“I Command You To Scream…”

@COPENHELL #copenhell @RealKingDiamond #KingDiamond

Fun King Diamond Story #1 (of 4 or 5)…

Once upon a time, I had just turned 15 years old. I was laying on my bed late on a Friday night listening to the radio. I don’t remember the station, but it could have been KSJO, KRQR, or KOME. Back in the day these stations would play decent music in the San Francisco Bay Area. You could hear Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, or Judas Priest during the day. However, you had to tune in late at night, especially on weekends, if you wanted to hear the latest and greatest in heavy metal–maybe Iron Maiden or something newly released.

Such was the case one night in November of 1983. The DJ put Mercyful Fate’s 11+ minute “Satan’s Fall” on. I had never heard anything like this before. I got goosebumps. Luckily I had my tape recorder going so I was able to listen to it again and again before finally buying the CD in 1986. Anyway, the DJ said something about this band being from Copenhagen, Denmark. Never in a million, billion years did I ever imagine that I would be standing at this guy’s feet in Copenhagen 33 years later taking this photo.

Posted on July 19th, 2016 under Denmark. Tags: AF-S NIKKOR 85mm f/1.8G lens, concert photography, copenhell, king diamond, metal, Nikon D500. Comments Off on King Diamond @ Copenhell (part 1)

Ex Eye’s Colin Stetson

@colin_stetson #rf16 @summerfieldt

Ex Eye was the surprise of the Roskilde Festival for me. While I probably wouldn’t have gotten into Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats without the Roskilde Festival (as I listened to Uncle Acid nearly nonstop in the weeks leading up to festival), Ex Eye wasn’t even on my radar. And why should they have been? They haven’t recorded anything. Roskilde was just their second performance ever I think. However, I had a couple hours to kill between Uncle Acid and Black Breath so I started looking at the details of the bands playing in that time frame. The Roskilde Festival website described Ex Eye as “hard and heavy” so I figured I would check them out.

Ex Eye’s Toby Summerfield

Wow! What an incredible show. First of all, the Gloria Stage is kind of amazing. I’ll post more photos of the venue later. It’s fairly intimate for Roskilde, but all kinds of trippy things are going on with the lighting. Then Ex Eye hits the stage and just blows everyone away. There are videos of their performance on Youtube now, but they don’t really do the set justice. You really had to be there to experience it to even come close to understanding how awesome it was at that moment.

Ex Eye at 2016 Roskilde Festival on the Gloria Stage

Posted on July 5th, 2016 under Denmark. Tags: AF-S NIKKOR 85mm f/1.8G lens, concert photography, ex eye, metal, Nikon D500, roskilde festival, Tokina AT-X 11-20mm F2.8 PRO DX. Comments Off on Ex Eye @ Roskilde

Bikes and tents in one of the many camping areas of Roskilde Festival 2016

I made it back to my Copenhagen home this morning, just before 5 a.m., after three days of going back and forth to Roskilde. Now I have about 1,800 photos to go through (not to mention the 2,200+ from Copenhell).

Posted on July 3rd, 2016 under Denmark. Tags: AF-S NIKKOR 85mm f/1.8G lens, bikes, Nikon D500, roskilde festival. Comments Off on Roskilde Festival 2016 is over

Abbath @ Copenhell VII

Today Abbath turns 43. I saw him twice last week, and he didn’t look a day over 39.

Friday night he treated us to a blistering Abbath set, with some Immortal classics tossed in for good measure, and some fire breathing as well. Saturday night (Sunday morning actually as they didn’t go on until after Black Sabbath at 1:30 a.m.), he played the role of Lemmy Kilmister in Bombers Bergen. The most awesome part of Abbath’s role in Bombers was his shifting back and forth between his Abbath and Lemmy characters. One moment he’d have his neck craned back in full Lemmy mode under the downward pointed microphone and the next he’d be doing the Abbath shuffle across the stage. Awesome. I will never forget being treated to such an experience.

Posted on June 27th, 2016 under Denmark. Tags: abbath, AF-S NIKKOR 85mm f/1.8G lens, concert photography, copenhell, immortal, Nikon D500. Comments Off on ♫ Happy Birthday Dear Abbath… ♬

Kadavar’s Christoph “Lupus” Lindemann @ Copenhell 2016

@KadavarOfficial #copenhell

After three straight days and nights of non-stop music, I finally have a bit of down time today to take a look at what I’ve been capturing. After deleting hundreds of unpublishable photos I still have over 2,000 that need to be processed. Will I ever process them all? No chance. But I’ll do what I can and get some up here over the coming days, months, and years. There are some more on my Instagram.

Kadavar was one of several great bands that I probably would have never heard of had it not been for Copenhell.

Posted on June 26th, 2016 under Denmark. Tags: AF-S NIKKOR 85mm f/1.8G lens, concert photography, copenhell, kadavar, metal, Nikon D500. Comments Off on Kadavar