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Live reviews
Roskilde Festival 2006 (June 28-July 2), Roskilde, Denmark
160+ bands over 8 days…
Well, everyone was psyched as we could see that the weather
was going to be great. We were hoping that we would find some
great bands that we did not know about. I picked up Thomas
(Gas Giant) and Magnus (OSC and Mantric Muse) and Sonja (his
girlfriend) and we got to the festival site about 13:30. We
already had our tents set up with our Swedish friends from
the Carpet Knights and all our usual Danish friends (Kaj,
Susan, Torben, Jesper, Helle, John, Jesper (Ex- Gas Giant)
and Marie, etc..). About 20 in our camping area. The festival
site did not open until 17 and our first band was going to
be Trivium at 18. We sat around and talked the usual shit,
drank beers, smoked joints, the usual.. and it was amazing
weather. Everyone was in a great mood. You could tell there
were more people this year though. As I was walking around
you could just see, smell and hear the vibe of Roskilde. It
is PARTY…. Roskilde Festival is about people forgetting
their normal life and just letting loose and being however
they want to be, whether that is silly, stupid, drunk, crazy
and even insane.. Good friends, good booze and good times..
That is all the matters. Several of the people near where
we camped rarely ever left the camp to see any music at all..
They came to be with their friends and party and have fun.
Anyway, we were off to see Trivium, a young band from Florida
that are very influenced by old school Metallica and Megadeth.
They are pretty damn heavy but to me all the melodies were
too cliché. They need more ass kicking songs and not
the same melodic chorus and guitar lines on all the songs.
Very professional and a tight band, for sure. Covered Master
of Puppets by Metallica and a Megadeth song as well. Next
we headed off to the Orange Stage to catch Bullet for my Valentine,
another band with a lot of hype but not delivering the goods
at all. I was really struck by how low the volume was. You
could hardly hear the band over the people talking and we
were pretty close on the left side. A new security arrangement
was in place we could see as well. Anyway, Bullet were really
boring and the singer was not very good at all. People looked
bored as well. Just way too many people everywhere.
Magnus, Sonja and I hung out and saw three songs by Ruben
Ramos at the Ballroom. Pretty cool stuff… We split up
and I went and hung out on the left side of the stage for
Guns N’ Roses. It was scheduled to start at 21 and of
course, they did not start until 21:55. People were really
anxious and a bit annoyed but soon forgot everything as soon
as the band came out and kicked into Welcome to the Jungle.
The crowd went mad! I was very worried we were going to have
another Pearl Jam disaster as the volume was so low and I
was on close to the outer front barrier on the left side.
It did slowly get louder but this low volume causes everyone
to move forward so they can hear it and disaster is just waiting.
Turn it up Roskilde or pay the price of human life lost again..
Anyway, Axel, he was a great performer and lead man was clearly
enjoying himself with the huge crowd. They played almost all
the first record but bored people to death with a boring funk
jam, drum solo, going no where guitar solo… His new band
just lacked something.. This could have been a great concert
as he still sings great and has good presence but the band
just is not very good. I left after 45-60 minutes and went
to check out Toumani’s Diabate’s Symmetric Orchestra.
I know others were over checking out Sigur Rós from
Iceland. Anyway, they said that they were good but a bit boring
at times. I have to say that Toumani was super cool and the
best thing that I saw on this day. Cool stuff… I crashed
out at 12:30 while others in the camp stayed up quite late
partying.
Day 2
Most of the camp is up when I crawl out, including Thomas
how passed out at 12 last night sitting in his chair. IT is
damn hot today in the sun.. I went to take a shower and came
back. That is just what I needed. Pretty amazing that in this
camp area with probably 30,000 people, there are only two
free cold showers. There are several 30kr warm shower places.
I guess you could swim in the lake this year! Thomas and Jesper
are singing and playing acoustic guitar and entertaining everyone
with some really crazy lyrics. 10:45 and the Fisherman’s
friend (30% alcohol drink) and joints are starting to come
around. A breeze has picked up a bit and people are drinking
beers and looking at the books to see what they want to check
out today. I left a little early to go walk around and take
some pictures of the cool stuff and graffiti (see gallery
1). I went over to the Bad Afro records tent and hung out
with Lars (Bad Afro), Guf (Baby Woodrose) and Ralph. Heard
a few songs of Disco Ensemble and it was really mainstream
stuff uptempo rock with no character at all. Met up with some
of the folks from the camp at Volbeat. They opened up with
Hallelujah sung by Elvis and then the singer came out and
sang the end for real. Here we have a Danish metal band where
the singer does not try to sound like James Hetfield! This
guy is great and adds a lot of character to their music. A
great surprise to me, this band. Cool Elvis meets Danzig like
singer and some damn good metal tracks.
I next went over to the Ballroom to check out Ba Cissoko
from Mali. They had two Korda players, bass and drums. Not
a very big crowd but quite cool music. Was suppose to meet
Magnus but he did not show up. I met up with Tom as I walked
over to catch Front 242. I was not sure what to expect. I
have a few of their old recordings but have not heard them
in years. Did meet Magnus and Sonja but after 30 minutes they
went to see some of Opeth. I thought Front 242 was wicked
cool. Great visuals, cool music and a great attitude with
the two different front guys. They had some pretty psychedelic
stuff and the crowd was into it as well. Next up was to check
out Burst, a new Swedish metal band. They are a bit like Mastadon
but I think the music is much cooler and the guitarist is
really great but I really hated the screaming, shouting singer.
He was just the same on every song and angry. I got tired
of him. Man, this would be a killer band if they had another
singer. Great guitarist who also sang the melodic lines and
he should just take over and this would be a damn cool band.
I went back and spent an hour at the camp to rest my feet
and hung out with Christian, who was camping with Torben in
our camp. Nice guy. I met up with a lot from our camp at Bob
Dylan. I am not a big fan of Dylan and I don’t own any
of his records but some how I got captivated by him and sucked
into it. This was music that clearly crossed a lot of age
barriers as you saw everyone at this show, which also surprised
me. IT was happy positive music and he tried to rock out a
bit. I saw 75 minutes of his set before heading off to catch
the Norwegian band, My Midnight Creeps. This band features
one guy from Madrugada and one from the Ricochets as well
as a load of other people on sax, drums, bass, percussion-congas…
They started out with a very heavy psychedelic number and
they had a really cool light show as well. I did not know
what to expect but it was not this. Really cool old school
garage-stooges type stuff meets heavy psych. These guys were
amazing. I was pretty blown away when it was over at a little
after midnight. I really thought about hanging out to catch
this sort of free form band called Serena.Mannesh also from
Norway but it was not until 3 in the morning. (I heard they
were one of the coolest bands at the festival. Damn…
They just played at Stengade a month ago or so as well) I
decided to go back to the camp and ran into Kaj and Susan,
Jesper, Tobias and Jocke and his brother Lasse. We hung out,
drank some whisky, smoked some joints and heard the Øresund
Space Collective mixes that Magnus had made over the last
2½ months. This was very spaced out stuff and people
really dug it but it blows peoples minds. Kaj said it should
be illegal to make music like that! We all crashed at about
2:30.
Day 3
Shit… it is 35C on my thermometer on my phone inside
my tent when I get up at 9:30. I go and take another cold
shower, eat a granola car and drink two juice boxes. Magnus
shows up here at the camp at 12:00. We grab a kebab and head
over to hear the Tied and Tickled Trio. They are really a
9 piece band with 4 horns and playing chilled out jazz stuff.
They played a total Krautrock groove thing on the last song.
Really cool band. I hung out over at the Bad Afro tent and
also with Magnus a bit as his girlfriend, Sonja was doing
the lights for the next band at the Pavilion, Sterling at
14. Off to the Ballroom to hear some British folk and Bellowhead.
It was ok but did not hold my interest so I ran over to see
what Spleen United was at the Odeon. This was really awful
dreamy pop music.. ugh…. I sure notice that there are
a huge amount of British people at the festival this year
and also a lot of beautiful women not wearing that much as
it is damn hot out here. Seem to be getting fatter every year
as well. A bit overweight seems to be very popular… ugh…
Anyway, off to the Metropol to check out Koop, a Swedish jazz-lounge
electronica thing. This was just way to standard 50’s
style jazz material. I expected there would be some twist
to it but there wasn’t. I really needed to hear some
rock music… Heard nothing great today and only one great
band yesterday.. What is going on? They really need to get
some fresh people inside the organization who book this festival.
IT is the worst line up since I started going to the festival
8 years ago. I now came back and saw about 3 tracks of Sterling
and it is standard Danish pop music, not interesting to me
at all. Singer is dressed like a preppy from the early 80’s.
Lights were very cool… Good job Sonja!
Anyway, off to the Ballroom to catch the Brazilian act,
Cabruéra. Just bass, drums, guitar and conga…
They had some prerecorded spacey stuff in the background at
times and I did not like the rap thing they started off with
but then it really took off. One of the tracks had the bass
line from Black Night by Deep Purple! The guitar player is
very cool and experiments with spacey guitar and effects and
uses this little bow in between the 2 and 3rd strings. Some
very hypnotic stuff as well. The bass player also has effects
and plays with some delay at times. These guys were really
great. Now, Anders and Magnus and I saw most of the old Dutch
anarchistic band, The EX. It was not really like punk rock,
but really good. The female drummer also sang a few songs.
These are old guys with grey hair but they are still very
political. Now I headed back to the Ballroom to catch Orange
Blossom. It is suppose to be some sort of electronica meets
northern African Arabic music. They had a cool female singer,
drums, djembe and violin and all the bass and keyboard stuff
was prerecorded that they played a long to, which I think
is kind of lame.. Anyway, it was a great set of music and
got really heavy and tranced out at times and took us flying.
The music was a bit like Ofra Haza at times. We saw the whole
set… The best band today..so far although Cabruéra
were also really cool.
Tom arrived and we could hear some of the Deftones on the
background but they did not interest me at all. Met up with
Sonja and her friend and went off to Metropol to catch Planet
Pendulum, which sounded really cool. People were getting high
and really flying and this was true psychedelic drum and bass
techno and the floor was jumping! They had this rapper-front
man who was just too much in your face, which was a bit of
a shame as the music these guys played and the cool images
was awesome.. Fucking cool stuff… Saw most of the set
and then headed off to catch some of the Two Gallants that
I had read about. This was just a duo from San Francisco of
guitar and drums. IT was a bluesy, folky pop music but it
had a strange dynamic as the drummer was a monster player
and played very aggressive while the guitar and singing was
laid back. Last song we heard sounded just like Bob Dylan!
Went back to the camp for a few and picked up some of the
others and headed for getting in the front section for TOOL.
Now, I was very psyched up for this and had a great feeling
about this. And just check out this set list:
Stinkfist (extended version) , The Pot , Forty Six & 2,
Jambi, Schism (extended version), Rosetta Stoned, Sober, Opiate,
Lateralus, Vicarious, Ænema… IS that amazing or
what. Who would have thought we would hear Sober and Opiate????
The band was in top form and so were the crowd who were eating
it up…. The images they have on the screens are very
far out and the people on drugs were for sure tripping out!
TOOL is a band that you can just casually hear, you have to
just watch the stage, the screens and listen… get sucked
into the groove, the heavy riffs, the singing… This is
powerful stuff if you let it take you over… A great but
too short set and not long enough. The headliners on the Orange
should be allowed more time to play. The sound was amazing
but not loud enough and we were in the front. After TOOL,
I tried to hurry out and ran into a lot from our camp and
we walked over to George Clinton and the crowd was just so
massive there was no getting anywhere near the tent. How was
he not on the Orange Stage? Must have been 30,000 people…
IT was a pity the volume was so low we could not enjoy it
at all from where were were outside the tent so we left. IT
looked like a hell of a party was going on, on that stage
with people all dressed up and doing crazy shit… I really
wanted to see Amplifier but that was not for 2 more hours
at 2:30 and I was already pretty tired as I started seeing
bands at 12 today! We all went back to the camp. I heard the
next day that Amplifier were pretty damn cool….. oh well…
Day 4
Now, you are starting to see some people looking pretty
warn out and dirty as they had a record crowd of 40,000 people
already at the festival site on Monday and the real festival
does not start until Thursday at 17. They have the Pavilion
Junior stage with bands playing every day starting on Sunday,
so one could spend 8 days partying and getting wasted…
NO wonder some were looking ragged.
Pure sunshine and a lot of wind today. IT was only 27C in
the tent when I got up at 8:45. Some were already up as well
and packing their tents down. They will pack it up and come
back later for some of the bands. I went to get my last shower
so I could be fresh to see Ravi Shankar’s daughter at
12. But in the mean time I wrote this little essay about the
Roskilde Festival.
“Why do 100,000 people gather here each year for a week
of drinking, garbage, lack of hygiene, dust, urine, movies,
art, and music??? What kind of people are these that put up
with the bad smell, the dirty people for a week of music,
poetry and art?? This is no doubt the world’s biggest
party. It is the people in this world how are most free in
their minds and their life. They express themselves by having
tattoos, body piercing, dreadlocks, wearing crazy clothes….
This is totally accepted at Roskilde, where as in the real
world, you are not like the rest… This is what draws
people to Roskilde. In 2006, I have never seen more people
just hanging out in the great weather in the camping areas
having party and not seeing the music. They were here for
the social experience, the alcohol induced good times. Time
to leave the normal life of work, school, kids behind and
let loose and act anyway they want to and no one cares. People
enjoying seeing all the expressing people wearing masks, nothing
at all, strange painted faces, hairstyles, crazy clothes etc….
Life is too short…. 60 years or so and you are gone…
Nothing…… If you spend your whole life just working
and watching TV, what have you done??? The people who come
to this festival are ones who want to experience life, all
aspects of it. Drinking and smoking are a huge part of this
festival culture but by no means can you not have a great
time and not drink or smoke… The festival is all about
expression. The musicians, artists are all expressing something
deep inside them (except some of those playing pop for money!).
The people are doing the same and exchanging life energy.
If you are in the metropol (electronic music tent) you can
just feel the kinetic energy of the place and how the people
get connected to the groove and when the bass and drums kick
into high gear, the place just explodes with an energy you
can really feel. That is incredible. Where can you experience
something like that? Maybe Roskilde Festival is not for you
but it is a one of a kind event unlike anything else in the
world… The party and the culture will survive, even if
the music program goes into the toilet….”
I got to the Ballroom early and it was nice and cool in
the tent as I chilled out and waited for Anoushka Shankar
to start at 12:30. The tent had a decent crowd by the time
she started. She was accompanied by 2 tabla players, keyboard
and programming, flute, and a bass player. The opening 10
or so minute track was an amazing raga. Wow.. this was going
to be great, is what I thought. Anyway, it just went downhill
after that as she performed a bunch of new age Indian music
that was dead boring. I left after 35 minutes to go see Evergrey.
I met up with Kaj, Susan, and Klaus K. This is fast paced
melodic Heavy metal and all the choruses and melodic parts
are too cliché for me. I don’t get in to it at
all. I head over to the Pavilion to catch the Norwegian act,
the Killl. On the way I saw a couple of tracks by the Danish
electronica guy Rumpistol and that was really boring stuff…
The kill did not have a huge crowd but enough and it was quite
loud and insane. Two guitar players playing heavy metal riffs,
a great drummer (from Jaga Jazzists) and a wild and crazy
guy on samplers. This is very inspired by Fantamos and really
wild. IT is more heavy metal than Fantamos. The guys are having
a great time and are pretty cool. I had to leave after 35
minutes to make sure that I could get in the tent to see Wolfmother
as I was sure this was going to be packed and it was. Wolfmother
had a lot of hype but they delivered the goods and rocked
like a motherfucker. Crowd seem to know a lot of the songs
and was really into it. The bass player switches between playing
bass and the organ on several of the tracks. They remind me
of Grand Funk and Budgie with out a great guitarist. The guy
is good but he is young and needs to learn a bit more from
guys like Warren Haynes… He will improve and learn to
rip it up… Anyway, they only played less than 50 minutes
and then came back out for an encore, which started with a
jam. The band said it was the first time they had ever played
an encore at a festival and you could see they were having
a great time.
I went to get a good meal and ate some Thai food in the
backstage area. Just what I needed and came back out and met
up with Klaus K for some good old Exodus- Testament style
thrash with the Danish band, Hatesphere. Not too bad but after
30 minutes of hearing what sounds like the same song over
and over, you have had enough, unless you are in the front
and then you get sucked into the power and energy.. I was
not sure what to do but Klaus and I went to check out the
Balkan Beat Box at the Ballroom. This was utterly amazing…
These guys are from NYC and play this Balkan brass music mixed
with beats and rap and crazy delay vocals and far out synth
sounds… We were both blown away. Turns out Magnus and
Sonja were both there as well and thought they were amazing
as well. The front man was hyperactive and really great and
even crowdsurfed! Only 30 minutes until Roger Waters when
they finished.
I headed over to where we all said that we would meet and
sure enough found most of our group of people, which was cool.
We had a good view of the screens and the stage (a little
too far away). I had never seen Roger Waters but I can tell
you this was amazing. Great sound but way too low again…
He played a lot of songs from the Wall, Set the Controls for
the Heart of the Sun (pretty weak version), Shine on you Crazy
Diamond, Have a Cigar, Wish you were Here, and a really great
new political song (“Why does Democracy have to be bathed
in the blood of the Innocent???”). A nice anti-Bush political
statement. Then…we got to hear the complete Dark Side
of the Moon and that was really great. The show ended with
Comfortably Numb. Strange that just 2 weeks after this show,
Syd Barrrett Died… That was it 2½ hrs of great
music and another fun festival.
My Top Five bands at Roskilde Festival:
1.My Midnight Creeps
2.TOOL
3.Roger Waters
4.Balkan Beat Box
5.Wolfmother
A few points of Criticism to help make the festival better
next year:
1.The volume was too low on the stages. This was a huge problem.
They will have another Pearl Jam disaster if they don’t
turn up the volume on the Orange stage. This is for sure.
Also, on the tents. If they don’t put PA speakers outside
the tents, they must turn it up. The volume was way too low
and if you were forced to be outside the tent, you could not
even enjoy the music as it was too low. This is awful.
2.Too many people. If you came when a band had already started
in any of the tents for popular bands you could no even enjoy
the show as it was too crowded and you could hardly hear the
music over the people talking around you all the time. A real
shame..Please sell less tickets next year. I know it is more
money for charity but it is a real hassle.
3.The headliners on the Orange are not allowed more time to
play. IT is a crime. Roger Waters and Guns and Roses were
the only bands to play more than 2hrs.
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