Knocked Loose at Lille Vega, Copenhagen, Denmark

Coverage and Photos by Joseph Miller

Lille Vega, Copenhagen is the home for the night for one metalcore maestros, Knocked Loose and their windmill swinging entourage. They’ve brought along a trio of support bands to get the crowd warmed up and I’m slammed in the middle of a venue, being bashed from one spot to another.

Thankfully, I brought my body armor with me. Two cameras which are being knocked into, left, right and center and two elbows, which I find myself thrusting backwards for the duration of the concert.

“I think I lost a battery pack” I scream out through the noise to the photographer next to me as I frantically look around the floor of the venue, shining the torch of my phone on the ground amongst the young crowd.

“Great! Nice one!”. Needless to say I’m quite pissed off at this point, but I come to my senses and take another look. I have it. Panic over and now I can continue to try and battle my way through this gig.

Ok, so it’s not the sort of music I’m going to be sat on a peaceful train journey listening to in the quiet carriage, nor would I sit down at Sunday lunch with the parents and have it as background music while I dig into my beef wellington and onion gravy.

It’s just not my thing. However, the exciting part about being a music enthusiast as a whole, is that I can find elements to all sorts of music that I find interesting or captivating.

These guys show me what their genre is all about. Some insane drumming mixed with some very articulated song arrangements gave me food for thought.

They bring a powerful message to their followers in the form of noise, chaos and pandemonium and I’m getting a back slap from a kid bouncing around behind me, flapping his arms about like a monkey with heat stroke.

I’m giving him the evil stare but he looks straight through me, possessed by the melodies and brain washed by the screams coming from lead singer, Bryan garris’ mouth.

“I support people punching their friends in the face. If they’re cool with it, I’m so down” guitarist Isaac Hale recently endorsed the idea of mosh pit mayhem and the crowd are happy to back up his quote in numbers.

I mean, they named their recent album ‘Violent Mosh Pits’. Would you expect anything less at one of their concerts?

Hit tunes ‘Deadringer’ and ‘Mistakes Like Fractures’ come to mind when I look back on the gig as the only recognizable tunes that stood out to me from my vague knowledge of the bands’ back catalogue.

Though as a journalist and someone reviewing the gig as a whole, they played their style of music with awesome passion and lived up to their billing as one of America’s finest metalcore exports.

I just don’t think I’ll be in a hurry to get on the phone to my parents to tell them I’m coming over for Sunday lunch anytime soon.

Justice For The Damned, Renounced and Malevolence (in no particular order) added their own take on getting the windmills flying through the air and of the three to give me the most sense of satisfaction, was Renounced.

Not to say the other two weren’t impressive. For what they do and the music they produce, they seemed endearing enough to strike up a good following of their own some day, if not soon.

Renounced, however, gave just that little bit extra and the constant jumping around stage and heavy guitar riffs, resonated throughout the room sending the kids up front into raptures of applause and cries of happiness.

They did enough to raise a smile from me.

I found my battery and my head, both at the same time. Happy days!