Conan live at Vega Copenhagen, Denmark

If you ever wondered how uncompromising power of distorted guitar sounds, go to a Conan gig. It is a good choice to answer your doubts. The band hails from Liverpool, UK visited Copenhagen’s Vega last Monday to deliver a dose of doom metal on the gig organized by my friends from Colossal.

I have arrived at the venue just a few minutes before the start as a fan, number six in the front of the stage. As one of the tech guys commented ‘six for sixes’. Sixes is the name of the band opening the whole evening. Shortly after they have played the first notes, all of the fans who were smoking and chatting outside filed in and the venue got filled in to some extent (it was Monday evening after all). The first thing that caught my eye was the bassist Zander Reddis – a tall girl wearing high boots and squeezing loud notes from her guitar is not a common view during doom metal gigs. The second thing was the band’s vocalist – Stephen Cummings. This guy was all over the stage running with his guitar from one band member to another, hyped like Lebron in playoffs.

The second band showing up on stage was Un. This band comes from Seattle Washington. They presented their melodic and progressive take on doom metal. I had a chance to observe this performance standing behind two guys standing in the puddle of beer. What I later understood was that they were headbanging so much that half of the beer in their cups was landing on the floor. They were not the soberest members of the crowd but I still believe that’s a sign that some people in the venue really enjoyed this gig.

Shortly after 9pm a group of fans in their t-shirts with ‘Hail Conan’ finally got what they were waiting for. Jon Davis and company hit the stage and filled the club with the harsh wall of vibrating guitar sound. The band took fans on a journey into Doom metal extremes with their brand of slow and heavy rhythmic music. It was a real feast for the headbanging fans who had not many unnecessary breaks besides a few words coming from the stage, including words of appreciation for the fans who decided to spend this cold Monday evening with Conan’s music. One of my main criticisms of the show was that the vocals were not loud enough in my opinion and were drowned out by the heavy sounds but from another side – Conan does not have Adele singing for them, Conan is about a heavy and brutal sound and this part has been delivered in full. It was a heavy start for the week but it was definitely fun to spend a few hours headbanging with Conan sipping the cold beer.