Even though Copenhell has a spoken goal of representing as many different metal genres as possible during the festival, we had no problem leaving a Swedish death metal band on Helvíti and head straight over to a Danish death metal band on Hades.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, it was time for the Danish pride in the brutal arts, Illdisposed from Aarhus to hit the stage and kick the crowd in the balls!
If Amon Amarth, which was the Swedish band I mentioned above, are inspired by the Viking legacy of old, then Illdisposed have taken the old school death metal and dabbled with some electronic additions from time to time, as was heard in their intro which was all electronic coupled with a voice telling a tale of destruction or some such, very reminiscent of something you might hear at a Fear Factory concert, or so I thought.
Here the likeness quickly ended though, as the band entered in a thick cloud of smoke and delved straight into Sense The Darkness, opener and title-track off their latest album. The band seemed to have a good time with it, and the crowd threw themselves into a wild moshpit as soon as the first distorted sounds hit our eardrums.

“In 2005 we made an album here in Sjælland called 1-800 Vindication, and I think that’s why we were invited here now.”
- Bo Sommer (vocals)

Apart from the fact that 1-800 Vindication was released in 2004, and the fact that I highly doubt it was because of that record alone that Illdisposed had been added to the line-up, there might have been something about what he said. At least, Sommer did say a lot during the concert! Not in a waste-of-time Joey DeMaio kind of way though, the man certainly has humour that goes directly for the midriff – whether or not it’s intentional is not always clear, but it’s always fun! Another fun thing was the play on words t-shirt that Sommer was wearing, where Sense The Darkness had been changed into Sons Of Darkness, and the logo was a nice copy/homage to the television series Sons Of Anarchy. As a fan of the show, I really appreciated this discreet touch.
Then there were the dedications. The reason these get a special mention is that there were so damn many of them, it seemed that for second or more song, there was someone special the band wanted to mention in regards to it. Thus Weak Is Your God was dedicated to Moses Hansen, a religious zealot who had made several public statements against Copenhell leading up to the festival (going so far as to organize prayer meetings asking the lord for rain the entire weekend), Throw Your Bolts was dedicated to himself (“Now we’re going to play something that I like!”) and Submit went out to the old-school fans (“Now we’ll play some old shite!”) to name but a few.
While Sommer was as entertaining and lively as he ever was, and quite possibly drunk, the rest of the band took on a much more anonymous approach as they stood still for some light headbanging in the back and didn’t make much noise of themselves. The one thing I did notice was how guitarist Ken ‘Smukke Ken’ Holst made the Manowar hand-sign between several of the songs; why exactly this was done was never elaborated on, but I guess he simply likes the band.

The band that the crowd liked was Illdisposed, and many of the front-liners had a very familiar approach as they shouted comments both to the band and also to some of the roadies they had brought along – there was actually a whole discussion going on between one guy close to me and a man who poked his head in from the left side of the stage once in a while. Oh, and did I mention that the conversation was in German, for god knows what reason?
The effect the band and its music had on the Copenhell crowd was only to easy to see; I have already mention the quick start of the mosh pit, a thing that kept on through the entire show, but there were also a lot of horns and fists in the air as well as loud shouts of Hey whenever the time called for it.
Yes, all in all it was very entertaining to watch and listen to Illdisposed. It wasn’t their best concert ever and it didn’t really stick out in the crowd of other shows at the festival, but while it lasted we all had a very good time with it.

Setlist:

Sense The Darkness
War
Weak Is Your God
I Believe In Me
Dark
Stop Running
Throw Your Bolts
A Child Is Missing
Submit
Now We’re History