Dark Funeral
KB Hallen, Copenhagen - 2026
Text: Tobias Nilsson Photo: Lunah Lauridsen
On their co-headlined In League With Satan tour, black metal icons Dimmu Borgir and Behemoth had brought along their Swedish colleagues in Dark Funeral. Not as big in sales numbers, they still have the years and experience to warrant their inclusion on this tour, and so it was that they, with white faces and black leather, kicked things off in KB Hallen this evening.
“You know who we are, we are of course Dark Funeral from Sweden! We’re going to delve right down into the fucking swamp that is the 90ies!”
- Erik Andreas ‘Heljarmadr’ Vingbäck (vocals)
The show opened with low red lights on stage, and the noise of something atmospherically dark underlined by the rattling of chains, and as soon as they were all on stage the band threw themselves into Unchain My Soul. It was fast and wicked, it was cheered on by the audience as they resolutely raised their horns in the air and rhythmically chanted “hey” over and over again.
The band grabbed on to the energy and threw it right back. Mentioning that this was the last show of the tour, they had everyone praise Satan with them.
Musically, there were no big surprises, they did pretty much precisely what was wanted from them, helped along by a good sound mix - at least from where I was standing.
Performanceways however, this was mostly a motor for frontman Heljarmadr and Lord Ahriman. For instance, they were the only ones allowed up on the long, narrow podium that ran along the stage from side to side. The others were there with them, and they did add to the show, like in Unchain My Soul, where Chaq Mol and Adra-Melek stood facing each other while strumming each other’s instrument. That sounds dirtier than it was.
The quite large audience, though only about half the size of what it would become later on, was actually impressively well with the band. Nothing wild, but there was headbanging in the front, and the rest were more than happy to keep lending the band their horns and their voices. This may have been a warm-up, which is pretty much the support band's role at a gig, but it was a positive and engaged one at that. When Heljarmadr waved a flag with the band logo in the last song, the show reached a natural peak both in output and response - although given that the backdrop already had a giant band logo, the bass drum had a band logo, and the roll-up’s to each side of the stage had large band logo’s, one could question the necessity of this final showing of which band we were witnessing.
Dark Funeral delivered a combo of not giving a fully memorable show, while still making a positive impression. A good way to open, but not one for the history books - but not everything has to be that. Also, when you only have about 30 minutes of stage time, why spend a considerable chunk of it off stage? There really isn’t any good reason to make a pretend encore or whatever they were going for, when you might have put in one more song instead.
Setlist:
Unchain My Soul
The Arrival Of Satan’s Empire
The Secrets Of The Black Arts
Let The Devil In
Where Shadows Forever Reign
“You know who we are, we are of course Dark Funeral from Sweden! We’re going to delve right down into the fucking swamp that is the 90ies!”
- Erik Andreas ‘Heljarmadr’ Vingbäck (vocals)
The show opened with low red lights on stage, and the noise of something atmospherically dark underlined by the rattling of chains, and as soon as they were all on stage the band threw themselves into Unchain My Soul. It was fast and wicked, it was cheered on by the audience as they resolutely raised their horns in the air and rhythmically chanted “hey” over and over again.
The band grabbed on to the energy and threw it right back. Mentioning that this was the last show of the tour, they had everyone praise Satan with them.
Musically, there were no big surprises, they did pretty much precisely what was wanted from them, helped along by a good sound mix - at least from where I was standing.
Performanceways however, this was mostly a motor for frontman Heljarmadr and Lord Ahriman. For instance, they were the only ones allowed up on the long, narrow podium that ran along the stage from side to side. The others were there with them, and they did add to the show, like in Unchain My Soul, where Chaq Mol and Adra-Melek stood facing each other while strumming each other’s instrument. That sounds dirtier than it was.
The quite large audience, though only about half the size of what it would become later on, was actually impressively well with the band. Nothing wild, but there was headbanging in the front, and the rest were more than happy to keep lending the band their horns and their voices. This may have been a warm-up, which is pretty much the support band's role at a gig, but it was a positive and engaged one at that. When Heljarmadr waved a flag with the band logo in the last song, the show reached a natural peak both in output and response - although given that the backdrop already had a giant band logo, the bass drum had a band logo, and the roll-up’s to each side of the stage had large band logo’s, one could question the necessity of this final showing of which band we were witnessing.
Dark Funeral delivered a combo of not giving a fully memorable show, while still making a positive impression. A good way to open, but not one for the history books - but not everything has to be that. Also, when you only have about 30 minutes of stage time, why spend a considerable chunk of it off stage? There really isn’t any good reason to make a pretend encore or whatever they were going for, when you might have put in one more song instead.
Setlist:
Unchain My Soul
The Arrival Of Satan’s Empire
The Secrets Of The Black Arts
Let The Devil In
Where Shadows Forever Reign
Dark Funeral
