Copenhell 2024: An otherwise fine year with one major blemish

Alternative title: Not everything is metal

I've been telling myself that the primary reason I go to Copenhell is to see kickass bands play kickass shows. And while that might be true, let me start by thanking each and every one of the wonderful people I hung out with this year for a helluva good time. The music is the reason I'm coming; you guys are the reason I keep coming back.

As for the music, then, while this year's program wasn't as solid as last year's (which, again, wasn't as solid as the year before that), I would still feel like I'd gotten my money's worth if I'd have to pay for my ticket like the rest of you losers.

With that, and in approximated order of quality…

If a semantically paradoxical quality as " extremely generic" is possible, Corey Taylor's solo stuff is it. But he did play some Slipknot cuts, so there were a few nice standouts. The nostalgic moments were few and far between with The Offspring who spent way too much time goofing around and playing generic and uninspired pseudo-punk from the last 25 years. Accept, too, played a certain overweight of newer stuff, but their problem was a sound tech who was either deaf or passed out.

Kerry King sounded exactly like Slayer, and so did Enforced. Bruce Dickinson sang better than he's done in years, which is saying something. But while he played a nice mix of new and old, he didn't have time to play "Tears of the Dragon". Minor slap in the face right there. Machine Head, too, played a nice mix of new and old, and although I would have liked some more "Old", Robb Flynn did what he does best and stirred up a party to be reckoned with.

Danish punk legends Sort Sol whipped out a lot of old, dark material which worked with the biggest fans. Another equally dark Danish outfit, new synthwavers St. Digue, had me spellbound, but not enough to not go and see Steel Panther, which was everything you could expect.

HammerFall, although also having too little time and relatively many new songs, have grown into a much more professional live act than last time I saw them. Owning all of their corniness and playing with confidence and vigor, they are a force to be reckoned with whether you like them or not. Ronnie Atkins from Pretty Maids defied his stage 4 lung cancer and delivered a blinding performance with the strongest incarnation of his band to date.

Dropkick Murphys established the biggest party of the festival, which shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who's familiar with the band. And finally, delivering a mesmerizing display of musical professionalism and creativity, Tool proved that they are in that proverbial league of their own.

There were, however, also certain downsides. I already talked about the extortionate prices in my coverage from last year. It's probably not gonna change, and that's frustrating. Especially seeing as how the festival management constantly says that it's willing to listen to people's feedback. So, apart from allegedly listening to that feedback, are you actually gonna do something about something which your clientele considers a problem?

Apart from that, there were fucktons of rain Friday night. Of course, festival management can't help the weather, but it's frustrating to have to stand in line in the rain for more than half an hour because there aren't enough buses back and forth. Especially seeing as how last year's problem with too few buses seemed to have been fixed otherwise.

I also talked about last year how, especially given the lack of buses, some bands are playing too damn early. This year, I had to miss out on Uriah Heep because they'd been put on at fucking 1:30 PM. This was especially bitter because I also missed them in Kraków earlier this year. But sufficient transportation or not, I will not be at the festival at that hour when I've been up drinking until it's rather morning than night. And having prioritized as such, I figured I might as well also de-prioritize Mr. Bungle, Biohazard, and Tom Morello, which was also kinda bitter. How about only putting those small and upcoming names on the bill before, say, 4 PM?

My biggest concern is regarding certain bookings, though. And I'll say in advance that it'll probably be impossible for me to talk about this without sounding like what certain whiners call an "elitist asshole".

Fair enough. Because elitist, I certainly am in several regards. And an asshole, I certainly can be if something or someone is pissing me off enough. Which conveniently brings me to aforementioned certain bookings.

First, but not foremost, I have to just mention, if nothing else, that Avenged Sevenfold, while perhaps a metal band on paper, is a polished and pandering kind of metal. I realize that they might have actual metal riffs, but I have to point out that for a metal band, they are polished and pandering, which is not exactly very metal.

But the biggest tragedy – or joke, depending on how you see it – is the booking of the very antithesis to metal itself: Limp fucking Bizkit. If there was ever such a thing as false metal, Limp Bizkit is exactly that. If there was ever such a thing as an undeserved success, ditto. If there was ever someone who put on a phony facade and who put the least amount of talent and effort into making a calculated product pandering to a certain demographic and releasing it as music, it's Fred Durst.

I know, I know: It's all just a big, goofy party, and you're not supposed to take it seriously, because they don't even do that themselves. Well, you know what else is just a big, goofy party that you're not supposed to take seriously? Early '90s eurodance. And you know what else doesn't belong at a metal festival?

And by the way, Steel Panther don't take themselves seriously, either. But even though they're a deliberate joke, they still make actual hard rock and heavy metal; not jock-marketed wigger hip-hop with a 7-string Ibanez on top. Whether someone is taking themselves seriously or not isn't relevant to what kind of music they play; neither is whether YOU happen to take them seriously. Even if you're claiming to only like Limp Bizkit ironically, congratulations: You're still part of the problem.

What problem, you may ask? Well, if you've been following actual heavy metal for a long enough time, you'd have noticed that the damn thing's been slowly coming undone for fucking decades by now. And by being part of legitimizing an anti-band like Limp Bizkit, you're contributing to the death of metal. And I don't mean death metal.

In a post-modern society of conspiracies and clickbait-y "alternate news" sources, a world where facts can be "alternative" and one person's lack of insight is considered just as legit of an opinion as another person's expertise, anyone can consider anything "metal".

Well, it's fucking not. A band like Limp Bizkit is pissing all over everything that Black Sabbath founded and Judas Priest perfected. Bands like Linkin Park and Papa Roach are whiny, sterile corporate products aimed at a whiny participation trophy generation.

Yes, they feature distorted guitars. No, that does not make them metal. Nirvana or Def Leppard aren't metal, either. Metal is more than distorted guitars; metal is attitude, atmosphere, and authenticity. And Limp Bizkit has the attitude of a drunk high school jock who can't spell his own name, the atmosphere of a cheap, dodgy nightclub, and the authenticity of an online popup ad for making an extra $1000 per day working from home.

And mind you: All this is coming from someone who didn't listen to Iron Maiden until well after their heyday. Someone who appreciates musical creativity for what it is and doesn't necessarily mind one genre being mixed with another. Someone who grew up with nu-metal and still likes certain of its bands and albums because they were original when they came out and have since stood the test of time.

Shit, all this is coming from someone who listened to the first Limp Bizkit album several times back in the day before it became clear to me with their later outputs that they were obviously capitalizing on certain sellable features that flew well with the teenage white trash demographic.

I, too, was a kid. But at some point, there stops being any excuse for not being educated enough to see through a very, very obviously calculated pretense. And even in a world where calculated metal "bands" become more and more prevalent, Limp Bizkit remains the most obvious example. Today, there is no excuse.

And of course, a related symptom of this degeneration is that one of the many speeches and panel debates at Copenhell this year was about so-called "gatekeeping" in metal: A phenomenon that, allegedly, both encompasses harassment and bullying AND the fact that some people, like yours truly, rightly point out how some alleged metal bands are a taunt towards the entire genre.

Well, excuse me all to Hell, but fuck you.

Harassment and bullying are harmful and toxic no matter the context. But for fuck's sake, not everything is metal. Yes, of course genre definitions will always be more or less fluffy. Of course festivals like Copenhell are also booking, for example, certain electronic acts as long as they're dark and atmospheric enough to be sufficiently related to the dark, atmospheric elements of metal. But everyone these days wants fucking inclusion and representation and diversity. Well, you're not entitled to any of that.

I used to be the biggest proponent of diversity I knew. But I've seen how a weak, neurotic generation of victim-minded, hysterical losers have been, often semi-militantly, propagating the idea that everything and everyone necessarily has to be fucking diverse and inclusive now for some reason. And if it's not, it's necessarily intolerant and fascist and oppressive.

Goddammit, fuck you all. Diversity is the new conformity; not everything is metal, and you're not entitled to anything. Metal is not an all-encompassing, all-tolerating, happy-go-lucky universal community where anyone and everyone can just claim to belong if they dyed their hair black and downloaded an album by My Chemical Romance during their 6-month pseudo-goth teenage phase. And if you were really all about diversity and inclusion, you'd be diverse enough to include this perspective in your opinion.

… So anyway, apart from all this, I enjoyed this year's Copenhell. And I'll probably be back next year. Unless, of course, someone from management reads this and decides to exclude me because I'm not being inclusive enough.

Rating: 4.5 out of 6

Genre: Metal / hard rock / pseudo-punk / jock-marketed wigger hip-hop
Dates: June 19th, 20th, 21st, and 22nd, 2024
Location: Refshaleøen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Website: https://www.copenhell.dk/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/copenhell/
Instagram: https://instagram.com/copenhell
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCjjILflDhuj54AADluKwSLA