D-A-D @ Jailbreak 2023
"Days when everything glows..."
This being an international website, I've perhaps written about my homeland's hard rock pride D-A-D relatively much. But if you know the band, you know that I'm fighting an honest cause here.
Because when D-A-D had finally moved past the teething stage and gotten ready to take on the world, the world was no longer ready for them. The glory years when hard rock music was a colorful celebration of life were on their way out; for some messed-up reason, angst and introspection were suddenly considered much more legitimate motivations for picking up a guitar and growing your hair.
One solid piece of evidence, then, that the world and especially the music business are horridly unfair places, was released in 1991. It's called "Riskin' It All". And tonight, Denmark's finest are regaling us with the whole damn thing in its entirety, the stage decorated with the album cover's living room interior.
And sure, one might rightly ask oneself at this point whether the whole concept behind these "play a whole album" concerts has become a bit watered down. Shit, I even wrote that 10 years ago after having seen Morbid Angel play the entire "Covenant" record ('93). And shit, tonight marking my 30th goddamn D-A-D show, I even saw them playing "Riskin It All" back in 2016. But, 3 times shit, it is the greatest hard rock LP released in Denmark, ever, dammit.
Indeed, you will never find a stronger, more pure, and kickass party kickstarter than album and show opener "Bad Craziness". In fact, if you were hearing this for the first time, you'd be forgiven for getting naked, downing a fifth of cheap tequila, and having sex with a watermelon on purpose. And for thinking that the show had already peaked.
But even though that 32-year-old opener remains as fine as it gets, "Riskin It All" is one of those rare albums that just keep on delivering, follow-up "D-Law" being flawless vintage hard rock in all its multi-vocal chorus grandeur, and the more melodically sentimental "Day of Wrong Moves" simply being as catchy as it's relatably human.
However, it's on the following red-hot "Rock 'n' Rock Radar" and the impossibly laid-back country creamer "Down That Dusty 3rd World Road" that D-A-D show their true colors. Not just in terms of immaculate songwriting skills, but also in terms of sound and musicianship, especially lead guitarist Jacob Binzer's every note resonating like glass in the wind, but also the entire band simply playing together better than ever. I said it after last year's Copenhell, and now I'm saying it again.
The audience, though, probably having seen the band a bit many times as we tend to do 'round these parts, don't seem to properly get into gear until around "Riskin It All"'s side 2. But the band is unfazed, well knowing their worth at this point in the career, lead singer and rhythm guitarist Jesper Binzer both exuding all the professionalism of someone with +40 years in the biz and carrying his tenor with the same cheeky confidence as his locks – which have been long throughout those same +40 years.
We know there's gonna be more after that natural break upon album-closing ballad "Laugh n' a 1/2". And even though the followers are mostly predictable, there's something awe-inspiring about the vast differences between the icy desperation of "Everything Glows", the merciless metal of "Reconstrucdead", uptempo cowpunk classic "Ridin' With Sue" and the ever-shouty party anthem "Rim of Hell". We might tend to take them for granted in the band's native part of the world, but nonetheless, these tunes represent nothing short of an impressively multi-faceted career and songwriting.
And the band may very well know that they deserve better than to be taken for granted. But all the more blessed are their goofy on-stage antics like the spoof phone calls to ever-pimped-out drummer Laust Sonne, or Stig Pedersen's infamous conceptual bass guitars, one more ridiculous than the other. D-A-D are here with the righteous purpose of entertainment, and I'll reiterate that they're better at it than ever. Shit, they're doing so much more than that.
So the reason I'll just keep on writing about this wonderful little band, dear readers, is that they're simply too good for a world that never got properly ready for them. But somewhere in that parallel world – where peace also reigns in the Middle East, and where no boy or girl bands ever saw the light of day – D-A-D are out there playing one sold-out world tour after the other. They still deserve it.
Rating: 5.5 out of 6
Genre: Hard rock
Venue: Jailbreak, outside stage
Date: Fri. 11/8/2023
Setlist:
- Bad Craziness
- D-Law
- Day of Wrong Moves
- Rock 'n' Rock Radar
- Dusty 3rd World Road
- Makin' Fun of Money
- Grow or Pay
- Smart Boy Can't Tell Ya
- Riskin' It All
- Laugh n' a 1/2
_________ - Burning Star
- Everything Glows
- Reconstrucdead
- Ridin' With Sue
- Rim of Hell
- I Want What She's Got
Encore: - Sleeping My Day Away
- It's After Dark
All photos by Magnus Jørgensen. Still not sure about the whole copyright thing, but I guess maybe just don't copy them…?