When Hell freezes over is a famous expression, and who better to freeze Copenhell over than Abbath Doom Occulta, the frost-emperor of the icy northern wastelands?
His chilly majesty came in person, together with his new entourage, to lower the temperature at Denmark’s hottest festival.

“Copenhell! Abbath! abbath… AAAAAAAAAAA! bbath! ABBATH!”
- Olve ‘Abbath Doom Occulta’ Eikemo (vocals/guitar)

I mean, c’mon. It’s freaking Abbath! You know you want it. Copenhell knew they wanted it. The crowd knew they wanted it. Everybody wants Abbath!
Hell, not even rain and a late hour could keep people away from seeing this Norwegian phenomenon. And it was late, Abbath was closing down the Hades stage on the second day of Copenhell. And it was raining, because, you know, Copenhell.
Anyway, as we all stood waiting, a wicked sounding march melody stomped out of the speakers, and Abbath walked on, spewing fire. This announced the beginning of the show, and the end. Where were we marching, you ask? Why, To War of course!
It didn’t take many seconds before we saw that Abbath was up to his usual jester tricks, having a blast on stage, and sharing it with the rest of us. There’s no classic black metal wickeder-than-thou attitude here, just good old fun. We know it, he knows it, and it’s the way it’s supposed to be. Luckily, the band mates he had collected had also understood this, and even though they weren’t as extravagant as Abbath himself, they were still a big part of keeping the show alive. Special props should definitely go to Tom Cato ‘King’ Visnes, who was grooving his way through every song in a very cool manner.

“How are you doing, you dirty bastards?!”
- Abbath (vocals/guitar)

All things considered, we were doing pretty damn well. Abbath’s fireshow in the beginning had managed to scare the rain away, and we were in the process of being handed a highly entertaining performance, and a set of almost equal parts solo material and Immortal covers, and an I cover thrown in as well for good measure.
There were some things that didn’t work completely however. For one thing, someone had forgot to turn on the front lights apparently, so for most of the show we had black shadows playing in front of an interesting back light.
Abbath didn’t get time to speak very much either, and when he did, it was quite hard to understand what he was saying. And there were none of the classical “motherfuckaaah” shouts. I kind of missed them.
On the other hand, there were so many things working for this show, and while the music was playing, it was all fun and games. With a wicked soundtrack of course. Hell, Abbath even paused Tyrants halfway through, to have a session of awesome frost-bitten posing. And crab walks, lots and lots of crab walks!
When the show reached the end, the band nearly seemed surprised that they were out of time, although I don’t have the feeling that they had to cut anything. My guess is that they could just have kept on going long into the night, if that was an option. To show his dedication, Abbath even ran out on stage again after they had left, just to take another bow.

I will admit, we were actually quite beat after King Diamond, and were loosely discussing calling it a day right then and there. We decided however, to at least give Abbath a go, we did after all have good memories of him with Immortal. And you know, Abbath!
I am so glad we stayed, because it only required the show to begin, and our energy was back on top again! Abbath solo is at least as fun as Abbath with Immortal, and even though he only marginally managed to chill the night air, he certainly kept his reputation frosty!
And the best? He’d be back the very next night, in the guise of the Motörhead cover band Bömbers!

Setlist:

To War!
Nebular Ravens Winter (Immortal cover)
Warriors (I cover)
In My Kingdom Cold (Immortal cover)
Winterbane
Ashes Of The Dead
Tyrants (Immortal cover)
Fenrir Hunts
Count The Dead
Solarfall (Immortal cover)
All Shall Fall (Immortal cover)
One By One (Immortal cover)