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support The 20Belows
author PP date 04/10/23 venue Richter, Copenhagen, DEN

We're deep out in the suburbs for this one tonight. You know that when even Teenage Bottlerocket makes a joke about the place being far away, a little bit like Wyoming where they come from. It's therefore a very positive surprise to find plenty of people at Richter tonight for a double no-frills pop punk whammy featuring the Danish legends in The 20Belows, who are opening for one of the fastest bands in punk rock. It's not usual to see this many people at a punk rock show during a weekday in Copenhagen.

The 20Belows

A wild second 20Belows show in the same year in Copenhagen? Are we dreaming? The local punk rock legends, who basically never play shows these days, look rejuvenated on stage as they draw a sizable crowd early on at Richter tonight. They start with a doubleheader of "Message" and "Through The City" to set the scene, delivering tight, three-chord punk rock exactly the way you want to hear it from the get-go, where especially the latter song gets the front rows going. Heads are bopping, feet are tapping, and the band jumps around energetically right afterward to prove they're having a great time tonight.

"17-18 years ago, we warmed up for Teenage Bottlerocket... we haven't gotten much further", vocalist Ulrich Basler says jokingly, with a sense of self-irony in the process. Songs like "What A Nightmare" and "Look Out Below" have us humming and singing along, before "Like A Chokeslam" delivers the slower crowd-pleaser to break up the set a little bit.

The thing about The 20Belows is that their material is mostly brilliant, so when they just race through their songs in one go, it draws the crowd in closer and closer, eventually unleashing a dynamic that results in louder and louder cheers as the set progresses. Tracks like "Repress" and "Momentum" are highlights, while the fast-paced pop punk of "Double Gin" fast is a personal favorite of mine. "For Better Days" is, as usual, the scene sing-along it deserves to be, and once the band finishes today with "Staying In", they leave behind a tight, solid impression that opened up the pit on multiple occasions. If only they'd tour more consistently, they'd be the headliners in venues like this across Europe.

Setlist:

• 1. Message
• 2. Through The City
• 3. Agree To Disagree
• 4. What A Nightmare
• 5. Look Out Below
• 6. Like A Chokeslam
• 7. My Very Best
• 8. Shiny Little Hearts
• 9. Repress
• 10. Momentum
• 11. Once And For All
• 12. Double Gin
• 13. For Better Days
• 14. Staying In

Teenage Bottlerocket

Bottlerocket comes on stage tonight to the tune of Slayer's reigning blood, thus highlighting the metallic nuance that has always existed alongside their ridiculously fast no-frills pop punk material. They fire straight into "Semi Truck", but it is the oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-ohhh's of "Don't Want To Go" that ignites the pit and underscores that Bottlerocket is not just insanely fast and energetic, but also infectiously catchy when the right song comes along. Likewise, "Bigger Than Kiss" keeps the pit going, which is going to be the theme of the day by the looks of it.

"Our first time in Denmark we played in Svendborg", vocalist Ray Carlisle says, where I'm unsure if he's serious or joking. It's a nice breather though as the band had raced through the first four songs non-stop and are already drenched in sweat from all the breakneck speed shredding. The songs flow instantly into each other, the band frenetically jumps around, and there's even a sing-along to "Blood Bath At Burger King".

"So we hear this place is far, so thanks for coming here. Usually, we're at BETA so we gotta switch it up. You just gotta imagine you're at Wyoming", Carlisle continues, before "They Call Me Steve" takes over. "Ghost Story" from "Sick Sesh!" is a surprising highlight considering the album otherwise isn't among their best, which you can tell from the crazed reaction that the crowd exhibits during "Skate Or Die" later on, for example.

"This song is just thirty seconds long, I want everyone in the pit for just thirty seconds, just like this guy over here who's like 85 years old", Ray says, while pointing at the gray-haired dude who has been attending almost every single punk show in Copenhagen for as long as I can remember. It's small pauses and jokes like these that keep the set varied because let's be honest, the songs are virtually identical to one another. Volbeat gets a knock for covering a Bottlerocket song but not showing up to their show (apparently they sold 1 shirt at the Volbeat support show where 10k people attended), for instance, as does another dude at the front for shouting out song names to which Ray just says we have like 300 songs so your requests gotta come in a day early.

The covers medley of "Blitzkrieg Pop" / "Breaking The Law" etc. is totally pointless and should not be a regular part of their set (or of any band's set, to be perfectly honest), but at least the band finishes up with another "1-2-3-4 let's go" type of a song with "Necrocomicon" before playing the marijuana song someone was requesting in the crowd earlier.

Overall though, they deliver a ridiculously fast, tight set of three-chord punk with enough bangers to convince just about anyone that punk is not dead. They look and feel reinvigorated compared to the last time I saw them, which means they deliver a solid set night in, and night out right now. Well worth catching them on this tour.

Setlist:

• 1. Semi Truck
• 2. Don't Want To Go
• 3. Bigger Than Kiss
• 4. Freak Out!
• 5. So Stoked
• 6. Never Sing Along
• 7. Blood Bath at Burger King
• 8. Crashing
• 9. They Call Me Steve
• 10. Fatso Goes Nutzoid
• 11. Ghost Story
• 12. Radio
• 13. Everything to Me
• 14. In The Basement
• 15. Bottlerocket
• 16. Via Munich (Tony Sly cover)
• 17. Stupid Games
• 18. Rebound
• 19. Headbanger
• 20. On My Own/Blitzkrieg Bop/Breaking the Law/On My Own (covers medley)
• 21. Skate Or Die
• 22. Don't Go (The Scutches cover)
• 23. Necrocomicon
• 24. I'm the One Smoking Marijuana Motherfucker

Photos by: Philip Onyx