I Adapt, Ieper fest in Belgium 16th August 2002
17/01/2003

Oh boy, the first time playing outside of Iceland and what a place to start, one of Europe’s greatest hardcore festivals sporting a line up of who’s who in modern European hardcore along with class act US bands. But this was more than just a gig, it was a journey. A large group of people travelling around Europe in trains to see their favorite bands play and to have fun and enjoy each others company. Together with a group of friends we arrived in Amsterdam on the 12th of August carrying our instruments, luggage and around 50 I Adapt cds and some t-shirts. It was late at night but we still travelled some distance to the countryside to get a good and quiet hostel where we checked in and then sat outside and talked late into the night. The following day we travelled to Dusseldorf, Germany where we were going to see Good Clean Fun play. After walking around for hours we finally found the hostel where we stayed and we immediately went downtown to have some (veggie) food before the show started. When we arrived at the venue we were surprised because it was so small, we thought a band of GCF size would be playing bigger venues. But anyway, we saw the crowd get bigger with all types of punks and hardcore kids filling the place. I’m not sure what the first band was called but they played a rather uninspired type of emo-rock in the vein of Alkaline Trio. Next up were Anomalie, a band playing a style similar to Reversal Of Man, they were enthusiastic and passionate (well some of them) but suffered from some really poor musicians but they were fun nonetheless. They brought a lot of attention to us Icelanders since some of us were wearing the I Adapt t-shirts that state ICELAND HARDCORE and during the middle of Anomalies set they stopped to ask us what we were doing there (in a nice way) and welcomed us, very nice guys with their hearts in the right place, one of the few bands during this whole trip who actually had something to say between songs. Good Clean Fun were up next and boy did we dance and sing a long and have fun for the entirety of their set, I was smiling the whole time. Mike, their bass player was wearing an I Adapt shirt which made us real proud. One of the highlights of the entire trip.
The following day we travelled to Ieper where we put up our tents and met some of the organizers of the fest, really nice people who deserve nothing but credit for all their hard work. During this whole time there was a heatwave going on in western Europe so we all got sunburned. When Friday the 16th finally arrived we were all pretty psyched about the whole thing. We arrived at the fest a short while before we were due on stage. We were the second band on the first day of the fest, coming straight up after the mighty CHIMAIRA who were nice enough to lend us their gear since we only had our guitars and no amps or anything. We were all pretty tuned up and as soon as we had soundchecked we started playing simple noise while Birkir gave some introductions and fooled around. There was already a surprising amount of people in front of the stage, a big thank you to all the Icelandic kids there who stood there in the heat and sang along and supported us, it means a lot to us! We played a selection of both old and new songs and gave it our all, heart and soul, right from the first note, we were there to give all the other bands a run for the money. Right from the start the response was amazing and I think we managed to turn a European head or two during our set. While we played “Six Feet Under” our friend Siggi, lead singer from Snafu, came and sang the chorus with us which sounded great. Thanks for that! I think this was probably one of the best I Adapt shows ever both soundwise and performance wise.
After the show we just went and talked to our friends and set up our distro as well as checking out the band that followed us on stage, Reply from Belgium who are fucking great. Too our surprise we sold all the cds and shirts that we had and where overwhelmed by the amazing response we got. The rest of the fest was of course brilliant, the weather was great, the vegan food was superb, the people and the atmosphere wonderful. During this fest we saw some of our favorite bands play including; Sworn In, Strike Anywhere, As Friends Rust, Circle, JR Ewing, Amulet, Majority Rule, Darkest Hour, Heaven Shall Burn and last but not least Point Of No Return who totally blew me (Villi) away and is perhaps the most inspiring band I have ever seen. Of course there were loads more great bands, cool people and fun things that happened but we’ll write about that elsewhere.