Ethereal Ambient Evening – Brasov, 12.09.2009

September 22, 2009 at 7:14 am (concert, cult, me, myself and I)

Ethereal Ambient Evening. Reduta Cultura Center in Brasov. Arcana concert.

After one year I had the chance to hear again a beautiful, enchanting music, a music that touches my soul. I was so excited, that atfer the performance of last year i couldn`t wait to see Arcana again.

We got to Brasov in the afternoon, checked into a hotel – after almost an hour of spinning in circles to find the hotel – and after we settled in, we wondered through the city. We went to Reduta Cultural Center to see what merchandise was there and to get the tickets. When we got in, there was a video-projection of an interview with Lisa Gerrard from Dead Can Dance. The interior decorations captured my attention: flowers here and there, harps symmetrical arranged, a chest with different ornaments on one side.

The first band walked up on the stage. Narsilion. A Spanish band of medieval, neoclassical, dark ambient, composed by Lady Nott and Sathorys Elenorth. A great sound, great voices. Sathorys has such an imposing voice and such a stage presence that can`t be overlooked.

Lady Nott was excellent with the violin and Sathorys at the piano. These two instruments that they performed on, remained in my head because they are the soul of every emotion you can possible have.
They showed a bit of stage fright at first, but after a while they got into the music, and we, the audience, along with them and every fright that they had just faded away and the only emotions that could have been felt was that of every souls that connected one with the other.

After they performed, a short recess in which the organizers changed the scenery for the next band. The room filled with smoke and three men in lab coats and oxygen masks appeared.

A very good entrance they made for Der Blaue Reiter, an industrial, dark ambient band. The video-projection showed a few words about the disaster from Cernobil. A very nice touch for an industrial band.
Their performance was great, not only because Lady Nott enchanted us with the violin or because of Sathorys`s powerful voice and great prestation. The subject of Cernobil that they approached was very touching and I`m sure that in the air was a wave of sadness.

In the short recess after the performance of Der Blaue Reiter the scenery changed and flowers appeared once more and everything looked like so full of life and radiating with harmony.

Arcana walked up the stage and once more they showed us what they can do. They had a few minor technical problems – Peter`s microphone didn`t work at one moment, and the microphone of Anne-Mari was too loud.

Their performance was great as the last time: the powerful voices of Anne-Mari and Peter, the sublime voice of Ia, the great performance of Mattias and Stefan.
Peter performed two songs from his solo-album, “A Wave Of Bitterness”. Everyone was enchanted by this.
At the end they called up on the stage Narsilion and with them they played a song that they didn`t rehearsed for, as they said. And even so, it sounded excellent.

The same as last year, the communication with the audience was present, not only between Arcana and us, but also from Narsilion/Der Blaue Reiter.

At the entrance there were a few stalls with CDs, t-shirts, bags, that the people that came didn`t quite had the time at the beginning to indulge with them because this year the organizers decided to apply the policy “first-come, first-served” and so everybody went inside to take a seat closer to the stage. After the concert, at the stall of free promo/CDs of underground bands, there was nothing left. But i got a cd of Arcana`s ‘Inner Pale Sun’, the solo album of peter ‘A Wave Of Bitterness’ and a t-shirt.

Unfortunatly I can`t tell what happened at the after-party, because for the second time I didn`t went for various reasons and one of those reasons was the pub that they picked out didn`t have room for every one that was present at the concert.
The first year i didn`t went, because i didn`t knew where the location of the after-party was and i had a train to catch, and this year i didn`t went, because even if i found out where the atfer-party was held, we didn`t had a place to sit, the local pub wasn`t big enough for everybody that attended the concert. Bad choice of the place in my opinion.

All in all it was a great concert, a concert that many will remember even years from now. I do hope they`ll come back next year too.

More pictures from the concert here .

Enjoy!