Messed!Up
Some things in life become part of your routine when you have done them more times than you remember. Call it a reflex or a primary function that you perform without even reflecting on it, like going to the loo at 4 am without waking up. That’s what the Roskilde Festival is about.
Some festivals become traditions, and a rare few become part of who you are. Returning year after year for three decades should, in theory, make every path familiar and every stage predictable. Yet somehow, the magic refuses to fade. There is an intangible feeling in stepping through those gates again, a strange blend of nostalgia and anticipation, where cherished memories coexist with the certainty that something unexpected still lies ahead. Faces change (well, at least get more wrinkles), line-ups evolve, and new generations arrive, but the festival keeps reinventing itself without losing its soul. Thirty-three years on, it still feels less like revisiting the past and more like coming home to somewhere that never stops surprising you.
This year, however, started out in the hottest possible way. Since a few years, we have spent a night in downtown Roskilde before the gates open, and it was a hot day in Denmark (and even hotter back in Hamburg). Luckily, the room had a very good fan, or I wouldn’t have made it through the night. Little did I know that the next day would get even hotter. There’s a 15min walk between the hotel and the accreditation center, and we needed four stops to check our fluid levels. Another 15-minutes walk and 20 minutes in line in the scorching hot sun – it was +33 – we made it through the gates and ran towards the first waterhole to soak ourselves in water. That’s really what summarizes the first two days at the festival: hot as hell and probably the hottest arrival day since I started going here in 1992.
Arrival day at the Roskilde Festival is always a combination of getting your camp organized and meeting up with people you haven’t seen for a year – and a lot of waiting. It’s like a balancing act between practicalities and pure excitement. Tents still need pitching, the gazebo has to go up, and bags need to get unpacked and organized in the tents (at least it’s an initial ambition). And every few minutes, familiar faces appear across the campsite, (a lot of) beers open, and stories from the past year spill out before the first camping chair is unfolded, and promises of “this year will be the best Roskilde ever) echo between half-built camps. By the time the last tent peg is hammered into the ground and the first drinks have been shared, it already feels like no time has passed at all, and you never left the festival ground last year. That’s a routine that has never changed. Years come and go, but the arrival day is the same every year, in the comforting kind of way, telling you “welcome back”.
First day with Camp Vienna United was about waiting. While we arrived at noon, our campmates didn’t start to turn up until 6 pm. So what to do for six hours? Normally, drinking beer, but in the heat, that wasn’t an option. Staying under one of the pavilions sorted it out for a few hours, but the heat had taken its toll. After the whole camp had arrived late in the evening, hugs had been shared, and beers had made some impact on tired bodies, I made the mistake of lying down for one minute “to try out the new bed”, and that was it. 10 pm, goodnight, see you in the morning. And then there was a massive thunderstorm.
Day 2 started with a bang, or rather a huge lightning strike not far from our campsite, and the noise it made kept my heart beating like I’d just run a 200 m race. And then storm winds followed, meaning there was no idea to go back to sleep, just make sure the tent didn’t fly away.
Although the second day wasn’t as hot as yesterday, it was still around 30 degrees, and you had to make sure to rehydrate every second hour of the day. So, what do you do when the summer sun turns the festival grounds into a sea of dust and sunburnt faces (and lots of burnt bodies)? Go to the swimming lake! It’s the perfect escape from the heat, where the first dive into the cool water washes away hours spent baking in the campsite. With Camp Vienna’s own David Hasselhoff on the beach (no names, we’re not allowed to mention him by name), it attracted some attention as well. Lucky for us, there’s a high-quality bar at the beach and some gin and tonics, margaritas, and shots later, the day took off in the best possible way. Back at the camp and a few cold beers later, it was time for a nap to catch up on lost sleep during the night’s thunderstorm, and it was a wise choice considering the beer consumption in the camp.
Two hours of sleep, and it was time to go watch the first bands. To be fair, it’s been a few years since I knew any of the bands on the pre-festival lineup. Many bands are at the very beginning of their careers and some, like Scam, played their second gig ever. But that’s what these days should be for, to put attention on new bands and help them get an audience. Although not much was my taste in music, I will give a shout out to Spawner and, especially, super fresh band Scam. Both bands also pulled in quite a crowd, and hopefully we’ll hear more about them in the future. But this was only the start of the evening. As the darkness settled over the festival, Dream City came alive. Dream City is the creative heart of Roskilde Festival’s camping area.
Dream City is a unique, community-driven neighbourhood where festivalgoers design and build their own camps from the ground up. After sunset, it becomes one of Roskilde’s liveliest and rowdiest party destinations, where spontaneous events, DJs, and concerts create an atmosphere unlike anywhere else on the festival grounds, hauling in thousands of festival-goers for a full party night. I call it the Las Vegas of the Roskilde Festival because that’s how it looks like on the horizon with all its neon lights. It perfectly captures Roskilde Festival’s DIY spirit, proving that some of the festival’s most memorable experiences happen far beyond the main stages.
Music spills from every direction, blending into one chaotic but soundtrack, while colourful lights and outrageous camp creations turn the streets into a playground of creativity. There’s no headline act here, no fixed schedule, just the shared understanding that the best nights are often the ones you never planned. I quickly found an 80s dancefloor and stayed until 3 am before calling it a day, walked back to the campsite, and fell asleep as soon as I took off the shoes. That’s it, two intense days and two amazing first two days with tropical nights – epic!
