Teach Your Children Well: Pyramids and Rock Shows
Don’t you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry, so just look at them and sigh, and know they love you.**
As I write, I am less than a week out from a wonderful visit from my beautiful 20-year-old daughter. The short time spent with her was marvelous, split between gaping in awe at the wonders of ancient Egypt and gasping in fear through a shared binge of streamed horror flicks, with a Christmas viewing of the new Star Wars (in IMAX 3D!) and a sampling of Egyptian cuisine sprinkled in for good measure. Having her here was a true gift, bringing much happiness and a needed dose of just plain fun. Letting her go after the all-too-short stay was tough, but I knew she’d had a blast and I was pleased to have been able to give her the experience of seeing in person places such as the Great Pyramids of Giza that serve as near-global cultural touchstones. It was a great bonding time and reinforced how truly lucky I am to be a father and to be able to provide my kids opportunities to expand their horizons.
My girl throwing up her gang/cult sign (Kappa Delta sorority) at the Great Pyramids in December 2015.
I’m also remembering today a previous excellent, horizon-expanding cultural experience shared with my daughter. To further misappropriate the beautiful Graham Nash lyrics that give title to this post, in May of the year just passed, I sought to share something of the code I live by with my youngest child. Always up to humor Dad, intrepid daughter agreed to accompany me on the three-hour road trip from the Washington D.C. area south to Richmond, Virginia, to see a rock show. This was not her first such rodeo as she previously rode along for concerts by Brazilian thrash/groove metal legends Sepultura (written about here) and Finnish valkyrian “opera metal” belter Tarja Turunen (formerly of Nightwish) back in our Bolivia days. Sticking with the international flavor of past outings, this time we were off to see Icelandic post-metal cowboys Sólstafir in a small club called Strange Matter in what was once the capital of the short-lived Confederate States of America. Happily, disunity was nowhere to be seen on this night as the shared global bond of heavy metal harmony proved as strong in southern Virginia as everywhere else I’ve been blessed to bang my head.
The crowd was small at Strange Matter, numbering only about 40-50 people, for what we learned was to be Sólstafir’s final show of this particular North American tour. Despite the low turnout, the intimacy of the venue, with its small stage and stagefront area, helped protect against any sense of sparseness in the gathering. Installed against the bar at the back of the open space in front of the platform, daughter and I were still only about 20 feet from the stage. Despite representing the youngest and oldest ends of the spectrum present, we were quickly able to establish a sense of comfortable community with our fellow audience members as we settled in for the show.
I’ll note that opening band Night Demon, long-suffering metallers from California, gained in me a life-long fan via their non-ironic embrace of old school heavy metal swagger and unabashed delivery of tales of devils and werewolves over galloping riffs and soaring solos. Because their charging demon army riffage differs so greatly from the windswept wall of sound of the headliners and because I really, really liked them and therefore want to avoid short-shrifting, I’ve decided that Night Demon deserve their own (eventual) post however, and so will leave them here with solely this inadequate, but hearty endorsement.
As the time came for Sólstafir to play, the band members sort of ambled onto the stage and simply meandered about at first, unhurriedly adjusting knobs and languidly picking up their instruments. With blue backlighting and soft white illuminating them from the front, the mood evoked was that of a cold winter’s dusk as the first slowly-strummed chords of opener “Dagmál” eventually began to fill the space. Tall and lanky, with shoulders seeming to slump permanently forward, vocalist/guitarist Aðalbjörn Tryggvason eventually stepped to the microphone and began to mournfully croon unintelligible (to us) Icelandic lyrics that conjured visions of solitary suffering in the midst of harsh, but beautifully vast natural landscapes. As Sæþór Maríus Sæþórsson’s guitar and Svavar Austmann’s bass combined with Tryggvason’s own guitar to create a wall of sound on which to layer the variously wailed or moaned vocals, the tone for the evening was made plain. We were plummeting through the endless expanse of space on an immense terrestrial ship, secured helplessly to a rock-encrusted hull that barely contained the boiling, molten engine at the vessel’s core both propelling us forward and warming us against the cold surrounding bleakness.
Three songs known to me from Sólstafir’s fantastic 2014 album Ótta (which I wrote about here) opened the concert, but the set list didn’t really matter. The band’s ability to create atmosphere carried across songs, making the show one overall event rather than a joined collection of individual performances. Looking over at my decidedly non-headbanger daughter at various times during the concert, I could tell that even she was successfully drawn into the voyage. Tryggvason’s limited engagement with the audience, to include an acoustic moment sitting amongst us on the stairs alongside the stage, was that of a fellow traveler rather than a guide. During the one point in the show when the moment was broken as Tryggvason felt the need to ask the non-participants behind us at the bar to stop clinking their glasses, we were right there with him, desperate to suppress any distractions that might snap us out of our shared excursion. We were lost in the journey, oblivious to any path or ultimate destination.
Whether traveling back in time in the form of visits to ancient temples and tombs of pharaohs and queens, or hurdling through the cosmos on shared musical voyages, there’s little better than sharing moving personal experiences with loved ones. Some of the best times I’ve ever had have involved sharing moments of culture, music, history, and entertainment with my kids. As such, today I jointly offer sincere, heartfelt thanks to fourth dynasty Egyptian Pharaoh Khufu and Icelandic progressive post-metallers Sólstafir for unique, individual contributions to some awesome daddy-daughter bonding in 2015.
** quoted lyrics from “Teach Your Children Well” by Graham Nash
============================================
The following clip embedded from YouTube is a different show than that described here but provides a general sense of the goodness:
Victim of the Fury 
I’m not so familiar with the bands, but the great pyramids of course! Amazing scene there. And great that you and your 20 year old daughter can share so many cool things.
Thanks Mike. I thank the cosmos every day for the fact that my kids are still down to hang with Dad on occasion. Nothing better!
How many kids do you have? (None over here)
Just my daughter and her big brother (24 years old). Big brother has been totally corrupted by me; our first concert together was Jethro Tull and our most recent Steel Panther, with Slayer, Motorhead, Ace Frehley, and many others sprinkled in between.
Really like that Sólstafir album myself and missed the chance to see them last year (which I am now more gutted about). Tremendous amount of space and atmosphere created on record that I can only imagine sounds way more intense live.
Exactly! Sólstafir is not much of a “visual” experience live, but hearing that space and atmosphere on a so much larger scale, coupled with the muted light and unique “aura” emanating from the band up on stage was indeed intense. Not for everybody maybe, but definitely for me.
If young adult children are still keen (or at least willing!) to hang out with a parent, I reckon that it is the only evidence you need that something – at least something – has been done right. Good ol’ cosmos, eh?
Enjoyed the clip. Less strange and unfamiliar than I’d expected – sort of like a chilly, heavy, Bon Jovi. Like the sense of expansiveness a lot. Is that really a banjo?
Thanks, VC. I reckon the cosmos are highly, albeit humbly, appreciative of your reckoning.
Yep, a banjo! He only used it for that one portion of that one song at our show, but it was a cool moment. I’m intrigued with the Bon Jovi comparison and wondering if it goes beyond the “Western cool” style. I ask because I’m the guy who has suggested that I hear some (chilly, heavy) Franz Ferdinand tucked away in parts of Sólstafir’s Ótta album (not necessarily in the song in the clip though).
Although I lost track of sub- (and sub- sub-) genres ages ago, I sort of get what you mean. I also liked that they gave themselves time to stretch out and explore the song. (Did I say that already? It’s too early!)
I really enjoyed this post, both musically and otherwise. Both my teenage kids think my wife and I are the oldest, uncoolest, most embarrassing people to have ever walked the Earth. It’s a stage I’m sure.
I really liked the clip too, I always assumed they’d be too heavy for me. Do you know/like Godspeed You! Black Emporer? I hear real similarities with their first LP there.
Yes, yes, a stage, absolutely. I’m sure the two of you will rediscover your youth, cool and social skills shortly!
I must admit I’ve only sampled tiny bits of GY!BE when you’ve written about them, and never sufficiently to truly develop a sense of them. This comment intrigues however, so I think I’m going to seek out F♯ A♯ ∞ on the streams and see what’s what with their “anarcho classical stew.”
It can be a very tasty stew, regardless of how seriously you take their politics. F# is exactly the right place to start too. Let me know what you think.
They’re 15 and 13, so probably a few years to go yet. I’ll just hide away and play with my Lego until then.