Love is an exploding cigar we willingly smoke (anon)

Roskilde Festival... The most wonderful musical week. We arrived Sunday afternoon and set up our tent – the first few nights were freezing and the last few were too hot to sleep-in in the mornings.

From Sunday to Wednesday were the ‘warm up’ where it was all about the ‘more than music’ part of the festival. Every camping area had a theme and activities at the agora. "When thousands of festive festival guests move into their tents in a matter of days outside of Roskilde, an intoxicated confusion of crashed festival colours, bright banners and pavilions ready to drop is created - a unique patchwork of tent pegs, heads-on approaches and miles of duct tape."
We were staying in “Quiet and Clean” although really – maybe that was just in comparison to the other Agoras… Things to keep one entertained at the other agora’s were a plastic skating rink (really! It actually works – you can ice skate on plastic), a lake (it was freezing but it kept me clean), a cinema (where we saw I’m not there and then also saw the Rocky Horror Picture Show – everyone was dressed up and dancing in the aisles and they gave us survival kits complete with stuff to throw at the screen). At other places were a skate park, video games, fishing lake, and more. Everywhere was lots of food stalls and people lounging around, drinking and partying. A small part of the festival ground was also open and on the smallest stage they showed up and coming Scandinavian bands. Of the three I saw – two were good.

Thursday to Sunday was the music festival with dozens of awesome bands. With 6 stages there was almost always more than one band playing at a time.
Cat power, radiohead, duffy, kate nash, jose gonzalez, neil young, girltalk, black mountain, black seeds, band of horses, chemical brothers, solomon burke, goldfrapp, judas priest, babylove and the van dangoes, juan formell y los van van, tokyo police club, lupe fiasco, the raveonettes, cadence weapon, nicole atkins and the sea, Digitalism, swollen members, holy fuck, when saints go machine, Jay-z, the streets, tina dico, Hot Chip,
and a couple dozen more...

Duffy was the first on Thursday afternoon. I fell in love during the Radiohead concert Thursday night - a miraculous performance. And the next three days were exhausting - dancing to every type of music, walking through the festival grounds going from one concert to another. Sometimes I'd wait and be there front and center when they started sometimes I'd be laying on the grass outside the tents listening and enjoying the music. (the grass which by Sunday was just dusty packed dirt).
Saturday I discovered the wonders of dance music - teh Ting Tings and Girltalk were both amazingly fun. I also supported all the Canadian Bands present then and even met Josh Hook - the guitarist of Tokyo Police Club - after their performance.
Sunday night was Hot Chip - where I was right up front dancing my heart out, trying to avoid the naked guy about two people away... Afterwards it was pouring out - the first time in 8 days. Just in time for Jay-z. The only concert when there was nothing else going on simultaneously, he didn't really fit with the rest of the music and it was the first time that the field in front of the main stage wasn't full. But not to miss an opportunity I was determined to dance - if anything the mud just made it slippery and more fun. Soaked in my new hoodie i left half way through and waited for Digitalism to end the weekend off properly.

In all it was an amazing week of hyperactivity, music, dancing, highstrung nerves, dancing, dust, music, tents, and tall danish people. It was absolutely wonderful!