My parents never sent me away to sleep away camp during the summer when I was growing up. I am sure if you asked them they would say that they were looking out for my best interests and my mother claims that only parents who don’t love their children send them away. At the age of twenty-three I finally broke free and got to go to summer camp! Well sort of. I volunteered at the Roskilde Music Festival in Denmark for two glorious weeks at the end of June and beginning of July. It was insanity at it’s best.
Most of you reading my blog will have no idea what Roskilde is, so here is a basic breakdown. It is the biggest music festival in norther Europe and over 100,000 people attend every year and it is almost entirely run by volunteers. There is an overwhelming feeling of community and caring for those around you, although when a drunk Danish teenage girl who was sitting next to me one night told me that she had just gone pee sitting down and I didn’t even notice, I wasn’t feeling so communal. Over 200 musical acts performed this year, so I quickly forgot about the peeing drunk.
I arrived to the festival grounds the morning of June 25, dragging my suitcase through the mud, feeling relief when I saw my Danish friend Nina, that I had met a year earlier when I was working at the Wiz-Art Short Film Festival. (She was the one who also scored me the job at Roskilde and I am forever grateful to her for it.) I was assigned to help build The Urban Zone at the festival. I did my best to work with power tools and not cut any appendages off my body, but it is safe to say that I was better at just painting things.
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| "Mhahaha someone gave me power tools!" Photo credit: Marianne Falck |
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| Clearly I was having too much fun painting. Photo credit: Marianne Falck |
Our work days were from nine in the morning until close to ten at night, with long breaks for lunch and dinner. In exchange for work we got to sleep in little wagons with bunk beds, three meals a day, snacks, hot showers, free entry to the festival and most importantly five beers a day.
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| Working Hard |
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| Break Time on the Plaits |
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| Russian Graffiti Artist |
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| Russian Graffiti Artist Painting the Urban Zone |
During the first week it safe to say that I gladly made an ass of myself in front other volunteers with my bicycle riding skills that normally meant I had to stand on something to mount a borrowed bike due to my short legs. (People took pictures of it. I told them it wasn’t my fault, we don’t ride bikes in America.)
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| Me looking slightly retarded, riding a bike in the rain. Photo credit: Nina Bischoff |
My teammates were slightly impressed with how much Danish culture I knew, but were horrified when I mentioned Nik and Jay and how much I love them. I regaled them with my stories of adventure, that involved Norwegians dressed as a penguin and crap super heros, like Robin and hippies that kissed me for no reason in front of the mess hall. This was all before the festival had even started.
Warm up was from July 1 through July 4, which featured Nordic bands. I went to a show by Copenhagen DJs on the third night that was at the skate park that we had at the festival. It was amazing to be surrounded by thousands of people dancing to the same music, there was an electric energy there that you couldn’t help be a part of.
One the first day of the festival The Cure was the headliner at the Orange stage and I was beyond excited. I went with some of my Danish friends and unfortunately they sounded great, but lacked enthusiasm, so I wondered off and did something else. The next day I had a slight break down about my hair and went into town to get it cut, as the last time I had more done to it then the sides shaved was when I was in Ukraine over winter break. I asked the lady cutting my hair to do something trendy and that wouldn’t be popular in the States. I then went and got dark brown hair dye and dyed it in one of the bathrooms in the festival, keeping check on the time to make sure that I didn’t miss Jack White.
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| New Hair. Photo credit: Marianne Falck |
I again went with friends to see him and the whole time I danced and sang along, but when he started playing Seven Nation Army the fourteen year old inside of me died in sheer bliss. The Saturday night of the festival posed some massive scheduling conflicts with Bruce Springsteen and Bon Iver playing at the same time. Bruce started first so I watched him and he became the new love of my life. I don’t care if he is older then my father. I ran over fifteen minuets before Bon Iver started playing and the arena that could hold over 17,000 people was over crowded with drunk and high pushing teenagers, so I gave up and went back to Bruce. I was not going to have my feelings on Bon Iver tainted. Sunday I decided it was to be a day of rest like any good Christian, just perhaps not in the way that most people think of it.
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| Ok so this photo was taken at an earlier time then that Sunday, but it looked similar. Photo credit: Marianne Falck |
The Monday and Tuesday after consisted of us cleaning up, breaking down what we had built and goodbyes. Tuesday night we also had an end of festival gala for the volunteers. It was refreshing and odd to see everyone showered and in their genteel attire. Everyone was asking everyone else if they would see each other next year and when I was asked I just shrugged, smiled, and said, “who knows where in the world I’ll be next year.”
I would like to sincerely thank everyone I worked with at Roskilde and for letting me be the token American on your team. It is an experience that I will never forget and I am sure I will see all of you again at another festival. Again a massive thank you to Nina!
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