Because the previously scheduled warm-up act had been cancelled due to illness, the main performance was preceded by an Irish duo – I wish I could remember the name, if only to studiously avoid them in future. Under a blue light, dressed in jeans, white shirts, dark ties and the kind of balaclava recently favoured by the Provisional IRA, they made a lot of post-industrial noise at a volume that nearly made one’s ears bleed. I waited, with growing impatience, for their actual music to begin but the cacophony went on… and on. After 15 minutes of this torture, a sizeable part of the audience had realised the emperor truly had no clothes and, like them, I voted with my feet and headed for the bar.
in the deathsleep sweep me,
on the road to Hel,
when the tracks I tread
are so cold, so cold?
…..
When you stand at the gates of Hel
and you have to tear free,
I will follow you
past the Bridge of Gjöll with my song.
You will be loosed from the bonds that bind you!
You are loosed from the bonds that bound you!