Suffocation
Copenhell - 2018
Text: Tobias Nilsson Photo: Lunah Lauridsen
The last day of Copenhell had been pretty varied so far, but until Suffocation stepped onto the Pandæmonium stage, we hadn’t felt something truly heavy - that was about to change!
Yep, Suffocation truly brought the hammer down on us! They were so heavy in fact, that Derek Boyer had to put his bass down on the floor, and play it in the manner a double bass is normally played - an interesting style that I haven’t seen for this instrument before. Maybe it was to make headbanging easier?
Headbanging was the main occupation of the entire band, apart from playing of course, but other than that, the musicians didn’t do much to deliver in form of performance skill, and this could easily have become trivial to watch quickly, if it hadn’t been for Frank Mullen.
He walked out with a big old smile on his face, and more than delivering concrete thick growls, he stood for the entire entertainment value pretty much by himself.
When Mullen cried “raise your horns”, people raised their horns. When he called for shouts, people shouted. The large and wild mosh wasn’t his doing though, it kicked off all by itself, and stayed as a throbbing constant throughout the show. Yet while the rest of the crowd were mostly standing still and taking the concert in, they were quick to answer the beckoning call of the large frontman.
Personally, I’ve never been a Suffocation fan, and this show didn’t win me over, but other factions inside Metalmoments (yes, that would be our photographer, Lunah lauridsen), who like the band and their music more than I do, asserted that the band delivered exactly what they were supposed to. It was a bit odd that they finished up after 45 minutes though. Sure, I don’t know how long they were hired to play, but simply judging by the stage’s timetable, they could easily have had an hour and a half.
Setlist (incomplete):
Funeral Inception
Clarity Through Deprivation
Yep, Suffocation truly brought the hammer down on us! They were so heavy in fact, that Derek Boyer had to put his bass down on the floor, and play it in the manner a double bass is normally played - an interesting style that I haven’t seen for this instrument before. Maybe it was to make headbanging easier?
Headbanging was the main occupation of the entire band, apart from playing of course, but other than that, the musicians didn’t do much to deliver in form of performance skill, and this could easily have become trivial to watch quickly, if it hadn’t been for Frank Mullen.
He walked out with a big old smile on his face, and more than delivering concrete thick growls, he stood for the entire entertainment value pretty much by himself.
When Mullen cried “raise your horns”, people raised their horns. When he called for shouts, people shouted. The large and wild mosh wasn’t his doing though, it kicked off all by itself, and stayed as a throbbing constant throughout the show. Yet while the rest of the crowd were mostly standing still and taking the concert in, they were quick to answer the beckoning call of the large frontman.
Personally, I’ve never been a Suffocation fan, and this show didn’t win me over, but other factions inside Metalmoments (yes, that would be our photographer, Lunah lauridsen), who like the band and their music more than I do, asserted that the band delivered exactly what they were supposed to. It was a bit odd that they finished up after 45 minutes though. Sure, I don’t know how long they were hired to play, but simply judging by the stage’s timetable, they could easily have had an hour and a half.
Setlist (incomplete):
Funeral Inception
Clarity Through Deprivation
Suffocation
