Folkmetal night at The Rock, now how could I possibly say no to that? Especially as one of the bands playing was Huldre who I, if you remember, spoke most favourably off after our last (and at the same time first) encounter…

Actually, the night began with another Danish band called Sylvatica, but as we were stuck in the long and slow-moving line outside, we missed all but one song of their set, so the night really only began for us as Huldre took the stage. No problem there, Huldre was still the act I was looking the most forward to this night anyway, so as long as I got to see them I was happy.
As the curtains came apart, the band was already on stage and they soon began playing soft and soothing song, Beirblakken, revealing a new member playing the hurdy-gurdy. A nice way to ease our way into what was to come…
After this beautiful piece it was time to up the tempo a bit with an old acquaintance, Ulvevinter, a song which could really bring out the dancing abilities of the half-drunk metal audience. Actually, I think the audience does deserve a special mention here; the first thing to hit me was its sheer size, ok so it wasn’t the biggest crowd I’ve ever seen at The Rock, but it was still pretty damn large, much larger than I would have ever imagined for a show such as this (not that it deserved anything less of course), and the second thing was that it surely did not look like the typical metallic audience you would see in here, I did recognize a couple or so faces, but many of the people were new to me, and possibly just as many were specially dressed for the occasion, wearing more or less authentic looking old times clothing. This of course helped set the atmosphere even more; the only thing missing was that the barmaids and men should also have been dressed up like this. That would have been sweet.

Anyway, after side-tracking for a moment there, let’s turn our attention back to Huldre.
The band was performing well up on stage; singer Nanna Barslev was jumping and dancing her little heart out to everyone’s enjoyment, while her fellow musicians took on a calmer, more still standing role. Still with big smiles and a lot of good atmosphere pumping though, so it was certainly not out of boredom or something like that; actually the band seemed perfectly at home on the stage, and they had all of the audience on their side. A few more than the others even, at one point there was a guy who even ventured climbing up on the stage to perform a stage-dive; at another time, during Spillemand, Barslev was suddenly missing from the stage, but was soon found dancing and frolicking with the fans down on the floor.
That Huldre has certainly grown as a band was easy to see and hear, and here I don’t just mean the addition the guy playing hurdy-gurdy and flute, but also in the volume of their song-catalogue. Going up to the show, I had meticulously listened to the demo they had been kind enough to hand out the last time around, and it should be said that they played a great many more songs here than what’s present on this one. It could also be seen on the fact that when called upon to do an encore, they actually had one planned this time (and it wasn’t a repetition of one already played either!)(as was the rest of the hall) to see them stay on for a bit more. Even after this, a loud chanting of the name Huldre could be heard amongst the gathered people for quite some time.

Huldre really only had one minus this night, but sadly it was a serious one, and one they could not completely control themselves; the sound. I know I’ve been praising the sound at The Rock for quite a few shows and a long time now, but tonight Huldre was plagued by one of the worst sounds I’ve heard in my entire career as a review-writer; it was truly god-awful! In the beginning nothing but Barslev and drums could be heard, but even after some of the other instruments kicked in it was still far, far below a quality anyone deserves, I am sad to say.
It was so bad in fact, so that it wasn’t even discernible to hear what Barslev was saying while speaking between songs, hence I still don’t know the name of the new man in the group. My only hope is that this is a problem they will not encounter on future endeavours, as I am as ready as ever to see them again, hopefully sooner than later.

Setlist:

Beirblakken
Ulvevinter
Skovpolska
Troldesang
Togsang
Vågeblus
Havgus
Spillemand
Skærsild
Knoglekvad