Hell is Coming with me

By: Federico Escobar

 

Welcome to CopenDust!

Blood red eyes, heavy lids and a body that felt too old, I tried to stumble out of my bed onto the floor, an almost impossible task.
"Please don’t look at your bank account!"

My first thought of the day, next was.
Copenhell. Day one! And I am not ready for this. I was looking at the time, Noon. Shake my head and leaned back. Hell no.

I had waited for the bus a few minutes longer than I had expected. Bought some food on the way which made me miss the bus and that annoyed me a little. But I knew, with those prices for food out there, I better grab a bit now.

 

Arrived in a packed bus, I got out sweating like hell and the wind hit me in the face. Shortly after the dust it carried with it.
"Welcome to CopenDust" - was my first thought. The second was; "People, and a lot of them."
Copenhell had truly begun and people were coming from work. I looked at the time, Parkway Drive was playing, the first of 4 metalcore bands today. I might see the end or something.

As my feet dragged me up through the pass onwards to the area, I tried to contact people, see where they where and find out what to see.
It didn’t take more than a minute to meet the first person and then some to agree to sit down for a soft drink, chat and see what happens.

Because the wind was strong, the dust came at us in waves and it felt cold when the sun was hiding behind the large grey clouds, which hadn’t left us from past days. My friends and I found it better to seek shelter for a beer and a chat instead of walking around, which made sense.
Unfortunately what usually happens is we found a place that sold really good home brewed beer, craft beer or a microbrewery, combined with Denmark playing Australia at the World Cup, we headed for the BW, to check out the “big” screens, we had read that Copenhell would place and show all the matches playing during the festival.

Now. The word “big”screen “I think” was mostly based on the idea of a TV set or two, in a little 16 sqm room, because entering BW and seeing what they had arranged for the football hungry metalheads was a huge joke! A couple of small 32” TV set hung high on the wall, where only 1 was activated during other games. Unless you had a binoculars in your pocket, it was almost impossible to see what was going on. That was a returning event and disappointment each time.
Must hand it to them. It was really a TV (Copen)hell.
Even as annoying that was, just a few meters from the TV the sound was blasting out from the “bodega”/danish pub music coming from “Tutten”, the bar in the BW building, so the sound was mixed with a commentator.
 

*facepalm Jean-Luc Picard style*
 

Well, after a while we return to Dining on Wheels and strolled around. Found ourselves at the second metalcore concert of the day. Asking Alexandria. I never found out what they where asking, since we only lingered there for a song or 1½. Besides, the whole place was open now and a lot of things to check out.
So we where wandering around in hell, my friend from Chile and me, while the wind was getting stronger and the waves of dust gained in size.
As soon as you see the wind pulling on the ground, just turn around and keep a hand above your beverages. Dust is coming!

Next one up was either Uruguay vs Saudi Arabia or Nightwish. We chose Dining on Wheels. You never go wrong with beer. Beside, the beer there cost the same as the other beers, it was just a lot better.
Then, Arch Enemy was shaking the crowd. They are nice, but I was not in the mood. As some or many, I have grown a bit tired of Arch Enemy and saw them more as a pop mainstream metal act that is well organised, but it’s too nice, too pretty. I was missing the edge, that I felt they used to have. Even with the last album with Angela Gossow I felt it got a bit boring. But Alissa White-Gluz really give her best, full of energy and she’s really hot as freck, but it’s too studio-created nice. So off we went.

This year there was a place for artists and “freakshows”. I had seen a couple of those kind of shows many years ago, but it just wasn’t me. A guy hanging bricks or other heavy objects by his chain, that happens to be attached to his penis and/or testicles, wasn’t that fascinating.

But the variety of things was large and of course others also performed like Twisted Sisters SideShow. Old silent films where shown and you could also meet artists like Eliran Kantor who also do covers for various metal bands like Kataklysm and Kreator among few and local artist Nargiz plus two others that showed their work.
 

More walking around and realising I was missing quite a few bands. Which both bothered me and not. The weather and the company of my friends that, like the wind, came and went, was really good.
In the end, saw an Avenge Sevenfold on the big stage and my friend from Greece and I decided to head home after a few songs. So we said bye to the others, man sieht sich, hasta mañana Copenhell and with nice “beer wet” feet we went home. Time passes fast when you have fun!
 

The Hair, The Ears and the Nose 
As we parted ways it took me a lot of time to get home. I managed to get the metro to the last bus that night after much walking and waiting. Thanks Google Maps! For being an idiot as te bus took a “hell” of a detour.
I was cold, beer wet, tired, partly still hungover and really hungry. Just wanted to get this corpse of an old body home in bed and hopefully get the fucking sand and dust out of my hair, ears and nose!

 

Then came the rain and thunder!

 

Nice day in Hell

The day started fine. I wasn’t that bad in the mood or shape. I had slept fine and I was in “good” mode. I had my Bad Hair Day hat on, sun, blue sky, bright colours, Rammstein, and ready for more!
I was focused on getting out there till Exodus, which had been scheduled to 14:00. Too early if you ask me and I had to give up to reach Auðn (pronounced Odin) Icelandic black metal bands, since I was tired = lazy = not fast out the door. Hey. It’s my fourth day, what did you expect?!

 

Train. Bus. Once again. Entering. Exit. Walking. Everything is fine. I’m there!

 

The air is a bit lighter. Fresh? The ground darker. Wet. Rain and thunder had visited Copenhagen this morning whilst we all slept. Among a few puddles of water, the dust had settled. Awesome.
The sound from the large stage was turning up the volume, the crowd roared and just around the corner Exodus was there to punch a hole to hell. Copenhell!
The crowd wasn’t tired at all and the party seemed to had continued from yesterday, the circle pits were spinning and the horns were in the air.

One of those things that in instance makes you feel at home or one can also describe it as “being happy”, content, is to feel the wind of a circle pit in the “morning” or start of the day and see everyone having a great or best of times!

Who said Hell isn’t a great place?