Reykjavik is the world’s smallest big city. Though only counting 150.000 people it feels more like a million since, as has been proven by international mediums and psychics, the Reykjavik area is one of the world’s biggest hang-outs of hidden people. Thus Iceland has two rock-scenes.

 Literally the name Reykjavik means Smoky Bay and keeping up with its name it’s one of the last cities in the Western world where smoking is still allowed in all the bars and restaurants. It’s also one of the user-friendliest cities; cosmopolitan in spirit it still preserves that good old village feeling. Everybody knows each other, though nobody says “How are you doing?” (If you did, you wouldn’t be doing much else). “The Icelandic nod” is the most sophisticated greeting of the civilized world.

In this lovely town everything is within walking distance, though the locals are quite hard to get out of their cars: Being the third richest nation on Earth Icelanders take as great a pride in their automobiles as they used to do in their horses: The average Icelandic bloke owns three cars. One is parked outside his home, another at work and the third one is used for driving between those two. We like to show off our cars. Nobody uses his garage (they’re all full of rock-bands rehearsing anyway) and the only people who use public transport are those who have lost their driver’s license or are badly divorced. In Reykjavik there is no Underground apart from the one and only.

 The Icelanders’ nickname for their country is “The Rock”, born out of the notion that this barren land is in fact one big rock in the middle of the ocean; a rock covered with rocks. And every now and then they come rolling. Earthquakes and eruptions are the biggest spectators’ sport in Iceland, the true home of Rock and roll.

 Only one type of tree grows in Iceland: Birch. That’s “Björk” in Icelandic. But many other pop-names have also grown up in Iceland: Sigur Rós, Mínus, Múm, Quarashi, Vynil and Leaves to name a few. Many others are still growing; If things continue as they have in the last years, then by 2030 five of the ten biggest names in music will be Icelandic.

 The incredible creative force of the Reykjavik scene is driven by two factors:
 A) From the time the last Viking ship was chopped up for firewood and until we got our first steam-ship, Iceland was cut off from the rest of the world. For a thousand years we were totally isolated from the international scene. We remained silent. This is the reason why we still can read The Sagas, written between 1200-1300. Our language hasn’t changed since then because we didn’t use it very much (nothing to talk about, really) nor was it affected by other languages. Icelandic was kept in the fridge for a thousand years. After such a long silence you’re only too happy to scream out loud.
 B) The country itself keep us on our toes. Iceland itself is creative. Every ten years there is a major volcanic eruption. Every ten years we have a new mountain or even a new island, and we have to find names for them. The landscape is in constant creation. On top of that the weather changes by the minute. Icelandic weather is like the Dow-Jones average: If you buy stocks in sunshine in the morning, be ready to sell it by noon. In Iceland you can never take anything for granted. You can have snow on Midsummer Night and you can have a Barcelona-day at Christmas. On average Iceland is a bit chilly, though. But we’re counting on Global Warming like no one else.

 In the past years the Reykjavik nightlife has become quite known among international party-animals who flock up here for a crazy weekend the year round. Reykjavik has a long tradition for crazy weekends. During the “Ages of Silence” Icelanders used alcohol for outlet and traveling. After working for a week in silence, building up their frustrations, Saturday Night was considered as confession time; a kind of “out-of-time”-zone, where you could say whatever to whomever. There were no consequences: Came Monday morning it was all forgotten. And at a time when the only means of traveling were your own two feet alcohol was a popular airline.

Crazy weekends were also necessary means of reproduction: Until the end of the 20th century more than half of the Icelandic population was conceived on Sunday mornings between 3 and 6. That was when all the Reykjavik bars had to close at 3 o’clock. In 1999 the rules were changed: Today the bars stay open till the break of dawn; a situation that worries many locals, since people are usually too tired to have sex when they crawl home at seven in the morning: Since 1999 there has been a serious drop in childbirths.

 The strength of the Reykjavik nightlife, though, stems from the fact that in Iceland the nights are longer than anywhere else. One lasts from November till March. The other one from May till August. The former one is dark, the latter one bright.

 If New York is the city that never sleeps Reykjavik is the city that just woke up. Being only 200 years old it has, in the last ten years, finally come to life and obtained the cosmopolitan status it now enjoys. Being of the same size as Ancient Athens and Florence at the time of the Renaissance it is often compared to those two cities as they were in their heyday: Bursting with artistic energy and international visitors as well as being under construction as we speak. Unlike the the huge and heavy metropolitan dinosaurs New York, Paris, Tokyo and London, Reykjavik is young and energetic. It’s small in size but big at heart: Accessible like a village it breeds big thinking and stands open to international trends if not creating ones itself.

In a computerized world, where small is better, Reykjavik is the new kind of a world center: Small ‘n’ smooth. Fast ‘n’ easy.

Among the cities of the world Reykjavík is the palm pilot.

 Reykjavik is a city that IS happening at the moment because not much has happened here till now. It’s living its historical moment first now since, unlike other cities, it has almost no history at all.

 We didn’t build this city on Rock and roll but it has built up a very active rock-scene.

Reykjavik rocks.

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