Wednesday 22 February 2012
Prinspóló @ Café Video, Gent
Start: 21.00

Prinspóló plays in Belgium tonight for the first time, as part of a mini-tour which also takes in Norway and Switzerland. Hailing from Iceland, Prinspóló is the alter-ego of Svavar Pétur Eysteinsson and he performs with a band consisting of members of FM Belfast, Reykjavík! and Sudden Weather Change.

Although having no apparent intention of ruling over a nation – the band’s name means ‘Prince Polo’ and was inspired by the complete lack of royalty in Iceland – frontman Eysteinsson certainly rules the stage if  this report of the band’s performance at by:Larm on Saturday night is anything to go by.

It seems that anyone who can get along to Café Video in Gent this evening will be in for a fun night of entertaining characters – one of which will be wearing a cardboard crown – performing a mix of catchy folk-tronica songs (in Icelandic) which, if anyone who can speak Icelandic, will know are mainly about food and senior citizens. Here is one about food, entitled ‘Hakk og Spaghettí’ (ground beef and spaghetti), taken from the band’s debut LP Jukk released on Kimi Records in June 2011.

The new single  is ‘Föstudagsmessa’ (Friday mass) and was released last month. The video for the single (below) was shot in Poland, mainly in Krakow, and is rumoured to capture the prince on his search for the factory where the wafer biscuit that is named after him is made. Unfortunately, according to this interview with Prinspóló before the tour, he didn’t find it but he will continue the search at a later date!

After the gig in Gent tonight, the final date of the tour will be on Saturday in St. Galen, Switzerland as part of the Nordic music festival, Nordklang.