Heilung: the ritual shall begin at the appointed time

[dorchadas]

A few months ago, resurii reached out to me on a hunch and asked me if I had ever heard of a band called Heilung. I had not, but I went out to listen to a couple of their songs, then bought both of their albums, and then when the tickets went on sale I...missed out because I didn't expect them to sell out within two hours. But due to the massive response, the organizers moved the concert from the Vic (where Mishkan had its Yom Kippur services) to the Riviera, which was both closer to me and opened up more tickets, so I got one. And last night was the concert ritual.

Wish I had a better phone camera for this, but.

I use the term "concert ritual" deliberately--"ritual" is the same word the band uses to talk about their own performances. There was no banter with the audience at all, and before the actual concert began, one of the band members came out with some incense and wafted it over the instruments and all the members of the audience in the front. resurii had gotten a position in the front of the second tier, so we had a clear view of the stage, and I got to see the initial ceremony and then when the band members came out and recited the opening words of the ritual in a call-and-response with the audience:

Remember that we all are brothers
All people, beasts, tree and stone and wind
We all descend from the one great being
That was always there
Before people lived and named it
Before the first seed sprouted

I did not recite them, of course--לא יהיה לך אלהים אחרים על פני Lo yihyeh lecha elohim acherim al-panay, "You shall have no other gods before me." I did think as I was there that it was a bit of a theologically tricky position. sam.florida asked me if I was more on the Kabbalah scale of Judaism, and was surprised when I told him I kept kosher, went to Shabbat services, and so on, since I had come to what was essentially a pagan ritual (he had on a Mjolnir necklace and a sun wheel necklace, so his interest was clear). And it was a fair question. The first picture I posted, of the man wafting the incense, I included the caption "Begin the avodah zarah 🦌💀" (עבודה זרה, "idolatry"). But theological considerations aside, Heilung is 💯 my aesthetic. Deer skulls, chanting, ritual, dance, those are all things I can get behind.

When resurii told her friends to keep an eye out for me, she told them to look for a dark elf, so.

One other aspect of Heilung's performance is that if you listen to their music, pieces like Hakkerskaldyr ("The Shieldformation") or Vapnatak (an old Norse unit of land measurement) are mostly spoken, and listening to them at home, when they're in a language I don't speak and accompanied only by low chanting or other people growling, just doesn't work for me. But in a darkened theatre, with the smell of incense in the air and people wearing deer antlers on their heads on stage? That's much more effective.

Part of the ceremony even included a simulated ritual sacrifice/death and rebirth.

You might notice that's a woman on the left, which caught me by surprise. I didn't realize it until just before I took this picture, because she was on the far side of the line of warriors most of the time and either in shadow or behind her shield. Part of one song included a simulated ritual hanging (I assume--there was a noose tied around her neck) and then the lead female singer came over and touched her, she stood up and let down her hair, and went back to join the warriors.

It really was like nothing I've ever been to before. sam.florida described it as something we had been invited to watch, like the band was doing it as much for themselves as they were for the audience, and I'm inclined to agree. Even when some of the warriors went crowdsurfing (losing a lot of the mud coating them by the time they made it back to the stage), the atmosphere made it seem more like part of the ritual rather than a mundane band activity. And there was no encore--when the last song was done, the lights went out, and when they came up Heilung had left the stage. The same man came out at the end as had come out at the beginning, wafted incense over the instruments again, and then left. And the ritual was over.

It obviously wasn't as meaningful to me in a spiritual sense as it was to the people I came with, but as a performance I loved it. A lot of bands have an act they put on as part of their performance, like GWAR's or Lady Gaga's costumes or Jimi Hendrix setting his guitar on fire. With Heilung, I didn't get the sense that it was an act at all. They just as well might have done this if there were no audience watching and gotten their own meaning from it, and I respect that a lot, as someone who has a lot of ritual practice myself. There were moments when the whole crowd went silent and we just watched.

Well, almost the whole crowd. Americans, as a rule, don't know how to be respectful in public.

Based on some of the comments on their YouTube videos, I was worried about Nazis in attendance and more aware than I usually am of the Magen David necklace I wear. ✡️ But other than one person yelling "Hail Heilung," which made me a bit jumpy due to the vowel similarity, I didn't encounter any problems at all. I mean, I was with friends, so I didn't expect to, and Heilung themselves are serious about the "We are all brothers" part that they opened with, but Nazis gonna Nazi. Fortunately, not this time.

I'm so glad resurii told me about it and I got the chance to go!


Afterwards we all went out to Fat Cat on Broadway and got food and drinks, and I stayed and chatted until midnight. I was planning to go home and sleep and go then go into work a bit tired, but what actually happened was that I couldn't fall asleep until 2 a.m., I woke up repeatedly during the night with my throat clogged completely full, and when I woke up again at 5:45 a.m. almost an hour before my alarm, I called in sick. That ruined my plans to meet up with resurii, servermonk, sam.florida, and jenna.morgan.750 for lunch at Hanabusa cafe , but I need to rest and I don't want to get anyone else sick. So I'm staying home today, reading and drinking tea, and hopefully I'll be better tomorrow. 🧿

Hmm. Maybe it was the evil eye. 🧿🧿🧿

If Heilung tour near you, go see them! It's unforgettable.

Comments

[angelofthenorth]

Get well soon

[dorchadas]

Thank you! I already feel a lot better than I did this morning, so hopefully I'll be back at 💯 tomorrow

[symbioid]

Somehow this looked familiar, so I googled.
Looks like they're doing the music for Senua's Sage: Hellblade 2:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vvKQ7eTGXns

[dorchadas]

Hey, they played that song at the concert!

I never played Senua's Sacrifice, but I've seen a playthrough, and if any band fit the mood, it's Heilung.

[tcpip]

That band looks absolutely awesome.

Speedy recovery!

[dorchadas]

They were amazing. I'd highly recommend them next time you're in Europe (I think this might be their first non-European tour?)

And thank you! I've drunk roughly ten cups of mint tea today, so I already feel a lot better than I did this morning

[helvetica]

That concert looks VERY cool!! I've followed them on social media so hopefully they will come near me someday! I'm glad you had a good time even if you got a bit sick =)

[dorchadas]

I checked their tour and it looks like California is the closest they're getting to you this time--they have one Canadian performance, but it's in Montreal.

I'm feeling better today, so all that tea I drank worked!