Messed!Up
Monday arrived and there were a few interesting metal bands to cover later in the evening, and as the line-up is dominated by hip hop or RnB I felt I just have to be there. However, the weather gods weren’t on our side this day and sent a thunderstorm our way. Security was running around to make sure the camps put down their flagpoles and removed the pavilions due to the danger from lightning and getting a pavilion in your head somewhere on the other side of the campsite, and they did an amazing job getting tipsy people to understand the gravity of the situation. I ended up under the lowered Pavillion at Camp Vienna and had to endure an hour of songs about rain and former German football star Lukas Podolski. Probably the longest hour in the last two decades and one I hope I never have to endure again.
The rain did its job and cleared out the dust clouds that plagued us the first festival days and that probably gave all of us 2-3 years longer to live. Quite soon it was all back to normal at the campsite and Camp Vienna could start planning for the Amplified Session they run every year at Roskilde festival. Unfortunately, I couldn’t join the madness (yeah, it’s crazy) due to other (paid) work somewhere else, but they have loads of fun happenings coming up the rest of the week as well and I’ll just join one of those instead. 
Today was about gigs, that’s why you go to festivals although Roskilde offers quite much more to cover. First on the schedule was young Danish death metal act Nakkeknaekker rooted in old-school death metal and bands like Entombed and Morbid Angel. The speaker sound was horrible at the beginning but I soon realized that the wind did a great job to stop it from reaching the back of the audience and just by moving 10 meters closer to the stage you were hit by the wall of sound that only death metal bands can cause. And this was really entertaining.
Every band that wants to reach out to an audience needs a frontman who can interact with people. Frontman Christoffer had it all and a lot more. You want someone who’s firing up the crowd until the moshpit starts and people engage in crowdsurfing. Although it was at a smaller scale than you would see at Copenhell recently (remember, it’s hip hop peeps at the festival this year) that was enough to give them five out of five because you’re job as an entertainer is to make people entertain you by moshpitting.
And I haven’t seen as much headbanging since Rob Halford’s peak days (guys, hasn’t Halford taught you a lesson? He can’t move his neck anymore). The guitarists and the bassist should have serious neck injuries by now. And the drummer – those double kicks were outstanding. Just get the lads out to some bigger festivals next year – why not Download? There’s a lot of untapped potential here.
There was really no time for a break as indie pop/alt.rock band Kindsight started to play at the Gaia stage right after Nakkeknaekker finished their job. Kindsight is a band I happen to stumble across when they were signed to the brilliant label Rama Lama Records, an award-winning label based in Stockholm, Sweden. Last year they released their debut album Swedish Punk which hasn’t much punk on it but loads of catchy indie pop melodies and indie rock-tinged anthems. Expectations were high and although I took the chance to have a standing dinner at the same time the band delivered what I expected with that sort of cute indie poppiness I was used to in the 90s. That’s a good sign. The set was made up of many of the songs off Swedish Punk and I loved to hear “Sun Is Always In My Eyes” live for the first time as well as their amazing latest single “Tibet”. Yet another band that have the potential to return to Roskilde Festival and play the bigger stages in a couple of years.
It was time for a break and as we (I got company from some Swedes) didn’t want to go too far from the Gaia stage as Angstkrig were about to play in 30 minutes, we took a few steps outside the festival tent and found the Koskenkorva bar, and spent the time learning about Finnish Koskenkorva drinks (they’re strong, we give you that). With some Finnish Koskenkorva fuel in the body – much needed – we headed back to the Gaia stage just when Danish black metal duo entered the stage wearing nylons over their heads – it’s part of their ‘brand’ if you look up the band online – and set off in full metal throttle. I’m not sure I would call it black metal though, at least not all the way, because in some songs they slowed down to a normal metal tempo and those were the songs I appreciated most. But it was too many ups and downs and it rarely works for me. The good songs were fantastic, the bad ones made me wish I was back at the Koskenkorva bar.
Overall, the first gig night was better than expected as the bands aren’t on my high rotation list, and when there’s a festival year when the line-up isn’t super awesome you should take the chance to watch new music, that’s how you find new favorite bands (that’s how I once discovered bands like Editors, Feeder, St Pierre Snake Invasion etc.).
That was the first night. I had to leave for a Zoom conference with people in San Francisco and was happy to have those Koskenkorvas in my bloodstream to endure those three hours in front of the screen listening to too many blabbermouths.
