A musical week

This past Tuesday, I got to go to a 30 Seconds to Mars concert with Keemi, a new friend from DIS who also plays rugby and is in Nordic Mythology and European Storytelling with me. It was a lot of fun! I especially enjoyed the opening act - Street Drum Corps. They're a group from LA, and the lead singer was so energetic and fun, and they had a fun variety of music. Then Carpark North played, a local group. The rest of the (rather young) crowd went crazy, but Keemi and I were less excited about them. Their style was a little bit sleepier, I think. They did have a keytar, though, so that was pretty cool!

Then, 30 Seconds to Mars was up. I didn't know much about them, really just one song, but I always like going to concerts. They were definitely a great presence on stage. Their lead singer, Jared Leto, really created a cohesive performance and was really entertaining. It was also somebody's birthday in the crowd. I don't know if they were all his friends, but a bunch of people had signs saying, "Happy Birthday Shannon" on them. About midway through the performance, Jared Leto invited Shannon up on stage, and the entire crowd sang the Danish birthday song to him. Luckily, I had learned it in my Danish class just the day before. It's got a very different melody than our birthday song, but it's really fun! It goes like this:

I dag er det "Name of person celebrated"'s fødselssdag (Today is ____'s birthday)
Hurra, hurra, hurra!
Han sikkert sig en gave får (He'll probably get a gift)
som han har ønsket sig i år (That he's been wishing for this year)
med dejlig chokolade og kager til. (With yummy chocolate and cakes)

It was great to be in the crowd and be able to hum along a little bit (I could only remember the first two lines and the last line). It was just really fun - and also fun to watch the reactions of the band, who were baffled but seemed to enjoy it.

One weird thing I noticed - and maybe I just haven't been to the right performances - was that there were two beautiful blonde women sitting on the stage off to the side, facing the band. They were seated in a little box, it seemed. They were onstage for both Carpark North and 30 Seconds to Mars. Maybe they were groupies? I can't think of any other explanation, though what was striking was how disinterested they seemed - or at least, not very excited. I don't know what was going on with that at all.

Then, on Wednesday, I got to see "The Magic Flute" at the Royal Theater through DIS. It was an interesting experience, since it was performed in Danish, with Danish supertitles. Even though I'm familiar with the story and the opera (The Queen of the Night aria was performed exceedingly well!) I got a little lost rather often. It was exciting when I actually understood most of a song, though - the one that Papageno and Papagena sing together near the end! The set was also strange - it seemed very minimalistic at first, but there were an excessive (in my opinion) amount of trap doors and mechanical workings. It was fun all the same, since it's one of my favorite operas/the only opera I really have much familiarity with.

The Royal Theater itself is absolutely gorgeous! It's very vertically oriented, which is interesting - there are three balconies one on top of the other, and they each have maybe four rows or so, set at a very steep angle, so that you can actually see over the person in front of you if you (like I) are seated in the last row of the theater. Interestingly enough, we had just learned about Heiberg in my Philosophy and Religion of the Danish Golden Age class. Heiberg, as well as being a philosopher, was the director of the theater for many years, as well as primary playwright. Over the stage, in huge gold letters, is written "Ei blot til lyst" - which roughly translates to "It's not just for fun," meaning that you should seek the deeper meaning in every performance and every work of art. Something worth thinking about.