developments.

Lake Forest was up next. Will Whitwham brought out an array of pedals to set in effect loops and various sound manipulations befitting his recorded material of atmospheric and wintery folk music. Like a well oiled machine, battle worn from touring he charged through number of tracks ("Whispers," "Escape The Moon," "Coming Through The Slaughter" to name but few) spanning his career without skipping a beat, even when the PA blew up on him. When that occurred, he carried on stoically,  fixed the mess as he played and fell back into the groove with easy, receiving a hearty applause and whistles from attendees. Although unknown to most in the room, a few knew of his love for Kozelek, having caught the sent of his "Have You Forgotten" cover (listen). A couple of requests for the song were hollered in the back, and the Lake Forest delivered to a rousing clap of appreciation and even some sing-alongs. Nice.

By Emily Hogg

Eamon McGrath and his merry group of banditos set up quickly as the two preceding sets had lasted a bit longer than planned. McGrath eschewed a two song acoustic set that was to include "Auditorium" and "Great Lakes," to give that one-two punch needed this late on a work night. It proved to be a good call. We opened with "Signals," one of my favorite songs of his and it was all uphill from there aside from my fucking up during the intro of Neil Young's "... Into The Black." Fuck it! I grinned from one side to the other, it couldn't have been better. Sure, someone told me the sound guy was eating it, but what can you do? Before long, to the right of me, I saw Valdi headbanging and giving the bass all the nick slides it could handle. Quickly his shirt would be off. And one by one, shirts came off onstage.Spirits were high, the crowd was big and featured the best and most dynamic set of characters ever present at a show featuring your's truly. I couldn't have been happier. Hell, playing "Celebrated Summer" saw us lossing it, as it were. How fun can a song be? Christ! Our set was short and reportedly sweet. And if the reactions of uncle Ölver - an experienced captain of fishing vessels - was anything to go by, we rocked the fuck out and gave everyone in attendance the best we could under the circumstances, a show. Uncle Ölver came unglued in the best way possible, let me tell ya. What a riot.
- Birkir Fjalar

Aron F. Þorsteinsson

PLUS: Watch Lake Forest and Eamon McGrath perform a stellar Neil Young cover on the Virkir Morgnar show on Iceland's national radio (HERE).
Audio only version here.

Credits: Black and white photographs by my trusty rusty conspirator Hössi H (more of his work here). Concert video by my brother and his smart phone. More pictures of all artists from the Aron F. session here. Much appreciated Hösski and Aron!

Thank you list
Event page   Tumblr hype-bag/document

To know about Halifax Collect updates as they come, follow us on facebook, twitter and tumblr. Thank you. 
Join the conversation by writing a comment below.

Related stories
Oyama: new song, debut EP announcement and gigs across the sea
Iceland's Year End 2012 - Brought to you by Red Sonja
Oyama picked up by Projekta
LET'S LOOK AT SOME FUCKING VIDEOS #9
EAMON MCGRATH - Peace Maker
Oyama is Iceland's next "big thing"