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In italiano QUI

I am chatting with Davide, at Leo’s, maybe the last authentic pizzeria that has survived the gentrification of the Copenhagen district of Vesterbro. I check the time on my phone for the umpteenth time while nervously adjusting my jacket. We leave the place.

Davide, standing still like a statue, stares at the Vega sign with eyes that seem to see beyond the metal and neon. “It’s just a concert…” I mutter more to myself than to my friend. But we know it’s not true.
“It’s a ritual,” Davide whispers in a low, deep voice. “Like the flagellants’ processions during the Black Death. Only this time, we celebrate the plague of the future.” I roll my eyes. “Here we go again…”

The Folkets Hus of ’56, now Vega, stands against the Danish sky like a monolith of concrete and history. Inside, the Sejersen brothers (LLNN) are preparing something that goes beyond the simple concept of a “show.”

Davide knows it, he feels it in his bones, just like when he could predict snow in the mountains as a child.

Describing such an intricate project would require an entire long-form piece. We prefer to do it through the artists and by deep you in the heat of the concert.

We met Hiraki and Meejah during rehearsals, caught Jacob Bredahl during the floor show, and interviewed Victor Kaas for the after-show. Our Davide helped us capture the event live.

6 Hours Before: Interview with HIRAKI & Meejah

In the backstage, amidst cables and amplifiers, the instruments are being prepared to summon Skynet. Tue, Jon, and Tim from Hiraki, along with Mai and Andreas from Meejah, have just finished calibrating their electronic grimoires.

I am hosted backstage, sitting in a semicircle, listening to the story of the John Cxnnor collective.

The Concert

Unfortunately, we miss the first floor show by Embla, but we’ll catch up.

The floor shows are like aftershocks before the earthquake. From the side of the room, Smertegrænsens Toldere unleash their energy into the floor, making the building’s foundations tremble. It’s like the celebration from the side pulpit of a country church, but the prayers are hardcore screams and the organ’s vibrations are Marshall amplifiers.

Witch Club Satan arrive like a black storm from Norway. Davide enters a trance, his body moving as if possessed. “It’s pure primordial female power,” he shouts into my ear, I can only nod and chuckle.

Sierra opens the dance from the main stage. 120-130 beats per minute of pure electronic terror. “It’s like the heartbeat of a cyborg,” philosophizes Davide. “It’s like having a panic attack set to music,” I retort.

John Connor: The War of the Machines

The electronic base falls with heavy beats. From the wasteland, the screams of the survivor Kim (Møl) and HIRAKI tear through the air like lasers in the dark. Mai (Meejah) joins the fallout fighters. We become part of something larger, something more terrifying.

In the chaos of the battle, military factions intervene. Victor (Eyes) and Martin (The Psyke Project) bring their militias into the fray: M25 and Terminate are barrages of sonic bullets.

Over half an hour of non-stop action culminates with Andreas (Cabal) and Kim (Møl) taking the stage. The techno-metal of “If I Die, Let me Swing” (Cabal rework) falls with slow and heavy blows.

Sara Connor, sung by Mai (Meejah), slows down the pace, offering a moment of reflection among the ruins. Fragilely connected to the human dimension. Davide closes his eyes: “It’s like when the snow falls silently before the avalanche.”

The avalanche arrives. The machine-gun fire of P2 showers the crowd. “Common Coma” explodes like an EMP bomb. The Doom rave pushes forward relentlessly, track after track.

The lights go down, and we become spectators of the brutality of the survivors gathered in fanatical communities. “Unlike Humans” by Witch Club Satan expresses the disdain of witches burned at the stake, set to Doom beats and screams that sear the skin.

We respond instinctively to the final battle. “Infiltrator,” “Red Eye,” and “Bunkers” pass in a crescendo that pulls the stage and the crowd into the chaos of the machine war. It’s the wall-of-death. We dive into the fray as if there’s no tomorrow. And perhaps, there really isn’t.

Darkness falls. A monochromatic blue light coldly illuminates the stage, revealing what remains of humanity’s survivors. To the ancestral beat of “Hypothermia,” Kai (Heilung) chants a shamanic song among the new wild warriors. A song that seems to come from the end of the world, or its beginning. Witch Club Satan close the circle with a ritual that smells of burnt circuits and ancient curses. The failure of robotized humanity is sealed by a pact with the occult.

In the silence of the Danish night, I walk home with Davide. One of us thinks about James Cameron’s movies from his teenage years, the other about the ancient legends of his mountains. Both know we have witnessed something unique.

“Do you know what I think?” I say, breaking the silence. “I think 2029 is already here.”

Davide smiles in the dark. “It always has been, brother. It always has been.”

L’after-show with Victor (EYES, LLNN)

Cleaned up, back to work. But the adrenaline of this concert doesn’t pass in one night. Victor Kass (EYES) hosts us to recount the concert seen from the stage, tell us his story of John Cxnnor, and introduce us to his new project coming out soon.

At Copenhell 2024, I was completely overwhelmed by this show and wished to experience it again. And so it happened. In the words of the musicians, I grasped the spirit of a collective that turns its expression into a larger, cohesive, and powerful project—a celebration of the Danish underground.