Almost 40 years ago, singer King Diamond and guitarist Hank Shermann created what would later become the most iconic and influential Danish heavy metal band ever. MERCYFUL FATE played a central role among the first wave of heavy metal bands in the post-Black Sabbath period from 1980 and onwards, forever leaving their demonic mark on a metal culture in its infancy.
Often credited for being an integral part of the early development of black metal and lauded by bands like Slayer and Metallica, MERCYFUL FATE established themselves as an extremely innovative outfit in the early days of ‘true’ metal: Phenomenal and progressive songwriting, mindblowing riffs from the Denner/Shermann guitar tandem and King Diamond’s disturbing falsetto vocals combined with macabre theatrical aesthetics and occult themes to create a truly unique musical universe.
MERCYFUL FATE laid the groundwork in the years 1981-1985 and followed up again in 1992-1999 after a longer hiatus. Aside from re-recording songs for the video game Guitar Hero: Metallica in 2008 and joining Metallica on stage at their 30th anniversary concert in San Francisco in 2011, the band has been dormant for 20 years. Now this ancient evil has reawakened, and fans both old and new will get the chance to experience the real deal live at COPENHELL.
The band will perform with the “9” lineup featuring Hank Shermann (guitar), King Diamond (vocals), Bjarne T. Holm (drums), Mike Wead (guitar) and Joey Vera (Bass). Joey Vera (Armored Saint, Fates Warning) was asked to fill in for Timi Hansen, who is currently away, because he has a very unique style and sound playing with his fingers. This is very important since the set list will only consist of songs from the very first ‘mini LP’, the “Melissa” and “Don’t Break The Oath” albums plus some brand new songs written specifically in that very same style. This will very much be MERCYFUL FATE as they were in the very beginning – except for a brand new major stage production. Never break the oath!
It is a great honour for us to share this world news first and have the greatest metal band in Danish history perform on their home ground next year. We look forward to treating the COPENHELL audience to an absolutely unmissable concert experience when next year’s festival kicks off on June 17, 2020. See you in hell – and get ready to look the Devil in the eye!”
We expect to launch the sales of 3- and 4-day tickets in October this autumn. Follow COPENHELL on Facebook and Instagram, as well as on www.copenhell.dk for more news.
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COPENHELL 2019 – OFFICIAL AFTERMOVIE
COPENHELL’s online merch store is open again!
If you didn’t get to visit our booth at the festival this year, you can swing by here and find a great selection of this year’s designs.
We will be adding new items continually after the summer holidays. Good hunting!
The ticket sales for the COPENHELL Metal Cruise have started once again!
If you are still longing for even more of the lovely COPENHELL atmosphere after the festival, we invite you to sail with us on the COPENHELL Metal Cruise from November 8 to 10!
Last year’s cruise was one hell of a party. This year we will upgrade the experience to even a deeper ring of hell with a much larger concert hall and eight instead of six bands on the program. The full line-up will be announced after the holidays!
We are looking forward to set sail with you all in November!
]]>This years merchandise is now ready, and we are bursting with pride at the entire line. Yet again, we have worked together with talented artists from the entire world. The merchandise sales will start at our wristband pre-event in Pumpehuset in central Copenhagen on Monday and Tuesday from 14:00 to 20:00, where a broad selection of the entire range will be available and will continue at the big merchandise boutique throughout the entire festival. Moreover, we added 6 new artists to the COPENHELLO lottery. And last but not least, do not forget to download the official COPENHELL app in your app store so you do not miss out on anything during the festival!
COPENHELL 2019 merch range
This year we offer COPENHELL MERCHANDISE designs from the likes of Arik Roper, Joe Petagno, Dan Seagrave, MonkeyMouth, Plastickid, Brian Mercer, Brent Elliott White, Claude Wit, ToT, Björn Goosses, Erenius, Haervaerk and not least Victor Ash.
Yes, you read that correctly: By very popular demand, we have reprinted the iconic wolf, and we are also relaunching Joe Petagno’s design from 2010 to show where it all began. In a partnership with Dickies, you can purchase the classic Lansdale and short-sleeve shirts, a Washington crewneck and a Torrence raincoat.
Additionally, we launch two new print products: John Kenn’s comic book ‘The Wrestler’ and an exclusive vinyl photo book with photos from the festival’s first nine years integrated with a limited vinyl version of the ‘Ten Years In Hell’ EP – the photos are shot by COPENHELL’s photographer Morten Skovgaard and others.
The merchandise sales will start at our wristband pre-event in Pumpehuset in central Copenhagen on Monday and Tuesday from 14:00 to 20:00, where a broad selection of the entire range will be available. Make sure to visit the big merchandise boutique at the festival site, where more than 70 different COPENHELL merchandise items will be available!
Remember our great COPENHELLO lottery that gives you the chance to meet some of all the artists at this year’s festival! We have just added LAMB OF GOD, TRIVIUM, JOHN 5 (from ROB ZOMBIE), KVELERTAK, TESSERACT and MUNICIPAL WASTE to the list, which now includes 19 bands and artists!
Earlier this year, we confirmed AMON AMARTH, ELUVEITIE, ORANGE GOBLIN, WHITECHAPEL, THE CONSPIRATORS (Slash & Myles Kennedy’s backing band), HALESTORM, DEMONS & WIZARDS and more.
NB. In order to attend you must have a valid COPENHELL ticket for the day you want to attend a Copenhello session. The sessions will take place backstage, and you must therefore be sober in order to attend. Times are subject to change, and keep in mind that that not every member of a certain band will necessarily join a Copenhello session!
Check out the INTERACTIVE MAP in our official COPENHELL app.If you do not have the opportunity to use the app, you can always use the card in the printed program which is handed out at the festival entrance.
Read much more about the festival and all of the bands at Copenhell.dk or in our official COPENHELL app – and follow us at Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and Spotify.
]]>Today the ‘Ti År I Helvede’ two-song EP is released. It consists of ‘Ulvens Ed’, a battle song that celebrates COPENHELL festival, its audience and community, by Danish supergroup Omvendt Krostog, and ‘Hårde Tider’ by Danish hardcore band Nyt Liv, curated by renowned record label Indisciplinarian. Moreover, the Copenhello wheel of fortune spins ones again. Register to have chance meeting your favorite artists playing this years COPENHELL.
Omvendt Korstog – Ulvens Ed
A great selection of Danish rock and metal musicians have collaborated for an EP that celebrates COPENHELL’s ten years in Hell – end not to forget its audience and community. The songs ‘Ulvens Ed’ by Danish supergroup OMVENDT KORSTOG and ‘Hårde Tider’ by NYT LIV pay tribute to the festival’s dedicated audience.
The ‘Ti År I Helvede’ EP is digitally available from today on. On April 19th the EP will be released on vinyl by record label Indisciplinarian. The vinyl record is limited and will be released on 333 neon green and 333 black copies respectively – which makes it 666 in total. The vinyls can pre-ordered via the Indisciplinarian webshop.
The COPENHELLO wheel of fortune spins again! Copenhello is an exclusive and very intimate Q&A plus a meet-and-greet and a picture of you and the artist. Take note that the capacity of every Copenhello session is very, very limited.
This year you will get the chance to meet AMON AMARTH, ELUVEITIE, ORANGE GOBLIN, WHITECHAPEL, SLASH FT. MYLES KENNEDY AND THE CONSPIRATORS, HALESTORM and DEMONS & WIZARDS. Possibly even more will added along the way.
NB. In order to attend you must have a valid COPENHELL ticket for the day you want to attend the meet-and-greet. Meet-and-greets will take place backstage, and you must therefore be sober in order to attend. Times are subject to change and keep in mind that it is possible that not every member of a certain band will join a Copenhello session!
Purchase day-tickets, read much more about the festival and all of the bands at Copenhell.dk or in our official COPENHELL app – and follow us at Facebook, Spotify and Instagram.
]]>The time has come to decide if you want to experience three amazing days at COPENHELL 2019. There are only few 3-days tickets left! Keep in mind there are still one-day tickets for Wednesday, Friday, Saturday as well as R.I.P. tickets available. See you all this summer!
Purchase tickets, read much more about the festival and all of the bands at Copenhell.dk or in our official COPENHELL app – and follow us at Facebook, Spotify and Instagram.
The last acts have now been added to this year’s COPENHELL poster
TRIVIUM, TESSERACT, UADA, VLTIMAS and CABAL will deliver a fistful of quality metal in a hard punch in the face, rounding off this year’s line-up with a handful of really heavy metal bands playing everything from progressive djent to old school death metal.
Through the last two decades, TRIVIUM has reached for the stars with their hyper-efficient and popular metalcore.
The band visited COPENHELL in 2012 and again in 2016, where they laid waste to the audience with their catchy headbanger metal and infectious performance.
We look forward to meeting the heavy boys from Florida yet again for another musical tour de force!
The British band TESSERACT plays progressive metal and is one of the pioneers of the popular djent sub-genre.
Their music is a tornado of advanced rhythmical and melodic techniques carried by Daniel Tompkins’ formidable, explosive voice.
Here is a band that is not afraid of experimenting with genres and reinvent themselves constantly, and the COPENHELL audience can expect a concert full of musical surprises.
UADA appeared like a bolt from the blue with their convincing debut album ”Devoid of Light” in 2016.
The quartet quickly established themselves as one of this decade’s most important new black metal bands, and they have darkened the skies ever since with their pitch-black, melodic approach to the genre.
With a running start and lots of evolution in their sound already, they are ready to throw one hell of a party for all the black metal enthusiasts!
When you use the term ”super group”, you have to make sure that it is a fitting term – and that is indeef the case with VLTIMAS!
A brutal trio consisting of David Vincent from legendary Morbid Angel, Cryptosy drummer Flo Mounier and Mayhem guitarist Rune Eriksen have created an entirely new metal symbiosis with this incredibly heavy music project.
All fans of classic death metal can start looking forward to this experience!
The Danish band CABAL is this year’s ”Tak Rock!” band at COPENHELL.
Their sinister sound lands somewhere between blackened deathcore and hardcore with massive breakdown, spitting and raging vocals and a thick, permeating atmosphere of pure evil. This young band is already playing in the big leagues and showing huge potential.
Purchase tickets, read much more about the festival and all of the bands at Copenhell.dk or in our official COPENHELL app – and follow us at Facebook, Spotify and Instagram.
All headliners for COPENHELL 2019 are now ready, with ten new bands added and SCORPIONS as Saturday’s great concert.
The COPENHELL 2019 line-up has just been expanded with ten new bands that span all the hard end heavy genres, from retro rock to modern metal. The headliners for all festival days are now on the poster, and we will continue to add more bands and events as we get closer to the festival.
In 2016, the German rock legends from SCORPIONS delivered a truly stunning concert in the craziest weather we have ever experienced at COPENHELL. Electricity was crackling both in the sky above the festival site and between an almost supernaturally proficient band and a completely euphoric audience when the incredibly enthusiastic musicians went on their tour de force. They have toured the world since then, and even though these seasoned people have surpassed their 50-year anniversary years ago, their stinger is as sharp and pointy as ever. In many ways, this band is to hard rock what Black Sabbath is to heavy metal, and they have shown a great musical span throughout their more than half a century-long career.
As Saturday’s headliner, these rock pioneers will close COPENHELL 2019 with a blast of a performance, with everything from epic ballads to electrifying rock classics.
PRETTY MAIDS are one of the first acts that will pop up in most Danes’ minds when you think ’classic Danish heavy rock’. Ever since the beginning in 1981, this prolific band has managed to maintain their style, nerve and creative spark through 15 studio albums. They have held a consistently high standard throughout the years, and the albums “Pandemonium” and “Motherland” from 2010 and 2013, respectively, are by many fans seen as their best ever. These heavy Danish rockers have been a solid force on the both the Danish and the international scene for several decades, and it a great pleasure for us to welcome them back to COPENHELL this year.
LIVING COLOUR rose up from New York’s underground scene and within a few years, they became world stars with their energetic funk metal and not least their 1992 mega hit ”Cult of Personality”. Since then and all the way up until their 2017 album ”Shade”, these phenomenally skilled musicians, fronted by Corey Glover’s formidable vocals, have delivered and developed their truly original and unique genre mash-up of metal, rock, funk, jazz and hip-hop. Count on one big party of a concert!
Deep Purple’s former bass player and singer GLENN HUGHES, also known as ”Voice of Rock”, performs together with a rock super group today. They will visit COPENHELL with their ”Glenn Hughes Performs Classic Deep Purple Live” world tour, which pays homage to one of the music history’s most influential rock bands. This concert will be an absolute hurricane of nostalgia when the band plays that magical music from the 70s that started it all.
One of Swedish death metal’s “Big Four” will visit COPENHELL 2019 when UNLEASHED release their furious and ice-cold oldschool metal. Insanely heavy, explosive riffs carried by a musical primal force can be expected here. Where many other bands have developed their concepts with progressive influences, these old warriors have stuck with their original sound – and thanks a lot for that! Every fan of classic death metal will feel sheer joy from the moment when Johnny Hedlund’s wild scream resounds across the festival site!
The Danish band SLÆGT returns to COPENHELL with their blackened heavy metal. Young meets old in a sound that is both traditional and progressive. The lyrics focus on the supernatural and the occult and have a very familiar 80s heavy metal vibe. They are mixed effortlessly with raw, grating black metal vocals, complete with battering ram-style blastbeats and painfully insisting guitar riffs into an amazing sound picture.
The American rock band CANDLEBOX showed up right in the middle of the grunge wave that rolled up everywhere in the early 90s. Rather than surfing on it, they stuck with classic blues rock and a more polished sound, which resulted in several great radio hits. Lead singer Kevin Martin’s intense voice has carried the band’s sound ever since the beginning, and his vocal chords are still in top form on both their most recent albums and their current tour.
Through almost 30 years, the highly respected and influential band KATATONIA has been on a true voyage of discovery through the hard and heavy music’s subgenres. They have moved from death and doom, across more traditional heavy metal to a more progressive rock sound, with everything being assembled masterfully into a modern and complex sound. The band will visit COPENHELL 2019 on their 10-year anniversary tour for their seminal album ”Night Is The New Day”, which they will perform during this concert (Note: KATATONIA will perform on Wednesday, June 19).
The pedal will be taken to the metal when the Danish band MANTICORA fires up their music at COPENHELL 2019! These heavy boys deliver their thrashy, progressive power metal at an absolutely ferocious pace, which will make all speed metal fans very happy. The band released their eighth studio album last year, and lots of experience and technical skill are evident in their music. The efficient mix of styles and the fascinating horror lyrics are a true treat for all power metal fans.
The Copenhagen quintet DEMON HEAD plays diabolical retro rock inspired by 60s acid rock and 70s proto metal. This includes double guitar solos – one of their defining characteristics – occult themes and heavy, slow songs vibrating with the sinister feeling of impending destruction. A must for all doom fans!
COPENHELL 2019 has had the fastest-selling tickets in the festival’s history, and both 4-day tickets and Thursday tickets are sold out.
Purchase tickets, read much more about the festival and all of the bands at Copenhell.dk or in our official COPENHELL app – and follow us at Facebook, Spotify and Instagram.
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