HAKONSHALLEN,BERGEN
FOLLOWING A PHENOMENAL rendition of Warduna’s Völuspá, accompanied by the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra for the Bergen International Festival’s opening concert, former Gorgoroth drummer turned hero of Nordic folk music Einar Selvik is up against a similarly opposing backdrop tonight. This time his performance takes place in a 13th-century banquet hall, Håkonshallen, set in the Bergenhus Fortress, Norway’s largest medieval building.
The massive soundscapes of Einar’s hugely influential Wardruna have been stripped away tonight, leaving the bard exposed with nothing but a handful of traditional Viking instruments. Yet one of his most intimate and primitive concerts to date is, ironically, also the most modern and ‘distant’. Nobody is in physical attendance, his audience tuning in from the comfort of their own homes.
He begins the performance with Skald, played upon his trusty lyre, moving into Ormagardskrædi, aka ‘Snakepit Poetry’, the song Einar composed for Ragnar Lothbrok’s death scene in the History Channel’s Vikings. He’s then joined by his Nordvegen project collaboators - Enslaved members Ivar Bjørnson, Iver Sandøy and Håkon Vinje, and Hardanger fiddler Silje Solberg - as well as Wardruna bandmate Lindy-Fay Hella to perform Wardruna’s epic runic poem, Fehu.