Talking about the live experience there’s one aspect that can make all the difference in the world: Interaction with the crowd. Some talk too much between songs, many too little – often looking really uncomfortable having to address their audience – and then there are those whose music says it all. Last night all three were represented by five very different acts.

Faroese duo Ghost, who apparently has struck gold at home with their electro-indie take on pop, talked way too much. Well, singer Filip Mortensen did, his partner in crime Urbanus Olsen working on perfecting the indie shoegaze-look-away routine, and however crowd pleasing his words aimed to be, after a while it became inane chatter taking focus from the music – which, by the way, is quite good. They still need to get a load of gigs under their belt to be good live, but they are definitely on the right track. And respect must after all go to Filip Mortensen for an impressively energetic performance at venue Tunglid.

Icelandic darling Dísa was not as energetic on stage, but the power of her voice should be able to run Reykjavik’s refrigerators for a year. It’s simply amazing and in sharp contrast to the fragile little girl she is on stage without the music to hide behind. You’ve guessed which category above she’s in? When the music plays, she really let it rip though, adding expressive edge to her really great pop songs, executed perfectly by her six backing musicians.

Equally expressive, but in a completely different sphere, was the act preceding Dísa at venue NASA. Ólafur Arnalds, a young man on mission to bring classical music to younger people and doing so by adding crackling electronic bits to his compositions, is one of the brightest rising stars on the Icelandic music scene right now. I came across him by accident on MySpace a few months back and was immediately drawn in by the sheer beauty of his universe. There’s so much at stake in his horribly moving sonatas for laptop, piano and strings, touching every melancholic inch of your body and calling for all Iceland nature clichés in trying to come up with descriptions that wouldn’t even do this artist justice.

The last act on my night out, FM Belfast (photo), was also horribly moving, but opposite Arnalds demanding a more explicit type of movement, creating a massive party in the completely packed club Tunglid with their mash-up of 70s disco, 80s synthpop, a little early-day Brooklyn hip hop, 90s eurodance, confetti, bow-ties and a shitload of friends on stage, helping the excess along. One guy called them a messy act and I couldn’t agree more, but that is exactly what makes this Icelandic quartet so incredibly enjoyable, not least when adding excellently entertaining cover versions of Rage Against The Machine (‘Killing In The Name Of’), Technotronic (‘Pump Up The Jam’) and a very short, German version of Toto smash-hit ‘Rosanna’ to the messy mix.