motodraconis | Topless Fragrant Dolk, the Mighty Abbath!

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Second, (and last) weird review of Tons of Rock. I'm pretty pleased with how well some of these pics came out, and Abbath was a scream! Click here or click the pic to see.

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From:

shadowbliss

Cool

From:

a_belladonna

"Topless Dolk" looks funny because we have the expression "bar røv og dolk" meaning "stark naked" in Danish, literally "bare ass and dagger" . ("Dolk" here being an euphemism/slang for "dick", haha)

Also, what moron decided to top and tail Kampfar and 1349 back to back on different stages?

Probably the same person who decided that Vreid's gig should begin 2/3s through Emperor's first ever gig on Danish soil at Copenhell this year.

It's great to see Abbath on stage again after that breakdown he suffered some years ago during a tour in South America. Seeing him lose it like that was really heartbreaking.
IMO he's (probably) the biggest showman in Norwegian black metal. I was so lucky to see Immortal on Copenhell in 2012 (front row, wooo!) and he really has stage presence!

And you're right about Norwegian. It's strangely fitting for the screeched vocals of black metal. I have no explanation for it, I'll have to ask my sister if there perhaps is a reason for it (she's an audiologist).
Danish, for instance, just is a more guttural language and thus fits typical death metal growls better, I've noticed. (The vocalists typically just end up sounded slightly snotty (as in having a cold) when doing screeched black metal vocals in Danish)

From:

motodraconis

Arf! I didn't know that about Danish slang, that's hilarious! I've just checked my Norsk banneordbok but it wasn't in there, so um, maybe Dolk himself was not aware of this double meaning.

FFS on merging Vreid with Emperor. I was particularly incensed at Tons of Rock doing this as it's mostly a rock festival with only a small sprinkling of Black Metal bands, so no excuse to smush them together.

Abbath was announced on Tons very late on the scheduling (I bought the ticket for day 2 in 2020, but Abbath was only announced this year, so I grabbed a ticket for day 3 very late). Part of that was because I'd heard of that disastrous gig and how he'd gone into rehab. It's not something I wanted to mention on my public blog, but I wanted to see him asap before he relapsed, which with alcoholics, can be a problem. Later tour tickets were released, so I gambled and got a ticket for their gig in Oslo in October too, mostly as a back up if he dropped out of Tons from health issues.

He's in great form now, and looked healthy and full of vitality... though he did forget his own lyrics at least twice, the set was so stonking it did not detract. I do hope he can stay on the wagon, it would be a tragedy if he went into the downward health and substance abuse spiral that can be so common for musicians. Fingers crossed he continues to get support to stay healthy.

Spoken Norwegian can sound so lilting and musical. I'll never forget when I was waiting at Oslo airport and overheard a very angry Norskie ranting and furious (a fairly rare occurrence.) Much as he was livid, it sounded so delightful (being as I was not being the one confronted!) He did calm down, but as a bystander I found his rage adorable, the lilt and musicality!

But clean-sung love songs... GROAN! My theory, (as a non-native speaker) is that Norwegian does not have many words to play with, and some natives get by on very limited vocabularies. English is so vast, you can find words to twist to fit anything, in short or long words or sentences as needed, but with the Norsk, it often feels like overly long and clunky syntax struggling to fit into the sometimes shorter rhythm of the music. There just aren't enough words to get a good lyric that makes sense without having to over-jabber it. Black Metal by contrast, is often about the vocal sound of the sentiment, the lyrics are often gibberish and don't have to work so hard to impart meaning beyond keywords and phrases often seemingly dropped in at random.