2003 ALLERSEELEN ST. PETERSBURG

18.X.MMIII

Allerseelen - St. Petersburg

"The headliner of the festival, Allerseelen, were bold enough to use minus phonogram, one could enjoy only live drums and the singing of Gerhard. He turned out to be a middle-height man of Mediterranean appearance with bright charismatic eyes. Black shirt and military trousers: who do we have to do with - Mussolini or Celentano? The melodic hypnotically monotonous composition by 'Allerseelen' was accentuated with sharp drums. Gerhard read his texts with his eyes looking somewhere above our heads. The music played tricks with us: the more you listened to it, the more involved you got into its joyful flapping energy. In comparison with the exaggerated cruelty of 'Legion Kondor/Rasthof Dachau' the apocalyptic-chanson by Gerhard had a most positive effect. We left the club and silence covered us with its heavy deafening breast. The sky cleared up and breathed with frosty hollowness. The mute stars bleaked in the remote space but their poor light sparkled as holy fire in our eyes."

Text: Asterius IN.

Amazing live photos by Coroner:

http://music.gothic.ru/events/heilige4/heilige4-ph1.htm

http://www.heimdallr.ch/Live





"Der Zar berichtete später in seinem Tagebuch, daß er und die Zarin schließlich vor Übermüdung am Bett ihres Kindes in ihren Sesseln einschliefen. Sie hatten drei Tage und drei Nächte bei ihrem Kind gewacht. Plötzlich wachten sie auf. Es war zwei Uhr morgens. Der Raum war beinahe dunkel. Rasputin hatte alle Lampen gelöscht. Nur die Kerzen vor den Ikonen brannten still und warfen den gewaltigen, schweren Schatten des vor dem Bett knienden Wundermönches über das Gesicht des todkranken Kindes."

"Am Eingang dieses Hauses stand jedoch wie der Erzengel Michael an der Pforte des Paradieses groß und mächtig der Starez Rasputin."

Heinz Liepmann, Rasputin, München 1989, S. 99f +137


16.-19.X.MMIII

Allerseelen performed live at the Heilige Feuer IV event in St. Petersburg, Russia, on October 18th, 2003 at Red Club, Poltavskaya ul. 7. The other groups on stage this night were Vetrophonia, Painslut, Bearer of the Inmost Sun and Rasthof Dachau/Legion Condor.

As usual, I got to know the most beautiful and most powerful aspects of a country. Typing these notes, drinking some champagne from Krim, the peninsula where Tatars saved the life of the German stuka pilot and artist Josef Beuys, and listening to the beautiful recordings of And you will fear death not by the Hungarian group Scivias.

The amazing sky during the flight to St. Petersburg like a painting by by Nicholas Roerich. The amazing book I was reading: Heinz Liepman, Rasputin. A fascinating healer and visionary, much more a saint than I had believed before, his life and fate in some way reminding of Hermann Hesse´s Narziss und Goldmund. Sensuality and mysticism. Thinking of an image showing long-haired Serbian monks. The autumnal woods of Bohemia. The sky like mother-of-pearl. Then a sky like smoke. Russia. The cliché of endless endlessness. Fields, water. Landing. Edward and Igor bringing us to our small apartment close to the beautiful church Sobor spas na krovi with its blue and green towers appearing at night like an under water vision. In the subway, on the streets beautiful Russian women in pike-grey coats. Many buildings of St. Petersburg looking quite Mediterranean. Though the structure of the city with its broad channels appearing more like Amsterdam than Venice. Spending the evening in the lead-grey club Truba. Dark beer, the bread drink Kwas. Meeting musicians, meeting the artist Njard. Speaking about Rasputin, the Tsar, the Kossacks, about Nicholas Roerich and Ivan Bilibin. Another club, some great vodka, some great red wine from Georgia. Young girls dancing. In bookstores the beautiful images by Ivan Bilibin which I discovered for the first time in Oregon, the symbolistic paintings by I. Samsonov looking almost like ikons with its golden background. The amber room on all the images I saw much too baroque, much to gorgeous for my archaic taste. I am much more fascinated by the myth, by the room that disappeared than by the room that was reconstructed during the last years. Buying a beautiful book on Slavic mythology with beautiful drawings. Being told about the Tsarist bank notes depicting an eagle and a swastika. Some amazing wodka, different from all the wodka I ever drank in my life. Eating salmon at the restaurant Sunduk. Soundcheck at the Red Club, Poltavskaya ul. 7. Eating salmon again at the great Czech restaurant Krusovice. At the Red Club 300-400 people. Vetrophonia - industrial with a great futuristic video. Painslut - supple tiger industrial. Bearer of the Inmost Sun - two really great songs. Rasthof Dachau/Legion Condor - industrial noise. Drinking a lot of water, some beer, only a little wodka. The songs Allerseelen performed live: Unverändert, Traumlied, Wo die wilden Kerle wohnen, Santa Sangre, Mit fester Hand, Löwin, Krieger aus Stein, Flamme, Steingeburt, Kamerad, Sonne golthi-ade, Wir rufen Deine Wölfe, Als wärs das letzte Mal. Four of them for the very first time on stage: It would be great to be able to perform some of these songs in Russian. At least two of the songs containing splinters of operas or symphonies by Rimsky-Korsakov and Shostakovitch. Edward and I visiting the dark and beautiful Tibetan Kalachakra temple of St. Petersburg, Primorsky Prospekt 91, looking like a building from the Potala, Lhasa. Gentian blue sky. The Bolsheviki had closed, descecrated the temple for decades. The Ahnenerbe of the SS tried to get hold of it, attempting to combine occult as well as geopolitical interests. Gongs, drums, a golden cap. The Tibetan woman at the temple asking where I am coming from - Austria. She did not understand the name Heinrich Harrer, but understood it when I pronounced it Cheinrich Charrer. Returning to the airport. Returning to Austria. Looking forward to visiting magnificent Russia again within a couple of years.

Thanks to Edward, Igor, Andrej, Kirill for everything. The Russian cd compilation Heilige Feuer IV will very probably contain two songs by Allerseelen on the Russian healer and visionary Rasputin.

Gerhard

26.X.MMIII