Following their highly successful 40th anniversary show in Royal Arena late last year, D-A-D was now out on a proper, though short, stadium tour in support of their latest album, Speed Of Darkness, which ended with a two nights in a row concert in Forum in Copenhagen.
This was the first of those nights…

“Åh for fanden i helvede, Forum!”
- Jesper Binzer (vocals/guitar)

Molly decorated the stage in the form of a huge, slanted podium, the drumkit set safely right in the forehead, and out front there were no less than three catwalks leading off the stage - one in the middle, and one to either side. In the back, there were several rows and columns of separated video screens in lieu of a backdrop. It all looked pretty damned nice, as one would expect from this band.
Also expected, yet welcome nonetheless, was the tivoli march intro music. Now the audience was truly stoked, cheering and applauding for the band to come.
When they did, they opened the show with God Prays To Man, opening track from the latest album, and while it is a strong and quite heavy rock banger in its own right, it was easy to see that we were going to quite a calmer concert now than earlier when Baest held the stage. It’s as the lyrics go; “At the speed of darkness, yeah it’s slowly rolling in”.
There was life on the stage though, don’t get me wrong. Jacob ‘Cobber’ Binzer didn’t wait around before taking to the catwalk closest to him, whereas Stig Pedersen quickly found his way up on the podium. He could later be found standing on top of the bass drum, and I have to commend him for his courage and balance - put in the same situation, I would probably have tripped, slipped, and anything else you could think of!

Given that this was a Speed Of Darkness tour, it wasn’t surprising to see the album well represented on the setlist - no less than seven of its 14 tracks were played, a couple of which Jesper Binzer proudly announced had their debut being played. Well, in Copenhagen at least, since they had already played them in various places in Jutland and on Fyn, where the tour had already taken them.
This was of course all fine and as it should be, and I found myself warming up some of them more now that they’ve had a few spins - The Ghost was nice to sing along to, for example.
Still, the highlight for me came from the very opposite end of the spectrum, where D-A-D pulled out a very old song from early in their career, one that I have never heard live before either. I’m talking about I’m talking about I’d Rather Live Than Die from 1987’s Draws A Circle album. This one had Sonne playing a piano which had been placed on one of the catwalks specifically for the song, Pedersen was on vocals, and Jesper Binzer took over the drums. My god, that was a magical experience, I don’t mind telling you!

“Fy for Forum!”
- Stig Pedersen (bass/vocals)

The crowd was generally quite ecstatic for the show, cheering and applauding the band on. There was of course a lot of singing along to the songs, and not surprisingly, the band let us have some parts of the singing all to ourselves. For instance, we got parts of the verse for Laugh ‘N’ A ½, as well as in Sleeping My Day Away, whereas it was the chorus of It’s After Dark that was left open.
There wa also the staple part of Jesper Binzer having us coerce Sonne into a drum solo by song. This was placed in 1st, 2nd & 3rd, and Jesper tried out some new lyrics on us, calling out “For helvede Laust, spar nu ik’ på dig selv!” (God damnit Laust, give it your all!) compared to the older version that also came up; “For helvede Laust, slå nu de trommer ihjel!” (God damnit Laust, kill those drums!)

“Jeg skal på Søen bagefter, ses vi der?”
- Jacob Binzer (guitar)

Playing a show at just shy of two hours with a host of material old and new, constant gear changes and at times costume changes as well, I’m sad to say that the band didn’t really click this night. It was definitely a good show, but the energy just wasn’t quite there, and having the 40th anniversary show still in recent memory, I can’t help but feel that this night paled somewhat in comparison. I’d Rather Live Than Die was worth the entire trip, and there were several other moments that pulled the show up; still, this was D-A-D doing what they do well, not D-A-D acing it. One more night to go, let’s see what that’ll do for them.

Setlist:

God Prays To Man
Burning Star
Evil Twin
Helpyourselfish
Nineteenhundredandyesterday
Everything Glows
Speed Of Darkness
The Ghost
Riding With Sue
Grow Or Pay
Crazy Wings
Laugh ‘N’ A ½
Monster Philosophy
1st, 2nd & 3rd
Keep That Mother Down
Jihad
Bad Craziness
Strange Terrain
Sleeping My Day Away
I’d Rather Live Than Die
It’s After Dark