Roskilde Festival 2010 - Rated!

Roskilde, Denmark - 1-4 July

Overall - 8/10

Rosklide Festival is not a new festival, and it is not a small festival. It is 40 years old and is a massive 120,000 strong 'mini-city' with guests tearing the fence down (yes, this actually happens) to experience a crazy camping life that opens five days before the actual festival starts, but more importantly it is people of ages gathering together to see the world's top bands perform live on stage.

The festival has consistently presented line-ups and features that are well worth the 1700dkk (£190) ticket with previous artists including The Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Björk, Jeff Buckley, The Flaming Lips, Bob Marley and many, many more.

This year is no exception to the rule as Gorillaz, Muse, Patti Smith, Nephew, Them Crooked Vultures, The Prodigy, and not least the mighty 'say my name!' Prince take to the festival's famous Orange Stage.  

Alongside the concerts exists a huge array of eateries and attractions including a swimming pool, music-making swings, a cinema, a skate park, a silent disco and much more.

With so many people in one place the organising needs to be top notch and Roskilde Festival is an institution (one that consists of mostly volunteers) that has, over 40 years, learned the needs of its punters and now caters to them in every way possible.  

Getting there and back - 9/10

The travel arrangements for visitors to Roskilde are excellent. In the lead up to the event, everyone in Copenagen (the nearest city to Roskilde) is well used to seeing people with backpacks twice their size stumbling along the streets towards the central train station.

The official website has all the necessary details and information for travellers arriving from abroad making and there are trains departing to and from Copenhagen to Roskilde Station constantly during the week of the festival. From Roskilde Station, one can take a shuttle bus (20dkk) but be aware that the buses can also get caught in the car traffic.  

Many visitors arrive at Roskilde train station and then tramp up the road, bearing their tents, pots and pans, chairs (and soundsystems) with them for what is about a 30-minute hike to the nearest entrance. There is, however, plenty of time to get your breath back whilst waiting in line to get your wristband.

The Site - 6/10

Roskilde Festival is essentially divided into two areas: the festival site proper and the camping areas.

The camping areas open five days before the festival site opens. For the past four years over eager campers have torn down the front fences in order to find the best spots to camp. 2010 breaks the record with troops storming in six hours before the site is due to be opened.  

The ten camping areas are all divided up, each as its own shop and special feature e.g a cinema or a swimming lake and there is also two 'city centres' with restaurants, more shops including the beer shop.

This year the toilet paper dispensers are placed outside of the toilets. The logic is clear, but it takes no stretch of the imagination to realise that the paper ended up all over the place as a result. In addition the swimming lake is closed after three days due to an extortionate amount of e.coli in its waters. Nice.

The festival site proper is a different ball game. Here there are so many bars, restaurants, shops, cafés, chill out spots that one is quite overwhelmed.  

A new rule for this year is a ban on bringing drinks into the festival site - even water bottles (if full). Frustrating to say the least and it means that many guests just remain in the camping until later, but there are still enough visitors onsite to see to it that there is always a queue at the bar.  

Atmosphere - 8/10

The festival prides itself on something called 'the orange feeling': the excitement seeing the big bands and the acts before they’ve made it big.

The extreme heat over the eight days is also a key player in the atmosphere. With so many people under the same blazing sun, the feeling among most visitors is of a holiday and good times.  

During the days it’s calm. People queue to swim in the pool, with the bizarre twist of having to cycle for 15 mins before be granted access into the water.  The price of beer both in the festival site and camping areas means that a majority of the public are sufficiently mellow by the early evening.  

Watching the concerts is always exciting in big crowds. A thing with Scandinavians is that they expect so much from the artists, but when they like something they really give back to the stage and the resulting mood is magic.

Music - 9/10

There are some outstanding performances from Vampire Weekend, Robyn, Beach House, Hypnotic Brass Ensemble, Alice in Chains, The Prodigy, Nedry, Patti Smith and LCD Soundsystem.

The Thursday program sees Patti Smith opening the Orange Stage acoustically in a memorial for the nine people that lost their lives during a Pearl Jam show in 2000. Later on the same day, Gorillaz seem to appreciate the audience's reception and everyone goes somewhat crazy for the duet with Little Dragon 'Empire Ants'; but it properly kicks off later in the set when 'Feel Good Inc' hits the speakers.  

Friday bills a much-anticipated Florence and The Machine and she is good but the crowd seem tired. Friday night and it’s time for Them Crooked Vultures - Dave Grohl, Josh Homme and John Paul Jones on the same stage rocking out their debut album hits including 'Caligulove', 'Mind Eraser, No Chaser' and finishing with 'New Fang'.  After that, a trip over to the Arena Stage presents a Danish DJ trio called Den Sorte Skole who are playing a mash-up of music from the artists who have performed at Roskilde over the last 40 years. The result is an awesome selection of classic tracks from some of the greats (Bob Marley, Neil Young, Björk) that gets the 17,000-plus capacity jumping in one singular motion.

Saturday night is an odd low moment at the Arena Stage, but maybe that is a result of arriving directly from Beach House performing the Pavilion stage, a show that, outside of the headliners, could easily be the one of the best of the whole festival. Bernard Summer's Bad Lieutenant don’t get the people dancing, not until he pulls out a couple of Joy Division tracks. After that Pendulum also disappoint with a bad sound and a bad rock/dance mix that just doesn't transmit the way it should. From there it’s on to see Muse, who own the  Orange stage by bringing with them some serious special effects and Matt Bellamy gets all Freddy Mercury on the piano, which some of the Danes think is strange, but it’s without a doubt the biggest audience of the festival.  

Until Prince arrives…but before that Motörhead play the loudest set of the event and Jack Johnson chills it down to a fairly minimal but enthusiastic crowd. The sun is setting and the campsites are empty now. Everyone is in front of the Orange Stage listening to 'Lets Go Crazy', '1999' , 'Little Red Corvette'…seeing the little myth of a man prance and dance around like he’s 30 years old. Then the lights go purple and Prince says “is it ok if I play my guitar a little?” Before launching into an epic version of 'Purple Rain'. From there he just rocks on and on, performing a two hour set - with three encores including 'Kiss' which seems a great way to wrap up the Sunday and indeed the whole festival.

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