Ultra Mega Technobandið Stefán at Punk

Ultra Mega Technobandið Stefán at Punk

12 November, 2008
by: Domzig

Iceland's been having a pretty crap time of it lately. Not only has the country's economy gone to rack and ruin in the recent financial meltdown, the good old Prime Minister has added insult to injury by labelling the whole place terrorists, thereby branding them technically more evil than North Korea and Iran.

So it's good to see Punk full of smiling Nordic people tonight. Even in these testing times, it's nice to know that the people of Iceland can still be coaxed into dancing, especially when Ultra Mega Technobandið Stefán are leading the charge to  dance-floor. A band of teenage drinkers who bash Korgs, drums and bass, these guys sound like your favourite camping-holiday-in-France Europop played through a Megadrive by a guy on way too much speed.

It's 11:30 on a Tuesday night by the time these guys hit the stage, and decked out with tinsel and pathetic looking balloons, it's got the feel of a strange office party in David Bowie's love dungeon about it. Still it's hard not to fault these guys as they bust into it, they're music is so party that soon the entire front row of Icelandic ex-pats are dancing like little kids at a Haddaway concert.

The one problem is the rest of the crowd, which pretty much consists of hazed-out weekend casualties and fashion PRs who basically stand at the back sneering. 'We're trying to get you to dance' moans the lead singer as he tries to teach the tragically cool a dance that combines a fish imitation with manic typing, and by the end of the set the band are left looking generally depressed and slightly bewildered.

I guess that's where UMTBS fall down really, whilst they're really fun in a manic, kids at a 9th birthday party sort of way, they sound a bit too much like The Klaxons or Hadouken! to really catch the imaginations in the overloaded brains of jaded Londoners. Still, if I ever need a band to play to a room fucked on a mix of cherryade and ecstasy, I'll know who to call.

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Domzig