SMUKfest Day 4, Saturday: Drew Sycamore, Bebe Rexha, The Minds of 99 and Baest

Saturday at SMUKfest brought a whole range of moods. Drew Sycamore filled the Stjerne Stage with warmth and fringe, Bebe Rexha sent the crowd back to the 2000s, The Minds of 99 drew a massive audience to the Bøge Stage, and Baest delivered this year’s metal outlier. Here are our reviews of four of the day’s biggest shows.

Drew Sycamore: Fringe and festivities

Drew walks onto the stage smiling, and the crowd lets her know they’re happy to welcome her! Drew last played SMUKfest in 2023, when she could already fill the Bøge Stage. This time was no different; in fact, it’s fair to ask whether SMUKfest slightly underrated her this year.

The Stjerne Stage was well packed. Really well packed. And as we stood looking out over a crowd that had clearly come for Drew, it was hard not to think that she might have deserved to be back on the big stage. Drew looked just as good as she sounded. A clean vocal you can’t mistake for anyone else’s, and a presence that makes it hard not to smile along.

She seems right at home on a stage. Confident without being conceited, and with a natural connection to the audience that quickly turns into a shared party. The songs land, the band plays well, and Drew makes it all look effortless. And then, of course, there was the fringe. It suited Drew perfectly, a little festive, a little retro, with just the right extra detail to complete the look. She looked just as good as she sounded.

It’s clear that Drew has grown as a live performer since last time, but one of the most important things hasn’t changed at all: she can fill a stage and bring an audience along with her.

So dear SMUKfest: next time, you could give Drew the keys to the Bøge Stage again. We promise she’ll take good care of it.

Bebe Rexha: ‘I’m Blue’!

The dance queen of 2000s covers. She’s dug the old wardrobe out of that very decade, and she pulls it off brilliantly. She looks amazing and commits fully to the style. There’s no doubt which era we’re in, and it’s actually quite refreshing. While plenty of others try to modernize everything, Bebe Rexha has embraced the 2000s completely.

Everything from Faithless to Eiffel 65 got run through the mixer, making it feel both new and old at once. The familiar tracks got Bebe Rexha’s own sound and were blended with her own hits, so the show felt like one big nostalgic dance night with a modern twist. And the crowd loved it.

There was dancing, singing and shouting along, and you could almost feel the low-rise jeans and frosted tips spreading through the Bøge Forest. It was like being transported back to a time when any self-respecting party had at least one far-too-long DJ set of dance hits from the turn of the millennium. Bebe herself seemed to be having at least as much fun as the crowd. She fills the stage with plenty of energy and attitude, and she’s clearly decided that if you’re going to commit to the 2000s, you might as well go all the way.

We did miss something on stage, though. The dancers were a touch too dull, and the stage show itself wasn’t particularly impressive. When the music has that much energy, we’d have liked to see the stage get the same treatment. There was simply potential for more.

Because even though much of the music comes from an era we thought we’d moved past, the show didn’t feel dated at all. Quite the opposite. It was nostalgic without becoming a pure copy act, and festive without becoming too polished. Bebe Rexha showed up, looked good, and got the party going. And yes, we of course got our ‘I’m Blue’ too.

You can say a lot about the 2000s. But right there in the Bøge Forest, we actually missed them a little less.

The Minds of 99: Pop that resonates

And it resonates with a whole lot of people. So many, in fact, that we need to have a serious conversation about safety at SMUKfest. The Bøge Stage was packed. And not in the good way.

There were so many people that it felt as if the entire festival had gathered in one place during the hour and a half The Minds of 99 played. The atmosphere was electric. In the dangerous kind of way. We couldn’t see the exit. We couldn’t see the stalls, and we couldn’t see any way out of the crowd at all. You were simply wedged between people on every side.

It was clear The Minds of 99 had arrived. The stage show had been brought straight from their last three sold-out shows at Parken in Copenhagen, and maybe three sold-out Parken concerts should have given SMUKfest’s bookers an idea of how many people would show up in front of the Bøge Stage. Because The Minds delivered. They gave us a great show. They sounded good, there was energy, power and a stage show clearly built for the very biggest stages. The crowd sang along, and it’s easy to understand why the band can draw such a crowd.

But unfortunately, the concert experience was overshadowed by how unsafe it felt to stand among the audience. Some people got crushed in the crowd and had to be helped out. Others chose to leave the show well before it ended, because the situation got too intense. And the rest may not really have had a choice but to stay put wherever they were standing. It’s a strange feeling to stand at a concert you’re genuinely enjoying while constantly working out how you’d get out if something went wrong.

And this is where, in our view, SMUKfest carries some responsibility. We understand you can’t predict exactly how many people will show up for a concert. But when a band arrives fresh off three sold-out shows at Parken, you’d expect some thought to have gone into crowd size, and how to manage it.

Because when a concert gets so packed that the audience can no longer orient themselves or move freely, it’s no longer just a matter of comfort. At that point, it’s a matter of safety.

The Minds of 99 deserve credit for a show that musically hit the mark. SMUKfest, on the other hand, deserves a serious conversation about how that many people ended up crammed into one spot without adequate ways to get out.

The pop resonated. Maybe a little too well.

Baest: Death metal at SMUKfest

Once again this year, we got the pleasure of an outlier at SMUKfest. Last year it was Neckbreakker, this year it was Baest. It keeps getting wilder and bigger, and we’re curious who SMUKfest will bring in next year. Because in a Danish context, it doesn’t get much bigger than Baest. Baest is, without question, Denmark’s biggest metal band. And they prove it again and again.

From the very first song, we were blown away by Simon Lindemann’s voice. We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again. Simon has a special ability to throw open the gates of hell and let names like Beelzebub and Magoth loose on stage. We have no doubt whatsoever that Simon holds a special place in Lucifer Morningstar’s heart. There was punch and power in the guys flying around the stage. Plenty of headbanging, horns and jumping. It’s hard not to get swept up when a band delivers that kind of energy.

And the crowd? They were ready. There was “dancing round the christmas tree” and “parting of the waters,” before closing back together like the sea around the Egyptian army. Circle pits and walls of death were off limits, so naturally the crowd did exactly that.

By now it’s become part of Baest’s charm. You don’t just come for the music. You come to be part of the chaos that erupts in front of the stage. And even at a festival usually associated with pop, draft beer and singalongs, Baest manages to carve out their own little pocket of darkness, sweat and fully controlled madness. Musically, there’s not much to criticize. It’s tight, heavy and brutal, but with the kind of precision that reveals just how many years these guys have put in to get this good.

And maybe that’s exactly why Baest works so well at SMUKfest. They don’t try to make metal more palatable for the festival crowd. They bring their own world and invite us in. And we’re happy to go along.

Last year, Neckbreakker. This year, Baest. SMUKfest, we can’t wait to see how far you dare to go next year. Because if the next outlier has to be bigger than Baest, you’ve set yourselves quite the serious challenge.

Photos (c) Morten Holmsgaard Kristensen