Roskilde Festival I

I’ve been needing to write this post for… gosh, it’s been two weeks now. Things have been rough. But here it is, at last -- Roskilde. (Or rather, the first third of Roskilde. I’m going to post in sections; otherwise it would be unbearably long. Here’s Thursday, with more to come.)

Thursday morning I had my final. I think I passed it, although looking back, I have no idea what I wrote. I checked in at my hostel and left for the festival at three in the afternoon. The town of Roskilde is about a half-hour train ride west of Copenhagen. I arrived at the festival grounds at about five fifty, I think. I’ll leave it up to you to imagine how hopelessly lost -- on multiple occasions -- I became; suffice it to say I’m sure I paid a lot more, and walked a lot more, than I needed to.

I spent the first hour or so doing reconnaissance. I’d hoped to do that when my class visited the festival grounds a week earlier, but it rained so hard then that we’d had to cancel the tour. Once I had a general idea of where I was, I hung out in the vicinity of the Orange stage, where I heard bits of Teitur’s opening set. Not bad. After a while, I started wandering toward Odeon (another stage), where MGMT was supposed to be playing, but fifteen minutes before they were due on, I found the whole area -- not just the space under the canopy of the tent -- to be far too crowded for my comfort, and was forced to leave. For those of you not familiar with the festival, about 100,000 people attended this year, and 180 bands played on seven different stages.

After escaping the throng, I think I caught the tail end of Teitur’s set before staking out a spot on the left side, perhaps fifteen yards from Astoria’s stage, for The Dø’s show. I could have been closer, but I didn’t feel like it. The Dø started out sounding really unenergetic, and I was vastly disappointed. It’s hard to explain, since their songs are so high-energy, and they still sounded that way -- but to me, at least, Dan and Olivia (the band members) seemed to be really lacking enthusiasm, like they were just going through the motions. But after a few songs, things picked up, and both the audience and the people onstage got real excited. The floor never filled all the way, so there was still room for breathing, but it got all hot and sweaty like any good show. Some of the in-between-song banter was a bit annoying, but the music, overall, was great. They played a number of songs from A Mouthful (the album) as well as a few new tracks -- and my favorite was the second and closing song of the encore, for which Olivia played a sweet acoustic version of Stay (Just a Little Bit More). I’d wondered if they’d close with that. They did, and while I was initially disappointed at the acoustic-ness, it couldn’t have been done better.

Unless, of course, it had been performed by Säkert!. Säkert! is the Swedish-language project of Annika Norlin, better known perhaps in these parts for her English-language project, Hello Saferide (which has been described, accurately, as “the aural love of [my] life”). Säkert! had the misfortune of being scheduled at 10:30, essentially the same time as Radiohead (10:00), and while I don’t dislike Radiohead, it should be obvious who I picked.

The scheduling was additionally advantageous to me, because it meant that when I arrived at 9:15, there was nobody else there, and there continued to be pretty much nobody there through the sound check and up until after ten. I don’t mean to brag, but I was the fourth person there, and I stood in one very small place against the stage barricade for about two hours, even though this meant sore feet and lots of second-hand smoke. It was worth it.

Going into the festival, I didn’t know a lot of Säkert!’s (or, for that matter, almost any of the artists’) music, so I didn’t have many or high expectations. So it would be pointless to say I wasn’t disappointed. I don’t see how anyone who saw Säkert! could possibly have been. Despite all the other negative factors (which I won’t go into) it was the best time I’d had in a long time. It was an experience. It was just what I’d hoped it might be -- I mean, they even had little throw rugs and a floral backdrop. And she seemed like she was having a great time, and it was contagious. Sure, I didn’t understand more than maybe every tenth word she said, but still… when you get me grinning uncontrollably and singing along in another language to a song I only kind of know -- well, I’d say it’s pretty… well, it’s pretty phenomenal.

I was fully ready to go home after that, and if I had, even though it would have meant missing the festival’s other three days, I don’t think I would have regretted it. It was that good. I know it’s not a Säkert! reference, but damn, that girl makes me wish I was a lesbian.

I went home -- or rather, back to my hostel in Copenhagen -- after Säkert!’s brilliant hour-long set. I walked by the Orange stage, where Radiohead was finishing up, on my way out. They were playing one of the songs from OK Computer, which I recognized but am now unable to remember, to a huge crowd. From where I was -- pretty far away -- it sounded good, but I kept going. I think I was in shock for a large part of the walk back to the station. The good kind of shock. Oh. My. God.

Photos here.