So, this year’s Roskilde has come and gone, and it’s been yet another week of musical highs. This year, I saw more full shows (15) than ever before, and there have been many very satisfactory musical experiences. I’m going to try and take you through what I ended up seeing this year, and how I felt about it.
To draw a few general conclusions, I had more shows at Orange Stage this year than I’ve had the years before, but ironically, these shows have for the most part been quite unimpressive. In stead, the big draws for me were shows elsewhere than in front of the big, orange canopy. The blandness of the shows at Orange this year can be construed as being a consequence of the somewhat cast-off names atop the poster this year. It’s very uncharacteristic of Roskilde to be outdated, but names like The Prodigy, Dizzy Mizz Lizzy and, to some extent, Kashmir, have honestly not really been major factors in rock music as of late.
But from big to small, I as always started my festival at the smallest stage – Pavilion. Through the four warm-up days, I managed to catch two and a half acts. Monday I saw the first part of Fallulah’s show, but there was such a tremendous crowd, that we had lousy spots, thus I can’t really assess how good the show was. Both Sleep Party People and Chimes & Bells impressed me though, and especially the former managed to create an interesting musical experience through their melancholically powerful music, although the very apparent inspiration from especially Sigur Rós, but also Mew and The Knife, came close to pastiche now and then.
Come THURSDAY, I went to see the opening of Orange, courtesy this year of the young Danish outfit When Saints Go Machine. I was happy that after a few hopeless openers in later years, the big kick-off was once again handed to an interesting upcoming domestic group, but I don’t think When Saints Go Machine were the right choice. Orange Stage is a big task to carry for any band, let alone any young band, but a band, which plays gloomy electro-indie-pop, extremely fit for a night time slot at one of the smaller stages, was wasted on Orange, and especially personal favourites such as ‘Armed’ and ‘New Elvis’ fell hard under the early evening sun. It was a decent concert nonetheless, and in any case a much better opening than the last few years!
The big name on the bill for me Thursday was LCD Soundsystem, whom everyone feared would massively overcrowd Cosmopol. There were indeed a lot of people, but thanks to the architectural composition of the Cosmopol tent, it wasn’t uncomfortably crowded, at least not from our perspective. James Murphy and his impressively tight and intense band rewarded all the attendees with a massive gig. It’s hard to define LCD Soundsystem’s music, but whether it be put in the rock, electro, disco, indie or punk department, it sure does work live! The tent was teeming with festive youths, who raved all the way through Murphy & co.’s spotless set, which lasted for nearly 75 minutes. The choice of songs was mixed almost equally from the band’s three albums, and especially the ones from the eponymous debut album set the tent ablaze. LCD Soundsystem’s songs are tailor-made for long, raving build-ups that explode gradually amidst the jumping, devout crowd. Indeed a memorable gig.
Thursday’s big draw was Gorillaz, whom I must admit disappointed me slightly. I am not that much into the music, which might have something to do with my minor dissatisfaction, but I had a expected a visual demonstration of power from the cartoon band, which didn’t materialize at all. The band simply performed in person beneath streams of their music videos, and although it was a thrill to watch a grateful and very well performing Damon Albarn, it didn’t at all live up to my expectations. The set was very heavily oriented towards the latest album, Plastic Beach, omitting even hits such as ‘Demon Days’ and ’19-2000’.
FRIDAY was by far the weakest day of the four, program-wise, and thus I took time out to get hammered. That meant I missed out on both Dirty Projectors (who slapped me back in the face by getting 6/6 in Orange Press the next day, dah!) and Staff Benda Bilili. I started out with a bit of Florence + The Machine, which was very unimpressive, although we did have poor spots at an extremely filled Odeon. She was missing live backing vocals terribly, and the band seemed very dull and uninspired. I only stuck around for half the show, before heading to Pavilion for Delphic, one of my most heavily hyped bands over the past six months. There weren’t very many people there, and the Manchester band didn’t really reach out to those who were there, even though they tried. I very much enjoyed a very well performed concert, but I do concede to the fact that it was probably somewhat dull for the uninitiated.
After Delphic we went to see the encore of Dizzy Mizz Lizzy’s big comeback gig at Orange. I am slightly bitter I didn’t see all of it, because from what I’ve heard, it was epic. I’m immensely glad though, that I did manage to catch ‘Silverflame’ – one of the most beautiful moments of this year’s festival for sure!
Whereas Dizzy Mizz Lizzy were (supposedly) really impressive, I was a wee bit disappointed by Nephew. All right, everyone knew they would have a hard time topping their 2007 gig, but I guess this year’s show made me realize just how mediocre a band they are, musically. I have never been caught particularly by their music, other than the USA DSB record, and I feel the show this year was too much of a reprise of the show from three years ago. Way too reliant on Simon Kvamm’s somewhat predictable antics, the only real highlights were when DJ-crew White Pony descended from the sky in a crane, and when one of Denmark’s most sympathetic singers, Søren Huss of Saybia, came on to sing an otherwise extremely tedious piece of music. Sure, Nephew performed spotlessly, but they really, really struck me as a band that needs a break.
Afterwards, we made our way for a bit of Den Sorte Skole’s anniversary cavalcade. I only saw about fifteen minutes of this, so I can’t really opine seriously on it, but it seemed a bit dull. They’ve garnered good reviews though. I went in stead to Beat Torrent, who were pretty impressive. Their mash-ups aren’t as party starting as 2ManyDJs’ were last year, but they are technically extremely capable DJs.
SATURDAY was looking to be a marathonic, with a full six shows on my plate. I ended up with only five, bailing on Moderat late at night due to exhaustion. I started out with Kings of Convenience at Arena. I had had my scepticism on, whether or not these two sympathetic Norwegians would be able to fill out such a large space with their low-key shoegaze-indie-folk, more fit for cosy jazz-houses with indie hipsters sipping on coffee and dark ales. Apparently they were sceptic too. At one point they expressed, that this was the biggest venue they had ever played at. But even if one always had the feeling, that this artist-stage combination was pretty peculiar, Kings of Convenience worked with this mismatch superbly. Interrupted by dry jokes and anecdotes, Erlend and Eirik performed their gentle guitar tunes impeccably, and demonstrated tremendous crowd control by asking the crowd to snap their fingers in stead of clapping – you’ve got to take some precautions when playing delicate in Europe’s largest tent after all! But it was a beautiful concert.
Vampire Weekend impressed me too. With youthful wit and unimpressedness, the Brooklyn foursome conquered Arena for an hour and a bit, playing a full 18 songs! The good thing about Vampire Weekend is, that both their albums are of such high quality, that they can rightfully play such a wide array of songs. At times the crowd were jumping wildly to songs such as ‘Cousins’, ‘Mansard Roof’ and ‘A-Punk’, but mostly people were jollily singing along to the happy campus tunes, that were very well played, and especially very well sung by front man Ezra Koenig.
It has long been a dream for me to see Kashmir at Orange Stage. There are few more iconic Danish live clips than the one of the Copenhagen quartet opening Orange in 2003 with ‘The Aftermath’. Sadly, the sound was awful on Orange this Friday at Roskilde, mostly due to the heavy wind. Kashmir, while starting off quite shakily with ‘Vote 4 Dick Taid’, which, brave as it was, didn’t at all work as an opening track, were however in very good form, and played an interesting set. The inclusions and omissions of songs is always a heavily discussed topic among Kashmir’s very loyal fans, but this time around, the inclusion of ‘Lampshade’, ‘Miss You’ and especially ‘Prawn’s Blues’ was paramount to the overall impression of the concert finishing on a high note, regardless of sound difficulties. On the other hand, I missed tunes such as ‘Melpomene’, ‘Petite Machine’ and ‘Kalifornia’, but you can’t have everything every time. The outstanding moment of this concert – and maybe the entire festival – was however when Kasper Eistrup emerged amidst the audience at the beginning of the encore, performing ‘The Aftermath’ with his strap-on harmonica, just as in 2003. That was indeed quite legendary.
And then there was Muse. We went a bit back, to stand behind the speaker-towers, in order to handle the presumably bad sound, again due to the wind. I saw Muse at the festival in 2007, a gig that is one of my most memorable experiences at the Animal Showgrounds. I have a very hard time comparing the two gigs. First of all, Muse were back then one of the bands I listened to the most, whereas their fifth full-lengther, The Resistance, has honestly exited my listening habits quite rapidly. Secondly, we were right up there in the pits, a few meters from stage, in 2007. Finally, Muse played at daytime then, but near nightfall this year, enabling them to do a full-on light show. That played tremendously to their favor. It was captivating when green lasers pierced the sky above the crowd during 'Undisclosed Desires'. As with Kashmir, it's always discussable which songs the Teignmouth trio could and should have played in stead, but the set was more or less expectable, with the only noteworthy omissions being 'New Born' and the beautiful 'Invincible'. Some reviewers have complained that there was 'too much' of all the lights and showmannic antics from Matt Bellamy. I don't get that - if we don't go to Orange Stage to get an astonishing show in all its aspects, why do we go there? This was perhaps the concert of the year, even though it was not as sensational to me as it had been, had it been the first time I saw the band.
The Prodigy finished off a strong line-up Saturday, and proved to be one of the biggest disappointments of the festival. It became agonizingly clear, that the band has hardly developed since they last played up Roskilde in 1997, the release-year of their iconic Fat Of The Land album. The core of the set was still made up of songs from the nineties such as 'Firestarter', 'Breathe' and 'Voodoo People', and the show was exceptionally monotonous. I know the music is a bit repetitive in its nature, but the band did nothing at all to relieve this. Both Keith Flint and Maxim's infinite exclamations of "Are you fucking there?", and similar insistent chants, the complete lack of musical variation in the form of interludes, intros or outros, and the extraordinarily tiresome lights were very below par. It might be so, that I am hard to satisfy when it comes to raves at Orange, having seen epic shows such as The Chemical Brothers in 2008 and Trentemøller in 2oo9, but for a band that has played an astonishing amount of stadium-size shows through the past decade-and-a-half, The Prodigy should be able to turn out something more electrifying. Retire, dudes!
Come SATURDAY, I still had a couple of very highly anticipated shows on my plate. I decided to fully bail on Jack Johnson, in order to get prime spots for The National at Arena. This choice proved right. Even though one could make the case that The National's music is so startling in its recorded version, that it's hard to add an extra layer live, The National did do their best to do so. Some have complained that lead singer Matt Berninger was arrogant, but in my eyes, there's a very fine line between being arrogant and being immersed in your music, and Berninger was just that. I have never seen a singer so intense and passionate - especially so when he half-screamed his way through 'Abel' amidst the crowd, and when he enragedly slammed his mike-stand against the dusty stage floor during 'Mr. November'. 'Slow Show' was of course epic, and although I could have wished for a few more of the beautiful ballads off Boxer, such as 'Green Gloves' or 'Ada', the set was pretty good.
I went so see the last part of Miike Snow, essentially to get prime spots for The Temper Trap later. Sadly, the Swedish-American band was very disappointing. They clearly didn't know their limits, and meandered on through never-ending, pointless synth escapades, and even came on for an encore even though people were already leaving the tent in droves. The Temper Trap, on the other hand, were very well-playing. There wasn't too much fuss, but it was just an extremely professional performance by a young band clearly on the rise. They played their entire debut album, and treated us with a brand-new tune, before finishing off on a high note with hit singles 'Science of Fear' and 'Sweet Disposition'. An impressive outfit, with especially singer Dougy Mandagi in top form.
Speculations that Prince would be a crowd flop as the Orange Stage closer proved completely wrong. I have never seen such a crowd there, and one of my friends told me, that there were probably as many as when Roger Waters played his legendary concert in 2006. I couldn't however quite disregard the fact, that the Minneapolis wunderkind was whispered to have been paid just about a third of the entire budget. Sure, he did sell a lot of one-day tickets especially, but come on? I unfortunately only saw half the show, so I am unable to comment on its entirety, but the hour I saw was honestly very unimpressive. A Danish reviewer has written, that Prince was very ‘present’. I don't know which show he saw - I saw a star faddy, arrogant man, who showed only very few glimpses of his inexhaustible musical talent, and who hid behind guest stars, endless and boring jam-and-clap sessions and a general veil of disinterestedness. I know he gets paid humongous amounts every time he plays, and he probably knows he can get away with almost anything, because people apparently flock in hordes to see him no matter what, but I had really hoped he would do his absolute utmost, which it didn't seem as though he did. But then again, I won't at all deny that he might have elevated himself and his show after I left. I just wasn't overwhelmed by the whole ordeal - it was at times very Star Spangled Banner'ish, and very un-Roskilde-like.
I don't think it's possible for me to list this year’s concerts in any particular order. The general impression is, that the acts I saw at Orange were generally not quite up to scratch, save for Muse and the wee part of Dizzy Mizz Lizzy I saw, whereas I had several good experiences at the other stages. Through an objective viewpoint, Muse was probably the concert of the year, but I probably won't cherish it as much as I should, again owing to the fact that I've seen them before. What I will treasure are five smaller concerts, that, each in their own way, were first-rate showpieces of high musicianship - that's the intensity of The National, the unimpressed wit of Vampire Weekend, the youthful aptitude of The Temper Trap, the unpretentious brilliance of Kings of Convenience and the rave-creating professionalism of LCD Soundsystem. As I said above, five concerts that are impossible to rank in any particular order, as they were brilliant in different kinds of ways - but all of the acts managed to do their utmost with whichever musical material they brought to Roskilde, whether that be one or five albums, shoegaze-indie or disco-dance-punk.
The pictures in this article are copyrighted by:
Orange Stage - Soundvenue.com
LCD Soundsystem - Christian Hjorth, found on roskilde-festival.dk
Delphic - Steffen Jørgensen, found on roskilde-festival.dk
Vampire Weekend - same as above.
The Prodigy - Jacob Dinesen, found on roskilde-festival.dk
The Temper Trap - same as above.
