Magic time with Bert Jansch. Photo courtesy of bertjansch.com.
By Todd Lavoie
First off, I gotta ask this: have you ever sat in the Swedish American Hall, waiting for a show to begin, sipping your tea (and wishing it was a cup full of glogg, just to get in the spirit of things, y’know) and soaking up all of the woodcarving wizardry of the place, only to find yourself staring up at that pseudo-Masonic crest posted over the stage, wondering what it means? No? Well, I do, dork of dorks that I am.
“Fylgia,” it reads on the top of this oh-so-captivating piece of cryptic craftmanship, and every time I catch a show at the hall, I brood over the significance of the word, telling myself that this will be the night when I go home and look the damn thing up and put the question to rest. Of course, by the time I get home, I’ve forgotten all about it – till the next show, anyway.
But not tonight! No siree, bucko: tonight I wrote it down on my arm and when I got home, I Googled it. Turns out there are a whole bunch of possibilities, but the one I like best is this: Fylgia is, according to Scandinavian mythology, a supernatural creature that accompanies a person. Oftentimes it takes animal form and it may be considered similar to a person’s soul, separate from the body. Makes the unbelievable acoustics of that space take on a whole new weight, eh? Ah, mythology – gods and goddesses and the whole bit. No wonder I love that venue – it’s fucking epic.
Which brings us to Bert Jansch. Talk about epic! Neil Young – no six-string slouch himself – once famously said that Jansch had done for the acoustic guitar what Jimi Hendrix did for the electric, and the man had a serious point there. Sure, I’ve thought so for the longest time – ever since buying his It Don’t Bother Me on a whim back in college just ‘cause I’d heard his band Pentangle was cool and I liked the cover photo with his rumpled “whatever” look, only to undergo a major folk epiphany when I set the needle to the record. Still, watching the seemingly effortless grace with which Jansch spun off into jazz and blues idioms while throwing down some deliciously melancholic folk at Swedish American Hall on Sunday, Aug. 26, I have all the proof I need that Neil once again was right.