The weather seems afflicted with some sort of pubertal crisis of self-identification, but the Danes are too pragmatic to let their favourite small-talk topic interfere with the coming of the cultural spring.
As the various events of the Wondercool festival encourage the gradual transition from winterhygge to the vitality of spring, big venues around the country are preparing to host events of – by Denmark’s standards at least – astronomical scale.
The breadth of the offerings means that you are likely to frown at some of our picks and be blissed out by others, but they do all have one thing in common: they’re all better than Britney Spears. Though if you think it’s pointless to compare peachy pop-stars with mashed metal-heads, you are probably right.
A much less offensive similarity is that these events are all popular, and your taste is not quite as singular as you like to imagine. So yes, I am aware that November is more than half a year away, but don’t come crying when you end up paying double the ticket price on dba.dk. Until then, find them on livenation.dk unless otherwise stated.
American pop rock group OneRepublic (Falconer Salen; Mar 12; 290kr) achieved their international breakthrough after having the lead single of their debut album be remixed by Timbaland. In turn they popularized the activity of counting stars with their song of the same name.
After 30 years and 80 million records sold, these guys are neither new, nor kids but step by step they’ve built up a solid boy band career and will satisfy your nostalgic cravings for the distinctive ‘90s synth sound. Catch New Kids On The Block at Falconer Salen on May 8 (495kr).
The Lady Gaga phenomenon (Jyske Bank Boxen; Sep 27; 350-695kr, ticket sale starts at 10:00 on Feb 17) should require no introduction. You don’t actually need to love her music in order to want to see the show she’ll put up during her fourth concert tour “artRAVE: the ARTPOP ball”. If you’re lucky you might see her take off in the flying dress Volantis, designed by her personal creative team.
May we present: soft rock icon Sir Elton Hercules John (Forum, Nov 12; ticket sales start at 10:00 on Friday Feb 14) is gracing Copenhagen with a travel through time and space and many of his biggest hits. He will be accompanied by a band that is sure to fade into the background next to this titan of music history.
Summer of 69 anyone? Another big-shot softie to sugarcoat your cardiac muscles either with his melodramatic guitar riffs or his off-stage humanitarianism. He is known for energetic live performances and you got to give the man credit for doing anything he does for you. Bryan Adams is playing at the Royal Theatre on May 22 (580-825kr on billetlugen.dk).
This one is a bit of a maverick, not only in terms of this list. ‘The Elvis of cultural theory’ as he is sometimes called can turn the cutting off of people’s testicles into a profound social commentary and unlike many philosophers he does not make a point of being inaccessible. So if you’re not big on Marxist theory or Lacan’s psychoanalysis, you’ll probably leave this lecture brimming with perplexity and lots interesting questions. Slavoj Žižek is appearing at the Black Diamond on May 17 (ticket sale starts March 1 on kb.dk).
Elsewhere, Neil Young (Forum, July 30, 745kr) is making up for the short-notice cancellation of last summer’s concert; there’s a chance to see Iron Maiden and Megadeth at Copenhell (Refshaleøen, June 11-13, festival pass: 1,095kr); Walk Off the Earth – who have become so popular with their low-budget, high-quality Youtube music videos – are now playing an extra concert at Vega on April 18 (tickets: 185kr) after their one at Pumpehuset sold out.
