An account of Opeth’s performance at Jäähalli, Helsinki, 15.1.2020
Opeth’s music is art of the highest order, but perhaps the most important thing about it is that it is so simply and splendidly beautiful. It is true that they are clever, original, and that their music is mathematically complex and interesting. It is also true that it thrills with passion and tenderness. But there are moments when one catches a glimpse of something that underlies the structure and the message of their songs: the soul of their music – and of music itself.
They sing and handle their instruments with a tender thoughtfulness that gives every note a wealth of clarity and meaning. I have spent a good part of the last few years marvelling at the glorious and varied things humankind has managed to do with the guitar, but a passage in Harlequin Forest reminded me of something I’d perhaps forgotten, or ceased to think about: even at its very simplest and purest, the sound of the guitar itself is achingly and exuberantly beautiful.
And it is impossible to resist a band who are having so much fun with their music. Their music is alternately tender and yearning, and strident and gleeful. At times, their strong chords sweep the hall like strong winds; at others, they make a crowd of thousands of people fall so silent that one forgets to breathe. But for those two hours, the audience sways to every change of mood like a leaf in the wind. (‘The collective soul of Finland is in this room,’ said Mikael Åkerfeldt. ‘Do you all carry knives? Or is that a 70s thing?’)
When I close my eyes to sleep, I can still hear and feel the chords that mark the start of the ‘Och om vi ses igen’ passage of ‘Allting tar slut’ thrilling through me again – perhaps the most splendid two chords I have ever heard.
Their background projections were a feast for the eye: rich, sophisticated and artsy, with a delightful undercurrent of strangeness, a darkness hiding within the warm and the vivid. As Mikael Åkerfeldt helpfully pointed out, ‘We have some screens for you to look at… Some lights…’
Trond of the Valfjeld 