According to the Icelandic newspapers, Damon arrived in Reykjavik for the first time on Monday 1 April 1996 and booked into the Saga hotel. "I didn't know it meant Saga holidays, for older people" - he told the Guardian several years later - "I thought it was Saga as in Nordic sagas. But it was actually an OAP cruise hotel. I was on my own: I didn't know anybody. I went into the street, Laugavegur, where the bars are, and that was it."
On the next day he went on a package tour along with other tourists, mostly Japanese, to Gullfoss and Geysir (for these unfamiliar with Iceland's tourist attractions, Gullfoss is a huge waterfall and Geysir is the namesake for all the world's geysers - nowadays it's hardly active; its neighbour Strokkur erupting every few minutes is much more attractive). In Reykjavik Damon visited Stúdíó Sýrland (where later he would record vocals for the Blur album), spent a significant amount of time at Kaffibarinn, went to see a handball game and visited the Blue Lagoon with a journalist and a photographer from NME. His anonymity was over before it even started though.
"I thought nobody would know who I was in Iceland. I had this vision of arriving at this little guest house by the sea, completely detached from any civilisation. Instead, the first person I met knew who I was, and the next morning the national news were ringing up to ask me why I was here. It turns out we had the biggest selling album in Iceland last year. It's the only place on earth where we're bigger than Oasis. Ha, ha, ha!"' (Damon for NME)
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videos used:
Screaming Masterpiece documentary, 2005
Photographs (You Are Taking Now), 17 July 2014 at Montreux Jazz Festival
track by track guide to Everyday Robots via The Guardian
Damon and Alex at Stúdíó Sýrland, 1996
autograph session at Kringlan shopping mall, 1996
interview at Laugardalshöll after Blur concert on 8 September 1996
interview from January 1997
Damon and Alex for Canadian TV MuchMusic, March 1997
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snippets from Icelandic TV courtesy of Nostal Gia youtube channel (taken from a compilation Blur og Pulp á Íslandi 1996, sadly wiped out by youtube copyright rules)
dates via Veikko's Blur Page
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The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows, a new work by Damon Albarn inspired by the landscapes of Iceland, is scheduled to premiere in May 2020.