- “Rollin down the street / Smokin Indo, sippin’ on gin and juice / Laidback / With my mind on my money and my money on my mind.”
Holy shit. Roskilde has me spurting out words in the empty Media Office on a languid Saturday morning at 7am because I have to tell you people HOW GOOD ROSKILDE IS!!! Phewwww, deep breaths.
Rage With The Machine
This just in: Serious destruction of grass areas in Service Centre West. We’re getting mixed reports but there seems to have been a dancefloor demolition by a bunch of Scandies and Antipodeans. Grass was torn and trodden on by enthusiastic dancing, outside a communal tent, while hash spliffs were passed around liberally, culminating in a random Swede dropping Underworld’s ‘Rez’ in the midst of the morning’s delicate state, beatbox lying there alone in the main walk-way, defiantly blasting out what everyone secretly wants to hear. We proceeded to get people’s asses out of bed and off the director’s chairs to ‘King Of Snake’, then a group shoutalong to Rage Against the Machine “Killing in the name of” … not long after AudioSlave closed their set with said anthem. .
But let’s take it back to the start of the whole shebang.
After setting up in the modest Media Campsite, we trek through to the Arena Stage in sweet time to see Sonic Youth. Thurston and Kim huff and puff around the blue-lit stage, threaten to blow our houses in but decide to remain in feedbackpollooza-mode. Tight chord changes flowed at times, guitarist Lee Ranaldo wielding an axe-knife brought a visual aside to juxtapose Thurston Moore carving of his guitar neck against his forehead; stuck in a Syd Barretesque stroke of genius/nutterness. Bit like that meandering sentence.
Lightning bolt mission to Le Tigre, who are sassing the fuck out of everything in their 80s synth-strop. ‘Decepticon’ entices a flirty WOOOOHOOOO from the crowd, slinking out in drop-dead whorgeous smack-thump. The trio chime into choreographed dance routines, just smoooth enough to stay out of hip-gangsterwannabe territory, but not quite Janet Jackson Rhythm Nation 1814. Le Tigre’s dirty electrohump sounds positively soiled live and they mega-phoned their way into our little black books.
Being the first night, we thought we turn in and prepare our detailed Roskilde notes with Powerpoint presentation available. Thankfully, we remembered we weren’t tossers and headed straight to Armand van Helden sans fromage. You read that right, Van Helden playing funky house equipped with an artillery of bass and deceptively deep kick-drums, without dropping screaming-black-bitches (Jerry from Gaslight gave me that one). His meek (?) smile pokes fills up the screen, anticipating the next TAK-BOOOOM as much as we are. Van Helden steps up a level during his 2 hour set and informs (mostly) Scandinavians that he can use the levels of a Mega-Specs sound system to command a dancefloor to rock. To rock precisely to get everyone making shapes and shufflin’ their feet without losing the crowd by tiring them out. Long explanation huh, point being Van Helden mixed liked a true professional, teasing build-ups of undeniable house tunage, slipping “My My My” in to up the diva level ridiculously. Gold.
That closed up and we stumble-strutted back to our base and got frisked by two delightful Festival Service femme fatales. We stumbled a little further and melted into our tent at 4am.
ASIDE
There is a cranking Tuborg after-party near our tent sites, which myself and Scwhise managed to infiltrate last year, despite the lack of ‘blue competition weiner band’. This year Radar and I decided to be proactive and shimmy down the side of the freeway bridge, averting security dweebs. We made it the toilets, slashed up and then got busted trying to come around the front of the Tuborg mashupbeatsmentalcrazyhotassparty.
“The Police called us.. wait here” Burly Dane says.
We tried to freeze but kept the momentum towards the exit,
“Do you want us to cut your band?” chisel-jaw asks us. “No mate,” we both have to attest. EURGHHHH (angry and resolute sound).
Drama averted, we will make another mission tonight, post-Carl Cox, and sound off like we got a pair.
GOOD HEAD DAY
People here wear pineapples/footballs on their heads and beatboxes strapped to their belts. Once again there is the Inflatable-Alien-Fucking-Inflatable-Cow Flag. This place conjures magic that rarely exists in day-to-day life, unless you’re a celebrity Scientologist. I guess.
FINAL PARAGRAPH
And then there was today with Snoop, Black Sabbath, Craig Richards, Maldoror, Death From Above 1979, and John Digweed. Fo-Schizzle my nizzle, you know you can’t help speaking like Calvin. Ahh yes, so much bubbling around my head I should tell you… but I will save it for next time we talk.
“Here comes the sun / Little darling.” Nuff said.