A rare treat when one of the truly magnificent living legends came to Iceland.  Paul Simon honoured us with the first concert of his European tour!  A great ensemble of musicians on stage with him and what a joy it was to listen.  Much of the concert was filled with the south-american and african rhythms Paul Simon has used in his music in the past 20 years or so.  But in between there were unbelievable gems like Sound of Silence with only Paul Simon and his guitar.  I have never in my life experienced such a dramatic moment at a concert.  Not a single person in the audience moved or talked while the song was played but afterwards the biggest middle-of-concert applause I’ve ever experienced broke out and people were clapping, stomping their feet, shouting and whistling for several minutes and the band graciously waited to begin their next song even though they were ready immediately after SoS.

Highlights (other than Sound of Silence) were You can call me Al, Diamonds on the soles of her shoes, Me and Julio, Graceland, The Boxer, Mrs. Robinson.. oh and just about everything else.  People were dancing and singing, it was a beautiful concert!

4 1/2 out of 5.

And just around the corner from a rockin’ evening, there was a soft and mellow (mostly) concert by James Blunt in Reykjavik.  I have a lot to thank Mr. Blunt for, since his music is the reason why my husband’s musical taste developed a few months ago into not being only about German hard rock, but also about music with meaning.  There was no escaping it, I got us a pair of ridiculously expensive tickets and we soaked in the music of Mr. Blunt.

Now, James Blunt is a bit of an odd fellow.  He seems a bit socially awkward but is at the same time so absolutely lovable that you don’t really mind and find his awkward-ness endearing.  His concert was definately like that!  Completely beautiful and touching and lovable and socially awkward.  How many times do you have the star of the concert jumping off stage and running almost the largest round possible in the seated section, without people standing up, running with him, grabbing him and kissing him?  Not many times, I tell you.  Mr. Blunt actually grabbed a few sitting girls and planted kisses on their lips.  And hardly anyone moved.  Very close to where we were sitting a boy stood up, and planted himself into the alley where James was about to come running through.  There was a spread of arms from both sides and they collapsed in the most awesome bearhug there ever was.  And a couple of seconds later Mr. Blunt was on his way, kissing more sitting girls and then getting up on stage again.

I’m just saying… Icelanders are weird people.

5 out of 5 stars for fantastic music and lovable awkwardness!

Not a concert for months and then flood came.  Whitesnake started off the summer with noise and lots of noise!  Reykjavik was beautiful that day, sunny and warm.  David Coverdale was so funny, I had a blast just watching him on stage.  My guess is he had at least 5-6 beers before coming on stage   He was full of flirt and smiles and innocent, finger-in-the-corner-of-the-mouth kind of look.  His voice rocked most of the time but a couple of songs where he had to his the high notes, it started cracking a bit.  I loved it anyway.

The best part of the show for me was to see bass player Uriah Duffy who completely blew my mind with his plank-spanking!  What a great head of hair too

Almost forgot to mention the warm-up band, Sign.  A bunch of icelandic youngsters who really have a hell of a lot of potential.  And I can see very clearly why singer Zolberg is frequently compared with Skid Row’s Sebastian Bach.

A great rockin’ evening!  3 1/2 out of 5

I don’t listen very much to classical music but when I heard that Andrea Bocelli, the blind, self-taught opera singer from Italy, was planning an event in Reykjavik, I knew I had to go.  The evening was not much less than magical, apart from the soprano Andrea brought with him.  He would have gotten a much better voice and tons more feeling on stage if he’d chosen to sing with Diddú, the most famous Icelandic soprano.

Anyway, there were quite a few tears shed throughout the evening.  A few songs worth mentioning were “Nessun Dorma”, “E lucevan le stelle” from Tosca and of course “Time to say goodbye”

My rating: 4 out of 5.  The only disadvantage was the arena the event was held in. It’s not good for concerts like this.

Toto came to Iceland in July, 2007.  A great bunch of musicians and totally awesome to see Leland Sklar live for the first time (even though he was just filling in for the injured bass player).. what a magician that man is with the bass!  I had a lot of fun but a lot of people around me didn’t have much fun because “they didn’t know half the songs”.  What the f*”)#/$)&$# sh*)=”#)$ does it matter if you know all the songs or not?  If you can’t be bothered to do your homework, don’t complain about the songs they play!!

My rating: definately 4 1/2 out of 5.  Excellent concert!

In the summer of 2007 I went to Germany with two of my best friends ever.  Amongst the gazillion excellent adventures we had, we got to see GENESIS in Hannover!!!  O – M – G!!!

As soon as the band hit the first notes of Behind the lines, the clouds drew in and we got the soaking of a lifetime! Oh yeah.  My first big outdoor concert and I was wet to the bone!  Fortunately the rain didn’t last very long (about 10-15 minutes) but who was counting?  I loved it.  I finally saw Phil Collins on stage.  He’s one of my long-time idols, such an excellent musician and I found out in Hannover that he’s funny too.

It was one fantastic concert.  We were on the floor of this humongous stadium, about 25-30 meters from the stage, in the midst of crazy German people who thought we were from fairy-land.  Soaked to the bone too!  Thankfully our hotel was just a 5 minute walk from the stadium so pretty soon we were able to get into our warm suite on the top floor, overlooking the awesome lake in the middle of Hannover.

It’s going to be tough to top that trip!  5 out of 5 stars for a perfect performance, loads of laughs and memorable moments.