Lament of the Valkyrie (p2)

I once knew a man, a man who had come from distant lands and over the seas and that man took my heart. He awoke me from the frozen slumber I lay into and poured life into me together with himself.

I once knew a man whose face lit the whole of the world for me, whose heartbeat was the only sound the world ever made for me. He gave me life again and warmth, with his love. He gave me a heart.

I once knew a man, the blood of Vikings running through his veins, who fought all, come hell or high water, to find me and bring me to life. He taught me how to live and, more than anything, how to love once more.

I once knew a man I loved and who once loved me back. Now that man is away and, although my love for him is unaltered still, he has forgotten me, in a land far from here where he found another to claim his heart.

My lord, my saviour, my love is away, both in distance but in heart too. He has forgotten the maiden who awaits for him still, in a land surrounded by ice, just like my heart is becoming once more.

My Sigurd has forsaken me and now he comes to claim me once more, but not for himself, but merely to gift me to another man. I am a valkyrie still and although my heart still yearns for him, this will not stand.

You came to me when all was cold, you came to me when all was frozen, my love, and now that cold is coming back once more, biting into my heart itself and closing itself upon me in this blighted place of doom. You came back, but not to me, my love. You came to heal yourself, Sigurd…

Swedish War Machine, Pirates and Men in Tights.

As luck goes, it's obvious that two of the bands that I really wanted to see, both of them Swedish, had to come to Romania when I'm in Sweden. Those two bands are Sabaton and Therion. But that doesn't really stop a metalhead from her purpose, does it? Therefore, on the 27 of November, 10 days after the concert in Bucharest, I got to see Sabaton, together with support bands Alestorm and Steelwing, in Stockholm's Arenan.

The road there was as adventurous as it can get, apparently SJ and CFR are twins, whereas stockholmers can't give you directions for the life of it, but that's something I'll develop in another post.

Once we got to the right place (and that took a while), me and the friend who was with me (hi, Rin!) noticed a queue surrounding a huge building, half of them sporting either camouflage pants, or Joakim-like hairdos, and sometimes both. Cold as f**k, but nobody really seemed to care. And then there was a long-haired guy in a long overcoat, sitting right behind us. We became friends and it happened fast and unexplainable. But that is something completely different and not really to the point.

The concert venue was something I was not really fond of. Don't get me wrong, indoors was the only way they could play on such a Swedish weather, but I'm not really a fan of the dark room that is Arenan.

The concert started at 19 30 with the Swedes from Steelwing, a band a friend introduced to me a while ago, the both of us being Mad Max fans. The theme of the songs is therefore nice to us, but not the band itself. The Men in Tights, as I'll call them henceforth (hey, they chose it as an intro!) are not really my cup of tea. Surely, they're not bad, but there are two things that will stop me from really enjoying their shows. First off, there's no originality in their music, beside lyric-wise. They sound like about a dozen metal bands put together. The second thing that really gets on my nerves is their vocalist. Not that he's really bad, on the contrary, he can reach pretty high notes, but the problem is he does that one all the time. It kinda ruins the whole unity of the song, plus, you ain't no Bruce Dickinson, babe. Try again. Me no convincey.

About an hour later, the stage was invaded by some drunken-Scot lads. Their name is Alestorm and they're half the reason I went there in the first place. I like them quite a lot. The thing with Alestorm is that they're far from being masters in music, while their vocalist is far from being a new Eric Adams or something. Being none of those does not, however, stop them from being one of the most entertaining live bands I've ever seen. Their simple, booze, women and raids-oriented songs are catchy like hell and have the gift of making the public act pirate-wise, beer (pardon me, mead) included. Their gig (last of the tour for them) included a new song, called... how else, "Rum", and I've noticed my skeptical Finnish friend buying one of their t-shirts at the end of the night so they must've done something right, neh? (am I wrong on this one, Arto?:P )

And in came the headliners of the night, Falun-based band Sabaton. Hell broke lose, I almost broke a nose (not my fault they started a mosh pit next to me) and the Swedes did their jobs flawlessly. Although their war-oriented theme is not the most original, what makes Sabaton so special is their dedication to it and implication in understanding the realities of WW2, together with their tendency of praising soldiers themselves and their heroic facts, rather than the "big men" in lead. Sabaton's power metal is not any huge novelty but it's serious, stout and professional nonetheless. During The Final Solution, a song about the Auschwitz-Birkenau, the whole venue went silent, their lights up in the air, in memory of the 1 100 000 victims Joakim reminded us of. Little by little, Sabaton conquered their public once more. And damn did they do it.

The night was an awesome one. Ended with some "ale" (not at Nancy's tavern, unfortunately), and seeing a drunken sluttish chick trying to put on a strip-tease number to Holy Diver. But that, my friends, is another story.

On history

Lately, I've listened quite a lot to a Swedish band called Sabaton (I'll write about their concert as soon as I'm done with this). They play mostly about 2nd world war and its battles and heroes. A bit earlier on I was reading an interview with Joakim Brodén, the vocalist, interview in which he said something which went along the lines of how history, if not properly known, tends to repeat itself. A thing which, apart being completely true, reminded me of a discussion I've had a couple of months ago with this lady here.

I don't really remember how the whole thing was brought into attention (I think it was during a class, correct me if I'm wrong), but what she said went along the lines of "the best way of keeping history from repeating itself is to hide it from the children, so that they do not know about the problems in the past."

I remember being as scandalized about her statement as I am now, remembering it, but it was a time when I did not write in here and, shame on me, it had faded into oblivion until today. I will start by saying that there have been these kind of opposition discussions since that one, between me and her, and I can't stop noticing we rarely if ever come to an agreement. But that is not the issue here and I will try to make this post as impersonal as I can.

Thing is, what this lady here was saying was, practically, to deny our whole history and hide it from our kids, as if it never were. Besides the obvious 1984 link (although I deeply doubt she's ever as so much as heard of the book), the implications have much more serious grounds.

First of all, denying and erasing one's history is a clear manifestation of dictatorship, of trying to manipulate ideas and feelings (not that it doesn't happen as it is in this "democratic" world of ours) into your own interests.

Second, history tends to repeat itself more often when it is unknown and therefore can't serve as a model and warning. Hell, history has repeated itself even when similar precedent events were well-known, let's take Hitler's failure into Russia, like Napoleon before him, as an example. Not that I complain about that one, though.

Knowing your own history also has a lot to do with respect and paying homage to those that have influenced it in a good way. My great-great granddad fought the First War. My great-granddad, the Second. I have never met them, but I've been told about them and their being prisoners during the conflict. They haven't single-handedly saved a whole village nor defeated an enemy battalion. But they are, just like their brothers in arms, of whom not all have returned from the war, a hero on their own level. It is simple soldiers that make a war. And denying everything will make their deaths even less meaningful than they already are.

Let me get this straight, I do not glorify war in any way. Most of the times, it is an useless, ambition-driven conflict that claims too many lives over too unimportant things. But as much as I hate it, once it's happened one can't simply throw it aside like a dirty sock, because if that is the case then all that have fought it are simply denied their own existence.

So, dear lady, instead of preaching me about how we should lie to our children, you'd better teach yours to accept, not hide under the rug that which has already happened, to love and tolerate. This ain't no fucking hippie message. It's a simple truth. People have to be taught to put differences aside, not sheltered from painful realities. But then again, you, lady, don't really seem too good with tolerance yourself, do you?

Lil' change

Because some friends have asked me to do so, from now on, some of my posts here (those that might interest them that is), will be written in English. Sorry for any inconvenience.