Culture and Living | mbl | Sat 4 Jul 2015 | 12.21 GMT

ATP Day two: Sunshine and post-rock

Eggert Jóhannesson

Anna Margrét Björnsson

The ATP festival at Ásbrú continued last night with offerings from rock bands including Ice Age, Drive like Jehu, Oyama and the evenings highlight: Godspeed!You Black Emperor.

Guests of ATP basked in the sun until the late evening on the festival grounds and I spotted many of them further away from the concrete parking lots next to the main Atlantic studio stage, in fields of flowers sipping on cold beer and sunbathing.

The organisation of the festival was yet again splendid, with the programme running seamlessly and on time, and although there were crowds of people there was no notable drunken rowdiness.

It was an evening for those in love with alternative and post-rock with bands Ice Age, Mudhoney and Drive like Yehu churning out lengthy and dramatic guitar laden compositions. The most anticipated band of the evening I gathered was for Canadian kings of epic post-rock, Godspeed! You Black Emperor. It seems almost every angst-ridden teenager has memories of listening to Godspeed whilst smoking herbal cigarettes. Godspeed, with a background of black and white visuals delivered their lenghty desolate composition, a mixture of despair and hope, guitars, samples, a violin and an industrial hum.

The only drawback to the concert in my opinion was the setting at ATP, I think Godspeed! would be perfect for a theatre with seating as their music is almost in the classical or experimental genre and standing for over an hour to their heavy soundscapes is taxing.

Many guests in the audience took the opportunity to get a massage at one side of the theatre, yes, massage, and I for one made a spur of the moment decision to pay two thousand kronas to sit down and have my shoulders massaged whilst going into a trance like state with Godspeed! in my ears. It's an unusual and pretty funny idea to offer massages at a concert and I thoroughly recommend it for the price of two beers.

The final day of ATP is today with the highlights including Icelandic noise rockers Pink Street Boys and cult bands Swans and Loop.