2023-07-01 13:05:39
Von Susi Ondrušová
Roskilde is less than half an hour by train from Copenhagen. The Roskilde Festival started on the last Saturday in June. The 80,000 festival passes were sold out in mid-June, there were day tickets for the last four main days, when all eight stages on the main site were used, but in short: it was very full. A happy crowd. Except, of course, when you’re standing in front of a stage and want to go to the right and others suddenly want to go to the left. You had to agree. Go with the flow.
Around 30,000 volunteers at the Roskilde Festival ensure the special festival flair, this communal feeling of being part of a larger whole. They organize, plan, sort, coordinate, control and clean. From the security staff in the Wavebreaker to the doctor in the medical tent, the stage manager backstage or the employee at the gate to the campsite: all volunteers who work at least four 8-hour shifts at the festival, depending on the job.
Christian Heldel
Damon Albarn loves the Roskilde Festival. Most of the visitors know that, because it is not his first time here. He played at the Roskilde Festival with his band Blur in 2003, and with each of his other band projects he makes a tour stop in Roskilde: whether as a solo performer, with the Africa Express or the Gorillaz. The Gorillaz performance in 2018 was prematurely cut short by a stage accident during the last number; So at the sound check, which Blur personally completes with a full cast at an early hour, a bunch of festival visitors gather in front of the stage: some call for their favorite songs, one screams: Don‘t fall off the stage!
Damon says, “This is a serious rehearsal!” He’s nervous. At the evening concert, he tells us that he has already camped here at the festival himself and thanks all the employees who welcomed his band that day. “It’s the best festival in the world,” he says. His mother’s family is from Denmark; when he looks at the audience he imagines he could be related to someone here. Dreams inspired by music, a festival as a place of longing. A place where everyone understands and looks out for each other? Where there is no place for authority because you meet at eye level?
Christian Heldel
Josh Homme from Queens Of The Stone Age has a similar view. At his headlining gig on the festival’s second largest stage, a discussion ensues with the securities. Crowd surfing or sitting on shoulders is prohibited on the site. When a fan is prevented from enjoying the concert on the shoulders of the accompaniment, Josh Homme interrupts the gig and says to security: “You work for us. Don’t tell her what to do.” A bit disconcerting at first. Mainly because many of the long-time volunteers who work as securities still remember the tragic accident in 2000 very well: eight festival-goers were trampled to death during a Pearl Jam concert.
Both sides mean well. Josh Homme’s rant about letting people do what they want because nothing’s going to happen as long as we all agree that we’re looking out for one another is heartwarmingly cheesy, but also utopian (not to say naïve).
Christian Heldel
Utopia is also the motto that the festival wants to stick to for the next three years. As well as music, Roskilde Festival is also about art and activism. Individual program items should reflect the motto. One wants to show visitors that another, better world is possible. The motto is a reaction to the core feelings of the Gen Z audience: fear of the future, helplessness, anger, loss of courage. What world will we live in? Or what city? During the festival, Roskilde turns into the fifth largest city in Denmark thanks to the 100,000 visitors. They want to show positive examples of how a utopia can become reality. A place of longing, a role model? But utopia also seems like a promise from : smooth skin. White teeth.
Reality also catches up at the festival, because there are parallel worlds to the beautifully conceived utopia theme. Queens fans cheer for the frontman as he shouts “We are one!”, but in the mosh pit a hand goes deliberately to someone else’s bosom. Of the tens of thousands of visitors celebrating Lil Nas X, how many actually become allies of the LGBT community upon waking up?
Christian Heldel
The slightly sad undertone of these lines is of course also due to the signs of exhaustion on the fourth day of the festival. We had all weather zones here: 28 degrees during the day and 12 degrees at night. It was wet, it was dry, it was dusty, it was windy, it was sunny, it was cloudy. Totally normal open-air madness. The good news: the festival pharmacy sells blister plasters in two sizes. On the way there, I’ll stop at the deposit collectors’ lounge. There is a deposit of 5 crowns (approx. €0.70) on reusable cups, cans, Tetrapaks and shot glasses. Either you return the cup at the bar or throw it in a waste container – or it lands on the floor.
The Roskilde festival (24.6.-1.7.2023) is one of the largest and oldest music festivals in Europe. It has been held in Roskilde near Copenhagen since 1971.
There are professional deposit collectors who use wheelbarrows at the festival or pick up all the deposits from the floor in huge plastic bags. They wander the campgrounds or light up the ground at the edges of the reveling crowd while Blur sing “The Universal.” They redeem the deposit in their lounge and are paid out. A team of volunteers then takes over and sorts the goods either manually or with a machine specially designed for Roskilde Festival. Two million deposit cups are in circulation at the festival this weekend. Salomon is one of the professional deposit collectors. He is originally from Cameroon and has blisters on his feet like me. He doesn’t have much time for a conversation, the work is exhausting and he has to keep collecting because he needs the money. Most of the people he meets are friendly and give him the deposit cup themselves. He doesn’t want to say too many words about the exhausting visitors. But he talks about the Nigerian pawn collectors, who were very happy to see a band from their home country perform.
Christian Heldel
For workers like Salomon, the idea of being on the other side of the audience is utopian. Two festival realities meet here: the crowd that can afford the festival ticket. And the crowd that will buy food for a month with the deposit money.
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