It’s Saturday June 14 and One Direction are halfway through the encore of their second night headlining the 65k capacity Friends Arena in Solna, Sweden. Somewhere in the crowd, there is a 40-year-old man with shoulder-length hair looking slightly disconcerted, quietly resisting the urge to mouth along the words to as his daughter bounces with excitement, in the way young girls do on such occasions. This is no ordinary man, however; he’s one of metal’s greatest visionaries and, in more recent times, perhaps one of its most vocal critics – though you could say the chances of him being recognised here are pretty slim.
“Well, I was in the minority there, being an old dude for one,” laughs Opeth mastermind Mikael Åkerfeldt. “It kinda felt like they’d just dragged up five guys from the crowd..
. if there were guys in the crowd! I couldn’t see the fascination, I felt a bit sad in a way. is the good one so when they played that, I turned to my daughter and said, ‘This one’s OK.
’” As it transpires, metal isn’t the only genre the Opeth leader can see benefiting from a good kick up the arse. Fast forward a couple of days and a sleepy-looking Mikael is backstage at the IndigO2 in Greenwich, enjoying his last cigarette as a mere mortal, while his two daughters play close by. In a few minutes, he’ll be walking out in front of 2,000 fans, peers and industry bigwigs to become a Golden God – the Golden God, to be precise – the highest accolade of our awards .