Her name was
Roskilde 08. My first major music festival. I know, I know, it's a late debut, but better late than never. I had no idea what I was walking into, being the usual, hopeless first-timer. I was fumbling in the dark you could say. Mere five days prior to the foreplay starting June 29th, carrying on for four days of anticipation and gentle caressing, only a warm-up for July 3rd when the party would really kick in, I had not really thought of how I was going to move my poor body from the western shores of Norway to the sandbox named Denmark. Neither had I made any arrangements regarding where I was going to camp, nor whom I’d share a tent with. Well, I knew that a bunch of people I went to Lofoten folk high school with this year were going to put up some half-assed camp, but I had no further plans, nothing was really decided. For all non-Scandinavians, a folk high school is a weird school concept, something of a hybrid between college, a social experiment and, well, a year off, where there are no grades and you basically run around doing what you want to most of the time. Now you know that. Anyway, things luckily have a tendency to work out in the end. But since all my other mates had already booked a flight or was travelling by car, all filled up, I ended up with a 18 hour trip with train and bus for around 2000 kroner (roughly $350). I could have gotten a 1 hour flight trip for half the price though, had I only booked a bit earlier. Great planning as always.
Let’s fast forward to the interesting part, as travelling by bus for 9 consecutive hours is so mind-numbingly boring and furthermore quite uncomfortable, that I don’t want to even mention it in detail here.
I ended up in the folk high school camp. Well, sooner or later I did. After waiting in line at the entrance for 6 hours. With 30 kg of backpack. Starting at 6 in the morning. In 30 degrees Celsius. And of course I hadn’t brought along anything resembling water. The only thing that really made me going was the fact that the air was filled with the sweet smell of marihuana and someone was playing
The Doors on a home-built portable stereo. Surely this was gonna be great. My first time was, stereotypically, characterized by a dreadful start. But there was a certain anticipation that everything would turn fantastic sometime soon. Until I found out that my bus had stopped at the East entrance and my mates were putting up the camp near the West entrance. So I knew that after I was through with this enormous queue from Hell, moving at about a meter every half hour, I had a 30 minute walk in the blistering sun, to the other side of the festival area, in store for me.
Fast forwarding again, I finally reached the camp, soaked in sweat, dehydrated, but in a surprisingly good mood. I had made it. Now everything was going to be like sweet, sweet wine. After I had put up my tent of course, being the only inhabitant in my rather large three-man tent. But I’ve got no problem with being the loser travelling alone and living all by himself in a huge tent. No problem at all. Really.
Well, I soon settled in with the weird fragment of a distant life that Roskilde really is. Beer and take-away food for breakfast, lunch, dinner and supper, walking around with bare feet for the majority of the time, or just chilling out under a ramshackle party tent, while constantly being surrounded by people who are either drunk or stoned, or looking to get drunk or stoned. Well, it’s fantastic really. Like buying a ticket for the time machine back to Woodstock.
I’ll use the fast forward button once again, as I really should focus on the
music, which really is the main part of the strange collective illusion that, I guess, any major festival is. And since I didn’t see a single act during the 4-day warm-up period, we’ll skip that. I was busy doing much more important things. Like getting drunk.
So Thursday was finally there. The party was about to begin.
It started with
Clutch for my part. Which really wasn't that much of a great start. Me and my mates just passed by, stood way in the back, and I’ll admit that it seemed alright, if nothing else. I’ve got another mate, not present at the time, who is quite a fan of these guys, but I can’t say that they blow my mind in any way.
Blast Tyrant is a good album, but as far as I’m concerned, this band hasn’t done anything that haven’t been done a hundred times before. They produce solid, but somewhat out-of-the-box cock rock for all those guys who think rock is all about a good riff and technically proficient playing. Well, good for them, but I didn’t have any kind of revelation during the 30 minutes I stayed. And I had not expected to have one either, to be honest.
Since we really had no major plans for the day, we just wandered about the festival area, catching glimpses of something here and there. So we moved on to
Duffy, but by the time we got to the Arena, the second biggest stage, it was crammed, and we resorted to listening to a couple of songs from a distance. And it seemed surprisingly pleasant.
But standing on the outside of a large tent, not being able to see anything of what’s happening on stage, isn’t synonymous with outstanding concert experiences, so we decided to drop in on
Teitur, the opening act on the Orange stage. The largest stage. We sat there in the grass and chilled out, witnessing a dreadfully boring concert. If you’re gonna ride the heartfelt-acoustic-singer/songwriter-wave, you gotta do better than this. Sorry. The orchestration was bad, the soundscape thin, the songs bland and without character, there was really nothing to get out of this. Originating from some desolate island country might’ve helped
Sigur Rós build up an image, but they still have the music to back it up with. That’s more than you can brag about, Teitur. Back to the Faroe Islands with you. Performing on a colossal stage stripped of intimacy didn’t really help either. We stayed for a couple of songs, until one of us said “let’s scram” and we all nodded in unison.
And then, all we had to do was wait, wait until the evening. Wait for the only concert I had as a sure bet on this very special Thursday. The concert I, perhaps, was anticipating the most. A band I never understood, until it all changed a couple of months ago. A band so destroyed by the hype that I just had to go against the stream. Until I grew wiser, or had some kind of revelation, you could say. Now, I was going to see them live. Nothing was going to ruin this. I was almost sober just for the sake of it, and my bladder was as dry as Sahara. I wasn’t gonna miss out on a single second of it. So I and some mates from the camp lined up for the queue two hours before the kick-off, and we ended up roughly 10 meters from the Orange stage. Where
Radiohead would soon play.
And I was sold from the start. Opening with
15 Step, surely the greatest track from
In Rainbows, followed by
Airbag, they kicked off the set with two of the best album openers of the past 15 years. And from there on it evolved, into what is perhaps the closest thing to a religious experience I’ve ever witnessed in concert. The atmosphere was fantastic, the stage show was great, the musical accomplishment outstanding and the set list varied and pleasant. And while
In Rainbows isn’t their greatest record, the songs were fabulous when witnessed live.
The highlights, however, were, quite expectedly you could say, from
OK Computer and
Kid A. For me, it peaked with a dual-hit combo of the astounding
The National Anthem in a blazing version accompanied by a frantic, intense light-show, followed by (ok,
Faust Arp was in between, but I didn’t really notice it all that much, since I was still in ecstasy after the previous song)
Exit Music (For A Film). During the opening tones, there was a delightful sigh, a collective joyful moan from the audience, and I realized that, right now, I’m together with 60 000 others who also get an orgasm every time they listen to this extraordinary song. And as the exit music built up to the legendary climax the cheering and yelling became more and more intense, as this enormous crowd of people were soon to reach their own climax, and well, it was really… special. The atmosphere was simply magical.
Moving on with the set they went on to play a nearly complete
In Rainbows, mixed in with great picks from the previous albums. From slow ballads, to inaccessible electronic numbers and outstanding rock songs. For instance, an amazing version of
My Iron Lung, which made some more-than-drunk guys standing behind me go totally berserk, jumping around and bouncing into everyone. Quite annoying to be honest, but I’ll allow anyone to be ecstatic at a Radiohead concert.
After a few more songs, they went off the stage. But I knew they’d come back, as they had yet to play the obligatory
Idioteque. A Radiohead concert without
Idioteque is no Radiohead concert. And naturally, they did an encore, played
Videotape, and then, in one of his sparse moments of audience interaction (the first “hello” came 20 minutes into the concert),
Thom Yorke announced “if you ever score some bad drugs, this song is for you”, and they went into
Paranoid Android. To top it all, they got their well-earned sing-alongs on “ice age coming, ice age coming”. With Thom doing his weird dance and what have you not. Simply amazing. And so they went off again.
But Thom still had the ability to surprise. They came on once more, doing a rare second encore, to the enjoyment of the audience. And as it all culminated, they ended the set with nothing less than
Karma Police. Talk about giving the crowd what they want. And hell, he even encouraged the audience to sing along on the chorus at the end of the song. If there’s one thing I never thought I’d see, it’s Thom Yorke asking for sing-alongs in 2008. Then again, they seemed to be having a great time on stage. Even though Yorke was his usual introverted self. Fittingly enough.
Following the rules of first-timer premature ejaculation, the definite highlight of Roskilde 08 came the first day for me. It was simply beyond fantastic, surpassing my huge expectations, yes, this single concert made
everything worth it.
Waking up, as usual soaked in sweat and almost dying from asphyxiation in the 60 degrees Celsius tent, I was still mesmerized about the huge concert experience the day before, and thinking that if this festival could top
that, I’d be surprised. It was Friday, and the most active day according to my personal program.
I dropped
Mugison and rather went to
Band of Horses as the day’s first concert (a choice I’m not really sure was a smart one, after hearing the guys who went to Mugison raving about it), and it was, what word to choose, solid. Yes, these guys cram out pretty standard indie rock, but it works for me. Nothing revolutionary, but they’ve got some catchy songs and seem to rock out well enough. As usual, the Arena stage was crowded once we showed up, but by the end of the concert we had somehow managed to move rather up front. The atmosphere was certainly charming. They seemed to have a fantastic time on stage, no wonder, as the sing-along factor was high. I know it’s rarely true when artists proclaim that this, yes,
this audience, out of all the audiences we’ve played for, and which you are lucky enough to be a part of, are in fact the greatest we’ve ever played for, but for once it seemed honest enough as front man Ben Bridwell said so time after time. Yeah, I had a nice time all around. And the new songs they played from the upcoming album seemed quite promising.
The heat had certainly not disappeared during the concert, and the need for some refreshments became urgent. So we went to buy some beer, and met some guys from the camp, who were going to see
Vieux Farka Touré. Well, we had nothing else to do, so we joined in. Meanwhile, in the queue to get our golden liquid, I caught a glimpse of
Gnarls Barkley on the Orange stage, and it seemed alright. I got to see
Crazy, and I guess that’s what’s most important. I have no relationship to those guys other than that, anyway.
So we went to see these guys from Mali. The son of the somewhat legendary
Ali Farka Touré and his band, keeping up with his father’s legacy. I had honestly never heard of these guys before, but a mate from the camp is quite a fan of Ali, and seemed quite stoked about seeing his son live.
And I had a blast. I don’t know how to classify these guys properly, but, uhm, Malian dance blues, or something like that? What’s most important is that I’ve rarely had more fun at a concert. It was basically an hour of smiling and dancing. And trust me, I rarely dance. Rarely, as in practically never. But there you have it, the power of African music. The weird thing was that the rhythm section was handled by a white boy. And I mean boy, as in his middle-twenties, with hair down his back, more resembling a metalhead, to be honest. Me and my mates kinda laughed at him once he came out on stage together with this group of Africans, going mental on a tambourine. It was somewhat of a cultural clash, but then he mounted himself behind the skins and turned out quite amazing. Just jamming away and having a fantastic time, knowing that he had to be in some kind of dreamland, being a white boy and playing drums for an African band.
Well, Farka Touré and the rest of the guys were having a great time as well. They even managed to make the crowd sing along, in Malian. Not a small feat, even though everyone in the audience were just shouting out gibberish that resembled what he really sang on stage. But it was great fun nevertheless. Everyone was just sharing this moment of joy. And I was ecstatic afterward, together with my mates, walking away from a concert which had been a breath of fresh air.
A bit later, I went to see
Kings of Leon, but I was never blown away. Which I honestly haven’t been by what these guys have done on record either, but I decided to give them a chance. It turned out to be a very standard rock concert, largely mediocre.
So I went to see
Seasick Steve, together with a mate. Truly an underdog concert. This old American-now-living-in-Norway blues guy started the concert by saying that he was very pleased with the attendance, as he had expected there to be about 20 people showing up. But as it turned out, no one else could have more deservingly filled up the Pavilion stage, as he dished up with the definite highlight of the day with his rusty, whisky-soaked, heavy blues.
I was reminded of the Norwegian blues man
Bjørn Berge, who’s live performance last year also stand as one of my favorite ones, as they are quite similar both in terms of musical style and charisma on stage. The atmosphere was exceptionally good, and I mean exceptional, in the crammed tent, with constant sing-alongs and cheers from the audience between songs; “Seasick Steve, Seasick Steve, Seasick Steve!”, while the star himself told about his hard-knocked life, how he almost killed his stepfather, but decided not to at the last minute, with the gun in his hand, as he witnessed a revelation. “But it wasn’t from Jesus. ‘Cause it told me “Steve, you dumb shit!”. Or stories about how he walked the line as a bum for years of his life. Or how shitty all his guitars were, assembled from used car parts or the likes. And he churned out one of the most well received rockers on a one-string guitar. Yeah, you get the point, it was blues at its purest and best, heartfelt, dirty and honest. He even brought his son on stage to play a washboard. Shows how simple, but effective, music can be.
Seasick Steve’s fantastic effort was afterwards hailed by the press as the best concert on Roskilde 08, and I can’t say I disagree to a large extent. Even the guys and girls in my camp who don’t have any relationship to the blues, said they had an absolutely amazing time. It’s always great to see some unknown, former-bum artist do stuff like that.
After Steve’s demonstration of power we just made it to the first song of
Grinderman’s set. On the Orange stage, which seemed rather strange. I know, it’s
Nick Cave, but this is after all a one-album side project. To book them on the largest stage might not have been the best decision. Generally, the concert was weighed down by too many people in the audience, and a bit too few of them being true fans. But who cares, Nick Cave gave a stellar show anyway. He really is the King when he’s on stage, in full control of everything, in a totally different world, totally into it, jumping around, spitting out his brilliant lyrics, throwing stuff about and practically having a full body workout during a short hour. It was really worth it just to see this man have the stage in the grasp of his hand. The concert was solid too though, even though they don’t have the largest repertoire to choose from. After a quite short set, they came back to do an encore but Mr. Cave jokingly announced that “we don’t have any more songs left, so we’re going to do some Bad Seeds material. We’re gonna try to, at least. There’s just a few of us here.” So they played one song, and then went off. But it was alright, as they earlier had showcased a fantastic
No Pussy Blues, at least setting my heart, if not the whole enormous audience, on fire. And I got to see Nick Cave live. Check.
I was quite devastated after a long day, but I had promised myself to see
Motorpsycho as well. I just had to stay awake until 2 am. But I was sure it was going to be great, at least judging from the raving fans in my camp. Turned out my first concert with these Norwegian guys was perhaps the worst starting point I could’ve had. Here’s a detailed setlist for you: Repetitive, dreary jamming for 75 minutes, with the sparse vocals drowned somewhere between the guitars (and I don’t mean in an awesome
My Bloody Valentine-way). Encore:
Vortex Surfer. I heard. I went home after half an hour. Naturally, I was drop-dead tired after enduring this neverending day, and was in no mood for this kind of performance. It was definitely not the sort of show that will give the band new fans anyway, even the sworn acolytes from my camp had a hard time understanding what they had really witnessed. I can’t say I was disappointed in the usual sense, as I’m not entirely ecstatic about their records yet, but it was certainly not a good concert. Introverted and ultimately boring. I’ve got no problems with jamming, but this is not how it’s supposed to be done. Sorry guys, but you are not
The Allman Brothers Band. But I haven’t lost faith in you. You still have some great albums, I’ll admit that.
And yet another day had passed. Time seemed to be moving fast, and it was now Saturday, the day of
that other hugely expected concert.
Neil Young. I decided to take the day off, after the previous day’s hardships, and just spend the day looking forward to the night’s event. I knew I was going to miss out on
My Bloody Valentine, as the management had apparently gone mental and booked them simultaneously with Young. But more on that in an upcoming journal. Hee-hee.
Anyway, the whole camp was in on this one, and once again I found myself waiting in line 2,5 hours prior to the show. This time we ended up even closer to the stage, with surely 60 000 people behind us. The living legend got on stage 20 minutes late, but it was all forgotten the second he picked up Old Black and kicked off the set with
Love and Only Love. From there on, it turned out to be completely outstanding. Needless to say, the crowd was singing along like never before, and I was shouting my lungs out myself. Even if I don’t have what you’d call a pretty singing voice (I guess I got some stares). I’ve rarely been happier at a concert, it even championed Farka Touré, as a mate pointed out that I was unusually smiling and ecstatic, which couldn’t be a bad sign. My gloomy side had to make way for the sheer wonder of seeing no one but Neil Young himself live, and I couldn’t fight back my ear-to-ear grin. Oh well.
Well, Neil still rocks out like he’s in the 70’s, not as if he is soon turning 70 himself. The first half was pure, ultra heavy rock and roll bliss, with a fantastic version of
Hey Hey, My My (Into the Black) and everything else one could possibly ask for, before he put Old Black to rest, got his acoustic guitar and harmonica out, and dished up with a soothing, heartwarming acoustic set. A haunting version of
The Needle and the Damage Done,
Heart of Gold, which naturally grabbed the crowd by its throat, and
Old Man, which surprisingly had the audience singing along even louder than on
Heart of Gold. Then Neil steps up to the mike and, get this, he manages to tell us that “this one’s for my friend Bob”. Now, fuck me. And he starts playing fuckin’
All Along The Watchtower. I almost wept.
Then he went into even heavier landscapes than before, with long jams and some fabulous guitar wanking, while he jumped around and just let it all flow, and even played
Words (Between the Lines of Age), which has always been, well, sort of
my song on
Harvest. And then… Christ, I mean, the whole thing was brought to an end by nothing else but, now listen to this: a cover of
A Day in the Life. Seriously, I was close to heaven. And by the end of it he’s just freakin’ out, playing so goddamned hard on poor Old Black that all the strings snap, and he’s just standing there, with the guitar of all guitars reverbing into the depths of hell in his hand, holding it up like some sacred symbol for all of us to worship, like some Hendrixesque guitar god. Fuck. What a legend this man is.
I had originally planned to see some more shows that night, but I really needed the time to get down on earth after that tremendous concert, showing once and for all that the old ones still rock the crap out of everyone else. And as I fell asleep, I couldn’t think about anything but; “holy crap, I’ve just seen Neil Young play
All Along the Watchtower and fuckin’
A Day in the Life”. Don’t ask me why it’s so much greater than seeing Neil Young play Neil Young songs. Don’t ask me, ‘cause I don’t know. All I know is that I had witnessed yet another of the best concerts of my life. Even if the cowgirl was left out in the sand. I wish I could’ve seen her sweet, sweet smile.
Sunday was up next, yes, the final day of the festival. Already? It seemed as if it had just started, and now we were experiencing the last death rattles of this strange mass-refugee, this safe haven for those wishing to escape life for just a short amount of time. Now was the day for the final convulsion, the last night of behaving like you can’t anywhere else. This was the day for, well, getting wasted.
But first; experimental jazz! Or whatever genre you would place the Norwegian band
Supersilent in. Free improvisation, post-rock, ambient, feel free to call it what you want, I’ll just call it a mixture of all music which has been and some of that which hasn’t. If that makes any sense. Surely it doesn’t. But they did at least give me a totally different live experience from what I’d witnessed otherwise during the past days. Really spaced-out stuff. I was in a totally different world for the short hour they were churning out their totally unmelodic, but complex free improvisational, musical journeys. If you like the more experimental
Pink Floyd-stuff, like
A Saucerful of Secrets and the likes, or
Trout Mask Replica, you’d definitely like these guys. Very different, very inaccessible, but still, fantastic I’d say. I guess I’ve got to check out some of their albums. I could just roll a dice and pick one of their numbered records based on that. Will do.
And then I got a bit too drunk this very last day, and didn’t manage to grasp
Cat Power’s performance. Which is surely a shame, as it seemed like a great concert, but the alcohol wanted it otherwise. I simply wasn’t able to catch hold of it.
So I decided to sober up, at least a bit, prior to
Bonnie 'Prince' Billy, who I was looking forward to see live. A lot.
I See a Darkness has made me fall a bit in love with this guy, as it’s surely one of the greatest albums of the 90’s. Turned out I might as well could have stayed drunk. I was disappointed, but honestly can’t even judge if it was a good concert or not, as the volume was so dreadfully low. Seriously, you could hear more of what the audience was talking about than what was happening on stage. That technician needs to be sacked. And to top it all it started raining as hell, in true Roskilde-tradition, so we ran back to our camp, where I got way too drunk and passed out at 2 am. That’s life. Just another day in the life.
And then, I woke up, fell out of bed, didn’t drag a comb across my head. Found my way outside and drank a beer, and looking up, I noticed I was late. Found my bag and grabbed my hat (ok, I haven’t got a hat), made the bus in an hour flat. Found my way outside and had a smoke, and somebody spoke and I went out of a dream…
… and that was all folks. A fittingly abrupt ending to a journal demanding a lot of sweat and hard work to get through, ain’t it? I’m a boy you know. I understand how you feel.
Alright, to sum it up in one short sentence, Roskilde really is how life should be. This old lady has given me something I won’t forget in a long time. I definitely expect to meet her again next year.
Bjørn Berge
