Tag Archives: Copenhagen

Copenhagen: Cheap weed, sludge in squats and buffets

For my birthday, my lovely wife gave me a trip to copenhagen as a gift. I had been to Denmark very long ago, back in 1992 (starting my long affinity with Danish football as well), but not to the capital. I enjoyed my time here, though it’s a pricy place.

This was also the first time we used AirBnB, where you get to sleep in a persons house. Our host was a stewardess for a major flying company and gladly hosted us in her neat apppartment. Added bonus is that she owned a great coffee shop, where we could have breakfast. Extra super bonus is that this was a vegan/health shop, so we had the breakfast of dreams at the Coffee Queen.

Kristiania and Nyhavn

When you go to Copenhagen, you need to visit Kristiania. I was amazed at the long line of weed vendors, selling their wares on top of old oil barrels. Seriously, there was a liberty and randomness to it that made me feel that being Dutch was not at all what I thought it was compared to this place. I can’t say the rest of Kristiania was as impressive as the legends that precede it. It looked like a dump on most parts and others where highly commercialised.

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The same you could say about Nyhavn, the hip, go-to center of the city with the colorfull houses. It looks great, contrary to Kristiania, but hardly offers the complexity and fascinating aspects of the squat settlement. The center of the Danish capital is beautiful though and you would love to be in the cyclist friendly city with excellent public transport (the trams are even fully automatic it seems). I spend an excellent first day exploring these parts , just wandering around and enjoying the surroundings.

Exploring the city

Copenhagen is a city with wide streets, winding roads and a lot of old buildings. Just wandering around those is a joy. Obviously you want to visit the little mermaid statue. Perhaps you even get a glimpse through the hordes of tourists that stop their with full busloads. The harbor is obviously a nice part of the city to visit, since a lot of live was around these parts in the past and old buildings, statues and pretty parks will surprise you.

What is well worth visiting is the national history museum. You can literally spend a day here, soaking up the history from the ancient days all the way to the present century. The museum has a vast collection and some surprisingly impressive items, such as some of the well preserved bodies found in bogs. Not saying this to be morbid, but to be able to see a person froma  different age is something particularly special.

Northern Discomfort

I went to see the cool Northern Discomfort Fest as well in Copenhagen, which took place at the Ungdomshuset, an old squat commune where often bands play. The cool thing was the atmosphere and the affordable drinks and food. I really enjoyed this festival, which had some great acts and truly no bad shows going on. You can read more about that here and here. Again, public transport is your friend, though it does stop driving at some point and then an hours walk is not so bad through the streets of Copenhagen actually.

Noteworthy acts I saw were for example Alaric, the English post-punk infused band with melodic and melancholic vocals. Another one I liked particularly is Cult of Occult.

FC Copenhagen

Denmark has a very peculiar music culture. It really is baffling to know that hooligans interact and work together with the police. For some reason the Danish league is considered small and teams fuse, merge and fold a lot. Current champion FC Copenhagen only has been around for about 1,5 decade. I have always had affinity for football in Denmark. My parents took me there on holiday back in 1992, just after the European Championship.

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So I went down to Telia Parken to see the local FC Copenhagen play Lyngby, one of their historic competitors. My tickets were not for the nice seats, but right in with the hardcore fans. It was great to join in with the chanting during the game with the passionate FC Co fans. After 45 minutes the score is 0-0. A few minutes into the second half Pavlovic, the Serbian striker of Copenhagen, scores a beautiful goal. The fans explode and fireworks are lit. Pavlovic continues to score three goals and the chanting never stops. A great experience.

photo’s by Justina Lukosiute

To Denmark: Northern Discomfort

After a long, long weekend of Roadburn, I encounterd a cool sticker in the toilet at the Cul de Sac during the Turia show. Northern Discomfort on April the 28th and 29th in Copenhagen.

Now, as it happens, my lovely wife has given me a weekend trip to Copenhagen so you can imagine how pleased I was to find some underground music fest going on. So a little preview it is.

DIY Festival

I’ve gathered that the festival is a DIY event. This means it’s been put together by someone who loves music. This means also that anyone in Copenhagen should come down to support it. Setting up a festival like that is hard, costs lots of money and time and depends on the willingnes of the local scene to show up. This is the second edition, so I imagine the first one was good!

Ungdomshuset

I might be wrong, but this is the name of the venue where the fest takes place. Undomshuset appears to be a sort of artistic commune, which holds five simple principles: No racism, no sexism, no homophobia/heterosexism, no violance, no hard drugs. So as you can imagine, I already love the place. The location seems to have quite a history as a democratic house with activist tendencies. I’m very curious now about visiting this place, more info can be found here.
Oh, and vegan food!

Who’s playing?

I’m not going to describe every band or list all of them, just let me highlight some.

Alaric played Roadburn last weekend, like quite some bands that’ll be rocking Northern Discomfort. This American group released an excellent album last year, titled ‘End of Mirrors’ (check out my review on The Sleeping Shaman). Cold, emotional and with a little hint of goth, they’re a pleasure.

Come to Grief plays some of the dirtiest, nasties sludge you’ll ever find. Seriously, this band sounds nasty. The group was started by two former members of Grief and they play classic material from the band. This one hits like a sledge hammer.

Horse Latitudes will simply drown you in their music. Endless tracks with repetition and a lot of despair. A band that makes your flowers wither I wrote when checking their album ‘Primal Gnosis’ (read the review here on the Sleeping Shaman).

Pinkish Black I didn’t catch on Roadburn, but what a great record is Bottom of the Morning, is it not? Wildly experimental, spacy and just a lovely listen. Let me please see those guys live then!

Cult of Occult is a band that plays something so damn brutal, that I fell in love with their sound at Roadburn 2016. I’m keen to experience that again in Kopenhagen,

I also think I’ll give Toner Low another try, the Dutch weedeaters are there as well.

So, are you going?

Are you going to be there? Well, I’d love to have a chat. Come up and say hi!