The Roskilde Festival 1997 Report

Daniel lying partly on his tent and partly on his chair in a more than less wasted state of mind.

This is my Roskilde Festival '97 report. I'll try to keep everything in chronological order although that might be a bit tricky since there is so much to write about and the beer, joints and rum had a negative effect on my memory.

Okay, anyway, I and my friend from school.. let's just call him Daniel to protect the innocent.. and his brother Michael arrived at the festival area the 24th of June - two days before the music started. It had already begun to rain a bit but with a few beers everything was okay.

We got in and as we looked around we could see tents as far as the eye could reach. And some of the creations were amazing. People had even built small forts so they could sit on top of everything else. Fucking cool!

We probably walked half a mile with our baggage which by the way was HEAVY (my shoulders just stopped hurting from all the carrying of stuff which I will get to later). We found the absolute coolest place in the entire area. 30 meters from one of the major stands (beer supplies amongst other things) and 20 meters from the toilets which we never could smell, thank God for that!

We were also relatively close to the two largest stages and the blue stage. We didn't even know that till after we had set our tents up.

Anyway, we started to set up our tents. I had my friend's (Jens) tent for myself because he wasn't coming until the next day and Daniel and Michael had theirs which they had just bought the previous day - cheap shitty tent. Of course as we were setting the tent up it started to rain (it had stopped for a while) but we got it set up before the inside was flooded. I forgot to mention that the first litter I found around the tent was a used condom. Ack!

JUST as we had finished setting Jens' tent up some Swedes from a nearby tent came up to us and told us to move it. We had placed ours directly in front of the entrance of their tent. Why did we do that? Well, we couldn't spot the entrance on their tent. It was a round green tent and the entrance seriously looked like it could be anywhere. So we moved it. Didn't want to get in a fight with seven angry and pissed Swedes.. not the first day anyway.

From left: Jens sitting in the entrance to his tent, my chair, Michael and Daniel. Just to the right of Daniel you can spot a pile of litter. It somehow got there on Friday and quickly accumulated. A total mystery. Where's Sherlock when you need him?

At 6 pm that day we were off to find my cousin who was here with a lot of his friends. I was seriously cold only having a T-Shirt on but Michael let me borrow one of his sweaters (I didn't bring any - I will next year, I promise) which I used for the rest of the festival.

We had planned to meet at a bridge and I had no clue where the hell it was. As we just started to walk in that general direction and we were amazed to see how big the festival area was. I think it was about 4 x 4 kilometers. Motherfucking big! We finally found the bridge and my cousin too. This bridge was like a meeting point for hundreds of people and therefore was PACKED.

Close (relatively) to my cousin's tent was a cinema tent which showed some cool movies from around 11 am till nighttime. Jens and I saw The Long Kiss Goodnight on the 25th or 26th.. can't remember - cool movie with Geena Davis and Samuel L. "Jules" Jackson! "I'm a bad motherfucker!". I had to stand up for 90 minutes because the tent was packed. Jens got a seat somewhere (bastard).

What else happened.. well, in the morning on the 25th me, Daniel and Michael decided to walk to Roskilde city to buy some food and decent beer. On the festival area they only sold Carlsberg Hof and we are Tuborg freaks so what did we do!? Well, we walked three miles to the nearest store and bought two cases of beer and other supplies!

But we're definately not gonna do that again!

Three people carrying what we carried was four people too few. Our hands, arms andshoulders were completely sore for the next two days. On top of that I had to carry some of Jens' stuff later that day when he arrived. Next year I'm gonna bring a shitload of panodils with me. I think I took ten of them in the last three days to kill my foot and back pain. Worked like a charm!

Here's Michael. I doubt if he has both socks on there.

At one point Michael had to go take a dump. Luckily the toilets were no more than 20 meters away. He took his time though.. I wondered if he fell in. When he got back he lifted up in his pants and we could see he was missing a sock. It turned out there was no toilet paper left and he had to use a sock instead. He used the other one the next day.

On the 26th we started by going down to the other end of the festival because we hadn't seen that end yet and there were booths to look at. One of them sold these band T-Shirts and I asked the man if they had any with Pearl Jam. He was like "I think I have some but you should have asked me two or three years ago - aren't they gone?" - I was ready to explode and shove his other crappy T-Shirts up his ass. I bought a Pearl Jam T-Shirt though. I just wanted one so I thought fuck it.

At one point that day when we were sitting in our tent this Swede came by with his guitar and as far as I can recall he asked if we had empty beer bottles he may have - we didn't. I don't remember jack or shit about it right now but we (me and Michael) were smoking a joint at the time (could that be why I don't remember so well?) and when he saw that he just said that if he could have a few hits he would play some songs for us. So he sat down and played on his guitar and damn he was good. Think he played for half an hour or so. This is a good example of the festival spirit. People coming over uninvited and talking to you. I love that!

Radiohead and Reef were the only bands I really wanted to see that day. We saw the Danish band Düreforsög opening the festivals largest stage, the Orange stage. They were okay. Death metal thingy they had going.. first couple of numbers rocked.. after that.. not my cup of tea.

Saw a bit of Reef. They rocked the green stage, the second largest stage with a 20000 capacity. Everybody knew "Put your hands up" and it rocked the crowd well!

I was trying to get up front when somebody form behind, also trying to get up front pushed me so I bumped in to a bitchy chick. Then she took her garlic stained hands and scratched my chest like a cat. I'm glad I wore two shirts and a sweater. I backed up a bit after that. But what the hell did she expect anyway at a place like that? Her very own 4 squarefeet to hop around on? Fucknut!

Anyway.. later on at 8 pm Radiohead rocked!! One of the best sets I saw there. They only played for 50 minutes though. Thom Yorke (the lead singer) ended it all with a "Fantastic!". And that's how it was.

They played "Fake Plastic Trees", "Just", "The Bends", "Airbag", "Paranoid Android" (suberb!), "No Surprises", "Street Spirit" amongst others. I bought "Ok Computer" three days after I got home. Brilliant album!

After they were finished I was about to go home to the tent when I walked by the blue stage which is situated in between orange and green stage for those who care about that!? Anyway, I decided to go in and check the band out. Good idea! Ashley MacIsaac played there and they were awesome! It's a violin rock thing and it sounded so cool - they kicked ass! Daniel and Michael saw John Fogerty on orange and later told me what I missed. Ah well.. can't see it all.

The Green tent

The next day, Friday, the first we saw was Go-Betweens - an Australian band I think. Heard a couple of numbers then we left because they were not exactly brilliant to our ears. I read somewhere that it's amazing that they haven't reached the star status that R.E.M. has. Uh.. not really. They aren't half of what R.E.M. is.

That day we also walked around looking at a lot of booths which offered all sorts of stuff from football T-Shirts to strange music instruments. We bought three plastic "raincoats". Mental note: bring raincoat next year!

Anyway, on green we saw the start of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds. Okay stuff. As we walked over to Orange to see Live we heard them play "Where the wild roses grow" - I love that song!

Live was great but the rain kinda fucked up the experience, it lasted all of Friday. They played "Freaks", "Rattlesnake", "Lakini's Juice", "Ghost" amongst others of course. It's amazing what one can remember in this total blur of concerts.

After Live it was Suede - on Orange of course, and what a show. They totally rocked the place! On their set list was "Beautiful Ones", "Saturday Night", "Filmstar", "Lazy", "She", "Animal Nitrate". Awesome! Brett Anderson and the guys were in a really good mood! I wanted to see Pet Shop Boys at 1 am but was too trashed to continue so I headed back to the tents, got a few beers as we listened to Lars H.U.G. & The Evergreens on Green. We could sing along and hear Green stage quite easily although it was 6-700 meters away. I want those speakers! After that came Pavement which I also wanted to see but as I said I was too trashed and since it was raining I decided to crash.

The view from just inside the tent. This looks like Saturday morning.. hell, it looks like any morning basicly.

Saturday was the best day for me. The sun was shining, the mud was flowing and the music kicked ass! Twenty meters from our camp some other Danes had made what we dubbed a 'Swede trap'. They dug a 30-40 centimeter hole in the ground then filled it with mud.

It was so fun relaxing in our wooden chairs bought at the festival for 70 Dkr with a beer in one hand watching people tread their leg down in the hole(s). One got angry and started to throw mud at the inventors. Almost developed into a fight. The only incident I saw during these 6 days. Pretty impressive when you think about the fact that there were 90000 people plus 20000 service people.

At 2 pm I saw some of Ben Folds Five. They were pretty good. At 5.30 pm we saw the Danish hip-hop band Østkyst Hustlers (Eastcoast Hustlers) on Green stage. They come from Copenhagen which is on the east coast of Denmark hence the name. They rocked da house! Made 20000 people singing and doing things, joked around with each other. Awesome!

At 6.30 pm we saw Primus. They kicked ass too! I think someone threw a cup of water at the lead singer just as they were about to begin. Then he said: "If you're gonna throw something at me or the other members of the band again, hold it up in front of you, think twice, then shove it up your ass!". Yeah, fucking right! I didn't know many of the songs they played but as an extra they played "Wynona's Big Brown Beaver" and everybody knew that one.

As we walked home from Primus we went over to Green stage (Red, Yellow, Ballroom, Deeday, Blue and Green are all tents whereas Orange is the open area) and heard a bit of Silverchair on green stage trying to sound like Nirvana. Needless to say we moved quickly home to our tent. Mötley Crüe was a big hit for Michael that day. He's 28 so I'm not surprised.

A shot of the Smashing Pumpkins concert. Not very good I know but it's better than nothing.

Later that day at 11:30 pm The Smashing Pumpkins played on Orange stage. I was up front about 20 meters behind the mosh pit rocking till I almost bled. Fuckin kicked ASS! They didn't put on much of a show. James Iha and D'arcy just stood at the same spot during the entire show but Billy's vocals made up for it.

What I remember now they played was "1979", "Porcelina of the Vast Oceans", "Muzzle", "Tonight, Tonight", "In The Arms Of Sleep", "Transformer" and two new songs. They played for about 80 minutes and I was wasted after that but it was great.

At 1 A.M. Prodigy ended the Orange stage with an as always energetic show and rocked everything! Played "Breathe", "Poison", "Voodoo People". After that.. home and sleep! I slept with my muddy shoes and clothes on my sleeping bag. Didn't bother taking anything off because first of all I was tired and secondly I had two kilos of mud on my shoes and pants.

The last day.. wow.. how did we survive!? Oh yeah.. panodils and beer! I must bring more of that next year. Definately a must! Sunday.. everything was a mess. Daniel and Michael's tent looked and smelled like a waste dump. They didn't bother bringing it home with them. I wonder why.

At 4 pm we got some real good but expensive food while we listened to Phish on green stage. I like them. Pretty good music. At 5 pm we saw Beck on orange. They rule live! DJ Swamp kicks ass! When they played "Loser" everyone sang! Awesome! Other songs they covered were "Where it's at", "Odelay" (?) and "The New Pollution". Great, great show too! That was the last we saw.

Long shot of orange scene during the Beck concert. They rocked! You can see Beck himself on the big screen.

We were beat and wanted to get home before nighttime so we decided to pack up.

That turned out to be a pretty good idea because exactly after we got picked up at Roskilde train station by my dad it started to rain and thunder like neither of us had ever experienced before. It wasn't rain. It was like a vertical river and there was lightning all the time.

We saw several people walking from the festival area to Roskilde city that were drenched. A bit of a crappy ending for some to an otherwise superb festival. We stood in line for one and a half hours to get a ticket for the train going to Roskilde city.

When I got home, after dropping Jens off where he lived, the first I did was get some clean clothes and hit the shower. The soles of my feet were muddy and it took several minutes of scrubbing to get that 1 centimeter layer off. After that.. straight to bed! Zzzzz....

FANTASTIC FESTIVAL!