Today, there's only a month until we'll all be back tugging our heavy backpacks and tents fast-pacedly across the gnarly soil outside of the Animal Showgrounds at Roskilde. We'll be back under our white gazebos, sweltering in the midday heat or gingerly making our way through the muddy inferno. The next month on The Idioteque will foremostly concern this, Europe's second most prominent music festival. To kick it off, however, I've decided to look back at the three years I've spent at Roskilde up to this point, and try and list some of the memorable and epic moments in the shade of the stage canopies. Twelve concerts have made the shortlist, and I will present them in fours. I believe a concert experience is always very personal and very subjective, and I am well aware that many of the below listed have in varying degrees been very much influenced by other factors than what has gone on on stage. But here goes!:
12. Arcade Fire, Arena, 2007.
I don't and didn't really have much to compare with, but it seemed there was an especially impatient anxiety to get into the festival area proper, that Thursday in 2007. It was
that Thursday, where the rain refused to stop pouring onto the already poor state of the fields of Roskilde's campsite. To be frank, there was nothing bud foot-high mud left, and I think people were restless to have something to do, to have concerts to attend in stead of sitting around in rainwear and wellies all day long. This was my first concert ever at Roskilde, save for a few Pavilion Junior-acts, and I remember when the gates outside Arena opened, and we scrambled frantically into the dry sanctuary of this massive and awe-inspiring tent, which seemed other-worldly with it's dry and plain soil. The Canadians, at the time fresh with their second album,
Neon Bible, delivered an incredibly tight and well-played show, and when they made the tent soar with 'Rebellion (Lies)' at the end, the only fitting conclusion was, that this was an alright start.
11. VETO, Arena, 2008.
2008 was the year, where the Danish bands really got a chance to try their best at Roskilde's big stages. L.O.C. and Tina Dickow played Orange, and Spleen United and VETO, both of whom had just released their sophomore efforts and had had big hits through spring, played Arena Friday night. To me, it was sort of a culmination to see VETO there, in front of 18.000 people - longtime fans next to the lucky ones who just happened to stumble into a Troels Abrahamsen with his voice at its absolutely fittest. I had been following VETO since the spring of 2005, when they were still very, very unknown, and although I've seen them live many times, in some way it made me proud to be there, at their biggest gig ever. It didn't hurt that they were absolutely seething, and their impressive, five-in-one encore of 'Blackout', 'Crooks', 'Digits', 'Unite' and 'Built To Fail' had the crowd jumping all over the place.
10. Friendly Fires, Odeon, 2009.
The St. Albans trio had me and my gang worked up pretty well with their impressive debut album, and we had looked forward to this concert as one of the highlights of that years festival. It isn't hard to get a decent spot at Odeon, and from front row, we had a marvelous view of frontman Ed Macfarlane's ridiculously groovy antics and of the guitarist's impressive use of pedals and effects. Although one could have wished for slightly fewer backtracks and samples of especially the synthesizer, Friendly Fires managed to shun the jinx of often disappointing concerts by bands with only one album behind them. At no point did the material seem lax, and we for sure had a blazing wee hour at Odeon that Friday!
9. Björk, Orange, 2007.
The odds weren't especially high for an outdoors event to be memorable for anything that Thursday, other than the endless amounts of rain that fell from the gray clouds over Roskilde. But even so, Björk didn't need much more than an impressive machine park of futuristic, tangible equipment and aggressive saw synths piercing through the darkness, to conquer the weather. At times, it seemed as though everyone even somehow forgot how much it was raining, and how tired we were of wading around in our smelly wellies. It was a memorable experience witnessing this amazon from the far north, as she wrung out all her anguish and pain in a bombardment of light and sonics.
