- ROSKILDE REVISITED Part 1.
Franz Ferdinand.
"Everybody is talking about them" yells the charismatic Danish announcer "BUT WE BRING THEM TO YOU!"
The eager beavers clap in Franz Ferdinand for 30 minutes before they reached the stage. In fact, for 90 percent of the gig the crowd clap like they are watching a penalty being kicked truly, over and over.
With Happy Days strut, Alex Kaparnos and Nick McCarthy churn out vital riffs and meet in the middle of the stage, axes being offered up to the God of ScotRock, with the sincerity of a freshman guitar battle. When the opening lines of "Take Me Out" slip out of Kapranos' mouth, everyone loses their shit. The entire chorus is belted out as soon as the bonecrunching guitars hit the cresendo, before Alex is anywhere near the microphone. "Come on Home" sees the most earnest handclaps yet as the drama builds and builds. A nerdy Belgium next to me thinks he will make the review if he dances like a wildman, which he does, but only because his gyrations were adorably daggy. "Matinee" ricochets out with much more purpose than on CD, and they continue to refuse playing an off-chord. Karpanos' fringe shimmies around his innocent brow, each Television lead whetting the crowd's appetite for more Television leads. Fucking inspiring.
Wu-Tang Clan
"Wu-Tang ain't nothing to fuck with!" The nine colour-coordinated members (excellent branding gentlemen) of the Wu-Tang brooded and stalked around stage, taking turns to rap bullets. Backed by aggressive gangster beats, RZA hit his stride over a jazzy, sauntering horn. "Basketball gun-boys". Film-noir quotes in between joints are well-received, but you get the feeling they are trying too hard while elsewhere Dizzee Rascal, Lifesavas and Audio Bullys interacted with the crowd with more respect and reaction. Seeing a sea of butterfly hands make the 'W' sign is a bonus. A 20 minute dose of Wu-Tang is enough, as i feared more style than substance.
Muse
Giant white balls bob like apples from the ceiling as Muse tear out of the blocks with sky-shredding riffs and repatented vocal somersaults. Matt Bellamy is in devestating form, bereaved drummer Dominic Howard is more brutal than expected and Chris Wolstenhome's magnificently bold bass pasteurises the verses.
Absolution is a virtual mantra, slowed up when a more naive band would play it fast. White silohuettes of androgynous freaks add to the sky-may-fall-down-at-any-moment tension that Muse provoke so well, and delicate KID A chords are liberated by jagged power-riffs. Bellamy has evidently been polishing off his Hendrix records, and finishes off "Muscle Museum" with an intelligently indulgent showcase. "Sunburn" is white-hot and when Bellamy is lit up by a single-spot behind the piano it all makes more intense sense than listening at home, tickling both the ivories and the neck-hairs of the crowd.
Iggy Pop
Iggy is the living metaphor for music festivals. He rubbernecked around the stage shouting "Fucking cooool" at the end of each song, while The Stooges were as tight as a fish's rectum, delivering two stellar renditions of the pet fetish classic, "I Wanna Be Your Dog". It poured rain through most of the set, but the mud just made it easier to slosh while getting sloshed. Reptiles do it better.
Mesmering Moments of Messiness
TIARAHHHH
Only at a music festival would this happen.
2 guys and a girl were standing next to me during Iggy Pop, all sporting tiaras on their wet heads. A blind, yet bespectacled Danish unit stumbled past and grabbed one of the tiaras from the accountant-looking male of the three and attempted to put it on his own head. A wrestle over the (titanium?) tiara ensued and the owner snatched it back and returned it to his crown, unbroken. The drunk vamoosed away and proper violence was avoided. Accountantman looked very head-protective for the rest of Iggy's set.
Top Nine Flags
1. An inflatable alien reaming an inflatable cow senseless atop a long stick. To the beat.
2. Homer and Bart in Men In Black garb.
3. Upside Down USA Flag
4. Prosethetic leg (seriously).
5. Jack White flag (during the Von Bondies set)
6. Campari Guevera
7. Australian flag
8. Hammer and Sickle
9. Boxing Kangaroo
TSHIRTS TO MAKE YOUR SIDES HURT
1. "Sergeants don't die. They go to HELL and regroup".
2. "I'm the dog that ate your birthday cake."
3. "Good girls go to heaven. Bad girls go to Roskilde"
THEME-WHISTLE of ROSKILDE
Uma Thurman's laconic whistle at the start of KIll Bill could be heard echoed throughout the camping grounds. Whenever someone whistled the first bar a yonder set of lips would finish the refrain. Hell, Fatboy even opened his set with it!
WOODYSTOCK
Part 1. I can confirm there was the requisite guy rolling around in the mud, determined to rock out with his cock out.
Part 2. Some fine Norwegian ladies discovered a video camera on the 2nd night of the festival. They watched the footage, which started innocently and (de)generated into a Rob Lowe sexfest. Needless to say, they didn't hand it into lost property.
COPENHANARCHY
"I ALWAYS FEEL LIKE SHOPLIFTING"
40 metres high up, five metres wide, painted on the side of a building in Norroboro.
LOVE EM AND LEAVE EM
A record number of tents were left behind at the festival, while used gumboots littered the streets and stations from Roskilde back to Copenhagen.
METAL QUOTE OF THE FESTIVAL
"We love you guys..... this next song is going to rip off your fucking head and shit down your fucking neck."
Slipknot