Ah, the little anniversary that could’ve/should’ve. This was supposed to be Copenhell’s 15th anniversary, but due to that unfortunate somethingorother a few years ago, we’re technically only on 13 held festivals, as of this year.
Regardless, the people behind the festival were ready to dish up one hell of a party for all of us fans!

Interestingly, the line-up didn’t hold very many top favourites of ours this year; TOOL could do it for me, and Biohazard for Lunah, but looking back over it, I think that’s about it, really. What Copenhell did have for us though, was a plan filled with bands that we do like a lot, and really wanted to see. Not only that, but there were also many either rare or first time experiences for us. Die Krupps, The Offspring, Mr. Bungle, and many, many more fell into this category, and that’s a good category for one to be in. You’ll notice that many of the bands we’ll review for the site this year, are bands that haven’t been represented here before either, so we hope that will bring a nice change of pace for you as a reader as well. If you do like some of the old same old, same old, there’s no reason to fret however - oh, we have plenty of that as well in store!

As it was written in times of old - well, since two years ago, if you’re being pedantic - Copenhell opened the Gates of Hell for a fully scorching Wednesday on June 19th. We were on the spot to see the main stage being opened up by Corey Taylor (Slipknot, Stone Sour) in the guise of his self titled solo band, and from there on out, it was pretty much a hustle to get from one stage to the next to catch the different shows - sometimes even trying to catch several shows playing at the same time!
The same formula was repeated more or less every single one of the four days of the festival, with the exception of Thursday and Friday starting out much earlier, but creeping up to the same late hours nonetheless.
Because of the packed musical schedule, this was, and I feel I’ve said this over a number of years now, the year where we had the least time to enjoy and participate in all the sideshow attractions that Copenhell offer up to their music weary visitors. From what I could understand, the icon above them all, Smadreland, was no more this year, and indeed, when visiting the area it held last year, there was now only a toxic wasteland of relaxation with some food and drink vendors, as well as some very cool installation art, mostly in rusted metal and decaying scrap materials. Oh, and a skating ramp, if that was your fancy.

This is something that is to be said for Copenhell though, and it’s not the first time I point out this fact; it is a festival that spends a great deal of time and energy to deliver a full package experience, and not just a music venue. There is so much art, great and small, to wander around and look at, like the large fountain of blood in the R.I.P. (Copenhell’s version of V.I.P.) area, the grimly gorgeously painted walls, the various statues and buildings, to name but a few things. There’s not a single spot at this festival where there isn’t something nice to look at, except possibly inside the toilet, but you don’t want to spend your time in there anyway, do you?
Just walking through the festival area, you get to experience so many different things and views, like when we took a detour from the Gehenna stage back towards the Pandæmonium stage (humorously nicknamed Panda stage by someone, can’t remember who right now) and ended up in Udgaard, the viking village where there were daily fights between champions, trinket and jewellery sales, historical feast menus, and a large mead tent where the house band Idaslet performed their novelty acoustic sets each and every day. We managed to catch a glimpse of one of these, and they come highly recommended if you want something different and entertaining on your Copenhell plate - or you can catch them in their normal folk metal guise all the other days of the year, up to you.
Top tier attractions we simply didn’t have time to fit into our schedule this year included Copenhell Con, with its daily panels on all sorts of geeky, nerdy, and fantastical subjects, the cosplays, the merch, books, and comic books, and of course the infamous Biergarten which now not only holds the world’s premiere live karaoke band, Openhell, but also for the first time ever a Metal Bingo event. Don’t say you don’t get varied options on activities here!

Food and drink vendors there were a plenty of course, and while the best thing I tried this year was probably the durum roll with grilled broccoli (I think that was my favourite last year as well, but I haven’t gone back to check), there was something to everyone’s liking, or at least damned near it!
But I guess we should talk a bit more about the music, as this is why we were here, and what we spent most of our time on after all.
Was there anything good? Short answer, hell yeah! In fact, we were both surprised at the high level bands and artists were performing at. You can’t say they were all above average, because then you fail to understand how average works, but I will say that the average of this year’s festival was pretty damned much higher than what we are used to from this and other festivals - or maybe we’ve just gotten better at picking shows to attend? I don’t think so though, as even proven live favourites sometimes fail to live up to their potential, but this year it felt like almost everyone was acing their performances. For example, when I noticed Uriah Heep was set to open Helvíti, I was afraid that the time and certainly the size of the stage would prove too much for them, regardless of how much I was personally looking forward to the show, but they proved me wrong with a killer performance that couldn’t have gone better!
My absolute favourite performance of the festival however, was that of Die Krupps, which delivered a perfect mix of nostalgia, blown expectations, and just pure joy of performing from the artists.
There were a lot of hardcore related bands at the festival, possibly more represented than any other genre (I haven’t checked the math on this one, it’s just a personal estimate for this moment), but Biohazard absolutely showed that they are still the top dogs of this ring as they ripped the Hades stage to shreds!
Machine Head nearly burnt the Helvíti stage to the ground with their pyro, but also a performance so lit it exceeded every expectation of them!
The ending combo of TOOL on the Helvíti stage followed by Sort Sol on Hades proved to be the absolutely best way possible the festival could be closed down and laid to rest on the Saturday.
In fact, there was precious little that disappointed, but I will confess that one of the biggest attractions of the year, Limp Bizkit, was, by my estimate, blown out of the water by every other headliner (and several below the line bands as well). Sure, there were a lot of people who’d come out to see them, and the crowd partied hard, but their lacklustre performance and excessive use of a Spotify playlist to fill their time slot was not my cup of tea. Others liked it though, so I may be in the wrong here, who knows.

It should, in the interest of open and inclusive information, be known that certain artists did not want to be covered by press, and thus won’t be appearing in individual reviews here at the site. For us, that meant no TOOL, no Bruce Dickinson, and no Avenged Sevenfold. The latter I have no great relationship to either way, so that’s ok, but both TOOL and Bruce Dickinson were acts I was very much looking forward to, and as they both performed admirably, it’s a shame we can’t give them the praise they deserve here, but that’s out of our hands. Just know it wasn’t for a lack of interest on our part.

All told, Copenhell 2024 was a masterclass in how to make a festival. Things ran smoothly, with only one small delay I noticed because of wind mucking about with the main stage, but even that was quickly resolved, and couldn’t be felt for the rest of the day. A single guard seemed to have missed the memo on concert and fandom culture, with the crowd being denied plectres and setlists even when the band and crew were trying to hand them over, but other than that, there were smiles and helpful hands all over. The stage guards were pushed to the limit by the amount of crowdsurfing for some bands, but they always handled it well, as far as I could see.
It was also a masterclass from the bands’ side, on how to perform at a festival. I’ve mentioned this already, but it’s worth noting again how high the bar was raised this year, as mostly everyone delivered with energy and above expectations. I loved it, can’t wait for what 2025 might bring, and we hope to see you there!