I've never been to a music festival - no Lollapalooza, no Bonaroo. The closest I've come is three days of Grateful Dead shows in Las Vegas the year that Jerry Garcia died. That's my benchmark.
The Roskilde Festival in Roskilde, Denmark is Northern Europe's largest musical festival. It takes place over the course of eight full days with musical performances on six main stages and multiple sub-stages throughout that time. A huge expanse of land is taken over with rows upon rows of campsites filling up much of it, and by the time we hit Roskilde, three days prior to the festival's final day, this area was a quagmire of garbage, piss, and drunken youth.
However, once we walked into the festival proper, everything was pristine, well-maintained, and chock full of things to do. There were multiple art spaces, dj spaces, a maker area, graffiti zone, and more stores, stalls, stands and windows selling food, drink, clothing, and sundry souvenirs than you could ever possibly want to see.
It's like a hundred Grateful Dead shows all wrapped up into one big orange party.
The day began for us at the Gloria Stage, an inside venue where at 10:30 a.m. we packed in with the rest of the early risers for the sing-along. A whole slew of Danes as well as a variety of other Europeans and us singing Beatles, Pete Seeger("God Bless the Grass"), Simon & Garfunkel, etc. led by an excellent Danish combo that included a stand-up bass and an accordion, and the English words projected above the band.
That was a lot of fun. We made Gloria stage our "lost person" meeting place, as it had an large open-air outer room filled with couches - shade and comfort in a central location.
The day was filled with activities and musical acts. Florence + The Machine and Muse, late that night, were highlights, but we also really enjoyed bands we hadn't known going in - Veronica Maggio, Sarabi, Jupiter & Okwess International, Mastodon and especially Ezra Furman, whose raspy voice and crazy energy made him something of a young Tom Waits (or Dexter Romweber, for my Chapel Hill peeps).
At the end of the night, the kids chilled in the Gloria couches, befriending a couple of young french women, Candice and her friend, who evidently fell in love with Rowan and Griffin. Pam and I spent some time at the Orange stage for Muse.
We all met up at 11 pm and exited in true Stormagan fashion, forming a crazy train by grabbing hands and snaking through the Muse throng for the exits.
Did I mention that Roskilde was Rowan and Griffin's first concert and Berit's second? Pretty epic! It's all downhill after this.i
Friday, July 3 - Swedish Vikings
We awoke at our Roskilde Fjord-side cabin, packed up and headed out. In a little over an hour, we were crossing the Oresund Strait, the body of water that separates Denmark from Southern Sweden. The Oresund bridge/tunnel combination is nearly 8 kilometers long, the longest bridge in Europe.
We landed in Malmo, Sweden and headed to a cafe in the diverse section of the city. Coffee Joint gets high marks for its service, its coffee drinks and especially its art.
From Malmo we headed down to Trelleborg, a small village on the Southern coast, for a Viking market. This took place at a Viking ring fortress built in 980 A.D. by Harold Bluetooth, son of Gorm the Old and inventor of Bluetooth wireless technology.
The Viking market was populated by would-be Vikings from all across Europe. The first guy we spoke with was from Iceland. He showed us the leather he made from the skins of salmon and cod as well as a sort of bowl that was at one time the nutsack of a sheep. I kid you not.
I also spoke with an older Swedish woman, a fiber artist who made decorated woolen belts not unlike the ones the kids learned to make with Amelia in Lejre, but with more complex designs. And I had a long conversation with a Swedish Viking named Thor Bjorrn (Thor's Bear) who makes ancient furniture and let me check out his comfy-looking tent.
We watched a Viking battle and a Viking wedding as we enjoyed our usual picnic lunch. And then we left, enjoying walking through the streets of Trelleborg, and stopping at a candy store where we bought some Swedish fish (though in Sweden, they're just called fish).
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