Two days at Copenhell
Last week I went to Copenhell metal festival here in Copenhagen, which I haven’t been to since 2011. I had two days, for Wednesday and Saturday. I actually only planned to get Saturday, but those were sold out whereas two day tickets were still available, so I took the extra day as a bonus.
A lot changed in 14 years, while still at the same place the size of the festival has triple folded. Two extra scenes, a plethora of food stands, various shops, merchandise booths and of course and endless supply of beer. I was surprised how commercialised it has become. Everything is crazy expensive1, and while my limiting factor now is more time than money, it also runs a bit deeper than just prices, as the whole endeavour feels more commercial and profitdriven than ever. Like you can buy an even more expensive ticket to get access to an exclusive “resting area” (cleverly called R.I.P.), bands have to give 30% to the festival for selling their merchandise and the festival's own merchandise is subject to heavy marketing, which feels sort of off-putting.
Part of it is also clearly that metal have gotten more mainstream than it was 15 years ago. In addition, other big festivals in Denmark, like the biggest one Roskilde Festival, has more or less dropped booking hard rock bands, so Copenhell has filled that void by adding more bands that I would only call metal-adjacent in recent years. Of course, I admit I now enter an age where I mostly like bands I have listened to for decades and it is a rare thing to find a new band I like. Also, this is a pretty apt depiction:
My taste is mostly towards death, black and thrash metal, and especially the first two are less seen on Copenhell now. The rise in popularity in various -core genres (deathcore, metalcore) hasn’t been for me, but there are still plenty of bands I like this year2 - they are just on the smaller stages now. Which may actually be an improvement, as I can conclude that I don’t really like concerts that are simply too big. It makes it more obvious that the band are just delivering a product, the whole performance including the audience is much more controlled than the more anarchistic and chaotic atmosphere I normally like about metal concerts.
All that is mostly just a matter of principles, because in practice what really matters is whether I had a good time - and I did. The festival was really well managed, bands started on time, plenty of toilet facilities, virtually no waiting for drinks or food, things were kept clean by plenty of trash-picking staff and in general just a hassle-free experience.
As for the music, smaller stages were the best. I was really looking forward to Powerwolf, and while their performance on the big stage was objectively fine, it all felt a bit sterile and “too professional”. Seeing a band like Wormrot, a grindcore band from Singapore, was a pleasant surprise as grindcore a tough genre to get to work live. They played incredibly tight, starting and stopping on the millisecond, which is really what makes or breaks that type of music. The band also genuinely seemed like they were having a good time on stage.
Normally I will stay out of the moshpits as I worry about my glasses and feel a bit too old for that, but for Anaal Nathrakh I made an exception - and I was just wearing my less expensive sunglasses. It was pretty wild and I probably need to get better cardio, as a handful of rounds the circle pit made me short of breath. It was also a proper workout helping people up to crowdsurf, as the band challenged us to break some record, but the center of the moshpit works as resting zone. The only bad thing was that the stage had some sound issues making the vocals being mixed too low, which was also the case for Sodom who played on the same stage later that night. I stayed in the back this time around, and just enjoyed Sodom playing a proper old school thrash setlist, and they closed off the festival in a proper fashion with a long session of Bombenhagel.
Good weather and good company was obviously an equally important factor, and it has sort of already been a thing for a couple of people at my work, so it is likely I will go again next year.