I'm currently sitting in Gothenburg, drinking some instant coffee, with some dodgy American television on. We've now been here since Monday, which has been great fun as most people we've talked to seem to think it's the Brisbane of Sweden. Not a whole lot of tourist things to do, but beautiful and perfect to go to if you know people there. Hence it's been perfect for recovering from Roskilde Festival in Denmark last week.
We arrived in Copenhagen from London last Tuesday, after walking out of Ando's Putney flat at 6am without our Roskilde tickets. We had to wait for him to get back from his run, and then a rushed 90 quid taxi ride to Gatwick costing approximately 80 more pounds than we were initially going to pay! We got there eventually however and spent a great day in Copenhagen just walking around, drinking beers on the river and sleeping for 12 hours that night which was great preparation for Roskilde. We caught the train out to the town of Roskilde, which is a small Danish university town about half an hour out of Copenhagen. The festival sits just outside town, and hails about 90,000 people every year. The campground is split into Camp East and Camp West. Most people arrive on the Monday and set up camp for 4 days before the actual music starts on the Thursday. Having got there on Wednesday, we landed in Camp East and walked for an hour across the campsite in 30 degree heat with two packs each, trying to find a campsite. Eventually we found one which was perfect in a newly opened part of the festival, which meant the facilities were kept reasonably clean compared to other parts, and it was still a close enough walk to the music.
In a huge stroke of luck, when setting up camp Matt noticed two other guys setting up camp behind us, one of which was sporting Bonds undies out the back of his shorts. This we thought had to be a sure sign these was other Aussies! Steve and Scott were two blokes from Melbourne, and from then on we had a crew of 4 Aussies at the festival which I now can't imagine not spending it with them. We had awesome fun having other people that understood us, even with the Victorians not quite sure who we were talking about when we'd say "old mate". In our section, we also had 5 or 6 Finnish blokes, an American and 7 Swedes who we'd often end up with just sitting around drinking and chatting with. The Swedes were from Stockholm, and are going to show us around this weekend when we get there. The beauty of travelling!
The weather was amazing the whole festival, with the exception of the last day it was 30 degrees and clear skies. It was impossible to sleep in this heat though, so we were always up early feeling sorry for ourselves. In true Aussie cricket tradition though, and a lack of hats, we constructed some beer carton hats. Completely unexpectedly, these turned into a massive novelty for the Europeans! In the first two days we would have been photographed 30 or 40 times, including the Danish TV station TV4 and the biggest Swedish newspaper.
I could talk all day about the music, but I'll save it and only include a few highlights. My biggest was Coldplay, who closed out the festival on the Sunday. They were absolutley amazing, and the crowd sang along to ever song. Halfway through the set the stage went pitch black, and the band popped up the back in the middle of the crowd with just an acoustic guitar and performed Green Eyes (one of my favourite Coldplay songs) and also a cover of Billie Jean in dedication to Michael Jackson. During Yellow they also released thousands of yellow balloons into the crowd which was visually incredible. Oasis were also fantastic, being the true rock stars with lots of posturing and carrying on. Wonderwall and Don't Look Back in Anger were huge. Pete Doherty was on the last day at 2pm on a side stage, and was one of the best things I saw. It was just him and his guitar, and he was amazing. He played a cover of Neil Young's Needle and the Damage Done, which was pretty appropriate seeing he's a massive junkie. Beautifully done though. Also good were Kanye West, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Whitest Boy Alive, Fleet Foxes, First Aid Kit, Pet Shop Boys, Madness, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds and Faith No More. There were many more but I'm hopeless with trying to remember them all.
Anyway, this has been a massive entry already so I'd better go, but it was an amazing week. We're off to Stockholm tomorrow, before heading to Germany next week. Hope everyone is well at home! Big up and respect!
