Third annual Copenhell festival has gathered up their most impressive linup yet and from the looks of it this festival is getting bigger and more international. Since the first year number of guests has more than doubled and hopefully this will result in another Copenhell next year, and another after that and perhaps this festival will become one of those festivals you can count on to return year after year with good and interesting lineup.

Festival takes place in the city of Copenhagen fairly close to the very centre of the city, but the setting are perfect for the festival with fine bland of nature and partly abandoned old industrial infrastructure.

Much like at the first Copenhell ever and the last year's as well, this year's linup was very diverse and there was something in there for basically any metal fan. And because no concert takes place at the same time (with exception of those on Talent Stage) you can see each and every concert divided between two stages.

DAY 1:

Killswitch Engage took the festival's main stage (Helvíti) at 6:30 PM. This tour marks the return of the band's former singer Philip Labonte, who replaced Howard Jones. Jones left the band earlier this year after whole none years in Killswitch Engage. The band opened up energetically but with sound that way way too hazy. This made it harder to enjoy the otherwise good examples of the band's talent, such as “Numbered Days” and “Self Revolution”. As the show progressed the sound and playing got better, with more melodic aspects of the band's music becoming clearer and therefore easier to participate in sing-along.
Up on the stage the band did alright job, but it somehow seemed like these five individuals are somewhat polarised form each other.
[3/6]

American grind core band Brutal Truth played the second stage (Hades) right after. The band formed more than two decades ago by Dan Lilker (ex-Anthrax and Nuclear Assault) bassist. From the start it was brutal display of power, but more often then not it felt like the band took the stage too early at the day and it seemed like most of the audience was not at all familiar with the band's material. The chaotic nature of their music didn't help either so for the most of the show this otherwise very well delivered grindcore orgy felt somewhat empty and it never truly ignited the audience.
[3/6]

Legendary New York trashers, Anthrax were up next. Few weeks earlier they've played a short gig at Rock Im Park festival in Germany where, they played in the middle of the day, but band's performance was potent and the band (and nonetheless the singer Joey Belladonna), proved that they can get any crowd going with their extremely energetic and positive approach to playing. And their gig at Copenhell was not that different.
Classic Anthrax set-opener “Caught in a Mosh” started the whole thing off and before you can say "Cupajoe" they ripped into Joe Jackson cover “Got The Time”. There were some issues with the sound, but enormous amount of positive energy from the stage made it less important. “Fight 'Em Till You Can't” was the first of the two songs form their latest release Worship Music and there is no doubt that this song will become band's live-classic. On the other hand, “In The End”, a fine new song, just didn't work as well as “Devil You Know” or “I'm Alive” would've (they played the first of the two at Rock Im Park). It's impressive to see the band with more than 30 years behind them project so much positive energy and engagement, something many of other bands can learn from. All this, though, with exception of Anthrax's drummer Charlie Benante, who for some reason again seemed very uninterested and as such in complete contrast to the rest of the band.

First encore tune, the mighty “Bee All, End All”, didn't get as good response as one might have expected and the third cover of the evening, Black Sabbath's “Neon Knights”, which was dedicated to Ronnie James Dio, pretty much went over people's head. Like always Anthrax finished with “I Am The Law” smiling faces in the crowd, smiling faces on the stage (with exception of Benante) and Anthrax still delivers live, I wish only they would play at least couple of the songs from that ten year long period the band was fronted by magnificent John Bush. No matter what - go see Anthrax play live!
[5/6]

All Shall Perish had a tough job following Anthrax, but California deathcore band played a surprisingly upright show. High energy level throughout the entire show, with especially band’s vocalist Hernan "Eddie" Hermida bursting with energy and crowd-communication. His engagement with the audience and his sense for exportation of rhythmical aspect of his vocals were remarkable.  The crowd was into it and it all resulted in fairly short but very good live experience from All Shall Perish. Walking away from the stage I couldn’t help but hoping to see them playing headlining show, at some smaller venue.
[4/6]

The big crowd gathered in front of the main stage where one of the most hyped metal bands of past few years was set to take stage at 9:30 PM. Over the last couple of years Mastodon have visited Denmark more than ten times - playing headlining shows, festivals and nonetheless supporting Metallica number of times.
Last time I saw them live was when they played Vega earlier this year and trademark for that show was that, for some reason, despite great technical abilities Mastodon’s live performances never manage to match the greatness of their albums. Out of all the times I’ve seen them play live, the closer they came to this was at last year’s Roskilde Festival.
The band opened with “Black Tongue”, which just works better as number-two song. The issues with vocals in the beginning were corrected fairly early in the show, but the vocals were never very stable. This combined with fairly limited vocal possibilities form the two singers resulted in far from good vocal performance.
However on the other hand the band played well and the band members flashed more smiles than usually – most noticeably the otherwise stone-faced Bill Kelliher. Setlist was very typical for their current tour with no surprises and massive focus on the band’s latest release The Hunter. The show closed with two live classics “March of the Fire Ants” and “Blood and Thunder”.
This turned out to be one of the better displays of Mastodon strength and, nonetheless thanks to the fresh energy of the band and the crowd, that was so ready for the band, you’d think that they didn’t see the band play live in ages.
[4/6]

From one hyped band to another. Gojira played right after on the second stage. I’ve witnessed them few weeks ago on central stage at Rock Im Park and playing there around 2:00 PM was just wrong. They didn’t manage to work the enourmous stage and most of the crowd in front of the central stage didn’t know any of the band’s songs. This evening at Copenhell they were more in their right element. This is, after all, a metal festival and second stage seemed perfect for them and as they came out the night has almost fallen over the Denmark’s capitol.
Focus was once again on the bands breakthrough album The Way Of All Flash, but the crowd also got to experience the title-track from Gojira’s long waited forthcoming album, L'Enfant Sauvage.
There is a certain charm to this band live, perhaps because they are not as dramatic live as one might expect based from their music. Mario Duplantier behind the drum kit is a beast and the whole band plays extremely tight live. I recall interviewing Jeff Waters of Annihilator shortly before the band’s commercial breakthrough. They were on tour with Annihilator and the band’s leader was highly impressed by Gojiras technical abilities. I found this very arresting, taking into consideration the surgical precision of Annihilator’s live performances.
Gojira played a good gig, but after seeing them play some 5 or six times, I am still waiting to see them rip totally through.
[4/6]

And then after a day of one good concert after another it was time for the headliners Slayer to close the first day. And judging from all the many times I have seen them over the years, the question was not if they will play a good show, the question was simply, how good of a show they will play.
Since the release of band’s last album World Painted Blood most of the shows were opened with the very fitting titletrack. This evening, however for the first time in ages, they've chosen to open with 1988 classic “South Of Heaven”. The reaction of the crowd was ecstatic, not so much because they played the song, which they always do, but because it was an unexpected opening. “World Painted Blood” worked very well as a second song as well and “War Ensemble” proved once again to be one of the absolute musts for Slayer’s live shows.

For more than year now the guitarist Jeff Henneman has been absent form playing live with the band, due to health issues. His replacement Exodus' guitarist Gary Holt was surprisingly vital and a noticeable figure on the stage. His presence is less “iconic”, but he plays well and is very energetic in his appearance, which comes as somewhat of a contrast to rest of the band. Tom Araya was his old charming self and Kerry King is just a prototype of a heavy metal legend. Buried somewhere behind the kit Dave Lombardo was pounding on the drums like he always does, with great percision and infuriated power. Since his return to the band, for over ten years ago, his signature sound was  absent form the Slayer records, but fortunately live his sound is very much present and what a sound it is. Just hearing his fill in the middle of above mentioned “War Ensemble” is worthy any money any drummer might have paid to see the band live.

Rest of the setlist was fairly typical for Slayer anno 2012, but it was great to see that band has started to play both “Seasons In The Abyss” and “Dead Skin Mask” at the same gigs, where in past they would usually pick either one or the other. Last of the two served just perfectly as a first song of the encore, with obligatory “Raining Blood” closing the set. Slayer delivered and after their set it was almost hard to remember who else played earlier that day.
[5/6]

SLAYER SETLIST:

01 - South of Heaven
02 - World Painted Blood
03 - War Ensemble
04 - Die by the Sword
05 - Chemical Warfare
06 - Hate Worldwide
07 - Mandatory Suicide
08 - Altar of Sacrifice
09 - Jesus Saves
10 - Seasons in the Abyss
11 - Hell Awaits
12 - Postmortem
13 - Snuff
14 - Angel of Death
----------------------------
15 - Dead Skin Mask
16 - Raining Blood

DAY 2:

Swedish math-metal machine Meshuggah started their 4:30 PM show with the “Demiurge” from their brand new album Koloos. They sounded good from the start and it was so impressive to see them actually play their stuff live. I mean it's technically insane and they make it look easy. Up there on the stage they were very much typically Meshuggah, but comparing to their last year's concert at Amager Bio, there was more contact with the crowd and even few smiles.
Sure the otherwise preposterously competent drummer Thomas Haake didn’t really take a single glance at the audience and band’s singer Jens Kidman did his two moves, but fortunately he added another move this time and it was an important one – establishing certain degree of contact with the crowd. He even tried to be witty few times, like when introducing “Rational Gaze” by stating “Here is another metal song”.

It’s hard not to be impressed by the band’s abilities on respective instruments, but in the long run I find their music tiring, not because of its intensity, but rather because of such an extensive overuse of odd time measures. These can be fun and exciting is used properly (just think of Tool), but over-usage like that in Meshuggah, just tends to kill anything else that might be in their music.
Today’s show was far better than their last on Danish soil, but it was far from anything memorable.
[4/6]

Finnish Korpiklaani followed on the second stage with Finnish folk combined metal and with song titles like “Vodka” and “Tequila” the stage was set for a jolly show. Glancing over the crowd it was filled with smiling dancing faces and I guess that means that Korpiklaani did their job well. Mixture of metal guitars and drums with jolly harmonica and violin as well as “oompa-oompa” choruses proved to be winning combination for this open air festival. Party time. And liberating feel of being able to jump up and down to simple rhythms after Meshuggah’s ”mathematics for the advanced 5”.
[4/6]

And then it was time for another extreme band, in its own right. Celebrating 20 year anniversary since the release of their first album, Norwegian black metal veterans Immortal, took the main stage together with huge amounts of smoke. It always seems a bit odd to see the black metal bands and their black and white painted faces in the broad daylight. However Immortal did their best to keep their show dramatic, with smoke and the imagery of the Norwegian nature behind the band. This worked to the certain degree.
I am far from expert in black metal, but generally the band did well. Especially in the middle of the show the band played some more riff based, slower (slower considering that this is a black metal band) songs, which feature some truly amazing riffs. I found myself stunned by how many really good riffs Immortal produced and how well tided up they were. I might be as far from black metal as I am from the sun (was that ironic), but I know when I witness a mighty display of power.
[4/6]

Trivium played a solid show few weeks back in Germany and their Copenhell performance was just as good. They opened with the title track off of their latest album In Waves and live this song truly unfolds itself. “In Waves” seems like a song, which Trivium will be playing on all of their shows from now on. An already classic Trivium song followed in form of “Pull Harder on the Strings of Your Martyr” from their breakthrough album Ascendancy, which was one of, in all, four songs Trivium played from that album. Band was working the stage in very rehearsed, but efficient way and they did their best to keep the audience going.

Nick Augusto who replaced Travis Smith couple of years ago was by the rest of the band described as someone who’s on whole new level. Personally, I find his playing good, but in no matter much different than Smith’s. Live he takes much less space with his fairly anonymous presence and stripped down drumkit. Corey Beaulieu is fine example of a talented, hardworking heavy metal lead guitarist; however his vocal abilities are less electric. Matt Heafy live, is in many ways copy of Machine Head’s Robb Flynn, but with lesser portion of charisma. He woks the crowd with exaggerated gesticulations and cliché hooks, but for the most part his gimmicks works well.
Trivium is a band who might not have anything revolutionary in their music, but they have certain quality in their music as well as in their live performances.
[4/6]

Lamb Of God has never been my cup of tee, but first time I saw them live , when they played Vega couple of years ago I was amazed by power of their live performance.  Their latest album Resolution might be one of their weakest, but after seeing them live I was eager to see if they would be able to repeat the good performance.  And it was two songs from Resolution that got to open Lamb Of God’s Copenhell concert. 
These songs worked quite well, but it was “Walk With Me in Hell” (this evening appropriately renamed to “Walk With Me in Copenhell”) that truly got the things going. Once again I stood there amazed by the pure energy this band possesses and how much juce they can squeeze from music that for the most part is bastard-child of Pantera and Slayer.

The whole band was rattling and looked like they were heaving good time, more so than at their Vega gig.
Randy Blythe was extremely active and pumping the crowd up almost constantly. He also took time to acknowledge Christiania in Copenhagen as one of the coolest places on the planet and also to applaud Danish citizens for allowing such place to exist. Perhaps it’s a good thing that he doesn’t really know all the political fighting and efforts by many to dissolve this “freetown”. Regardless, his messages were very positively received by Copenhell crowd.

As the show progressed the band showed no signs of slowing down. On contrary. The crowd was jumping, pitting, headbanging all the way to the back and Lamb Of God also created the biggest circlepit of Copenhell 2012.
Band briefly left the stage only to return after the instrumental intro “The Passing”, which was followed by an epic ending in form of “In Your Words”, “Redneck” and “Black Label”.
Lamb Of God have once again proved to be an outstanding live band. This was close to a flawless concert and I don't even like the band's music.
[6/6]

In a way it’s odd to realize that Soulfly have existed in fifteen years now. Perhaps because no matter what he does, bands leader Max Cavalera will always be referred to as a frontman in Sepultura. But Solfly have created big body of work and their latest album Enslaved (eighth of the kind) received generally positive reviews.
And it was a new song that opened their show at 11:00 PM. Atrocious, blurry sound was fixed some towards the end of the second song. Crowd didn’t get that much into if before the third song, cover of Sepultura’s “Refuse/Resist”.

Genneraly it took the band, and especially Cavalera, some time to get loosen up and more in the vibe of the concert. New bassist Tony Campos was fairly invisible and as for David Kinkade behind the drums it’s clear that in order to play in Soulfly you need to be a very good drummer. But perhaps it was his lack of big stage presence that toned down his otherwise fine performance. It’s hard to fill the shoes once filled by Igor Cavalera and Ray Mayorga.
“Intervention”  featured Black Sabbath's “Iron Man” jam and the encore started off with Slayer’s “Angel Of Death”. Max Calaleras impact on metal is big and Soulfly is a respected band, but it was clear that the audience for the most part came to hear Sepultura classics.

The regular part of the show was closed by fired up version of Sepultura’s “Roots Bloody Roots”, which was another reminder of how bang-up live Supultura songs are.
Soulfly’s display was OK, but nothing to write home about.
[3/6]

No Copenhell without the rain. A big rain front hit the festival just before the last show of this year’s festival.
The main stage was covered by the huge black curtain and the main name of second day of the festival, Marilyn Manson was some fifteen minutes late. “Hey, Cruel World...” form the new album opened the show and the curtain fell down with just about worst timing, eliminating the dramatic effect it was supposed to create.

From then on it was smooth sailing for Mr. Manson and the band, but that doesn't necessary mean that it was particularly good. The man is a global star and has been for long time now, but since his start and breakthrough a lot has happen and what was considered shocking back than is just ordinary now. Also Manson's own transformation into MTV darling has taken away much of that persona he got famous for in the first place. There is nothing edgy or shocking (or even interesting) in snoring “coke” from a guitar, singing in knife shaped microphone or simulating sex on the amps.

Perhaps Marilyn Manson might did have intention to deliver more stripped down, back-to-the-roots, show, because with him he only had a guitarist, a bass player and a drummer. Still there was not much raw and danger to Manson's Copenhagen show. Everything was pretty much planned and even every time he threw a mike stand (which was often) it would be picked up few seconds later by the same roadie and set at very the same spot on the stage.
Manson's comments were extremely uninspired and massive use of backing tracks for keyboards, vocals, samples and much more took most of rawness and unpredictability from the show.

On the other hand the band did a good job. Twiggy Ramirez, former bassist of the band did a fine job on a guitar but, despite his great talent (nonetheless as a songwriter) live, he is no Berkowitz or John 5.
The brand new drummer Jason Sutter was pleasure to follow – tight, bombastic and just a very good drummer.

I remember seeing Marilyn Manson in mid 90's, before he made it big. The edge and nerve that was cornerstone of their live performance then, was nowhere to be found this evening. I do know that since then, Manson has become much more and has became something different, but nevertheless when any form of excitement is absent from the performance than something is wrong. And everything resembles blown up Hollywood cabaret more than it does once shocking rocker with some groundbreaking albums, than that's just not good enough, no matter the transformation “The God of Fuck” might have undergo.
[3/6]

MARILYN MANSON SETLIST:

01 - Hey, Cruel World...
02 - Disposable Teens
03 - The Love Song
04 - No Reflection
05 - mOBSCENE
06 - The Dope Show
07 - Slo-Mo-Tion
08 - Rock Is Dead
09 - Personal Jesus
10 - Pistol Whipped
11 - Tourniquet
12 - Irresponsible Hate Anthem
13 - Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)
14 - Antichrist Superstar
15 - The Beautiful People


Copenhell is getting better and better. Hopefully the next year they will be back with another great lineup. This festival is essential in the country where there is no other major metal festival. And with its 10.000 something crowd it also gives you possibility to see you favorite bands from surprisingly close range.
Sure at some point during the festival it will rain, but that's Denmark for you and still it will not destroy your experience.
This years Copenhell had around 10.000 guests, who consumed endless amounts of alcohol and listened to some very aggressive music, yet not a single assault case was noted.
This festival needs to live on …
Over and out.

www.copenhell.dk