The wettest
Roskilde in history.
That’s the official line and I can personally attest to it being outrageously, ridiculously, stupidly wet.
Early Thursday morning saw me meeting up with Chia and her band of fellow festival goers at City airport. I had packed the night before whilst being slightly drunk and with basically no research into what I should take. Chia and I had gone to the trouble of buying some cheap sleeping bags (which were pink and stripy!), blow up mattresses and a tent but that was about the extent of my preparation. I ended up just throwing in a few shirts and a jacket that used to be waterproof. In retrospect this was significantly insufficient for the rigors ahead but at the time I was proud of bringing such a small bag.
Upon arriving in Denmark after an uneventful flight I was asked by the passport control guy (after I told him I was going to the festival) if I had rubber boots. This struck me as an unusual thing for a passport guy to ask but I retained my optimism and assumed the best. Walking outside we discovered the weather was very bleak and a steady rain seemed to have been in place for some time. This however was still insufficient to dampen (forgive the pun) our high spirits and several trains later (and a stop in Roskilde town to buy some ex-military boots for me) and we had arrived at the festival entrance.
This is where things started to go downhill. We waited in a cue/heard of fellow festival goers in a pool of mud in drenching rain for probably 45 minutes before we finally actually entered the grounds. For what seemed like the next 2 hours we then trudged over the grounds in worsening rain, deepening mud and the overwhelming smell of human waste. Many people had got there early in order to secure a camp site which left us completely stuffed. We finally met a Danish guy who led us back to his group of tents and they kindly rearranged their tents and helped us set up ours in what was now basically torrential rain. Both the tent and I were completely drenched at this point and we retreated to a little pavilion the Danish guys had set up and proceeded to get stuck into duty free alcohol with our new friends. A borrowed shirt and plastic poncho later and we were off to Arcade Fire. Chia had vanished into the rain drenched horizon within moments of leaving the tent and apart from a random brief encounter later in the evening we didn’t see her until the following afternoon.
Several hours later it was still raining heavily and I found myself both disorientated and alone. I was well drunk by this point and proceeded to stumble toward where I thought my tent was. Turned out I wasn’t going the right direction after all and wandered around for a bit before finally finding my tent. Our tents were under about 1 ½ feet of water when I finally arrived and it was still raining and cold. To make things better we sat under the pergola thing, drank more and played the guitar. Eventually the other two couples went and floated on their mattresses and tried to sleep whilst I fell in the water a few times trying to get into my tent and eventually gave up and sat on a chair finishing a bottle of vodka.
One of the couples buggered off at some point in the early morning whilst I must have been passed out (apparently after a shouting match that went: “What are we going to do?” “I don’t know! What are we going to do?” “I DON’T KNOW!! What should we DO!?” etc etc……. for about 15 minutes) and by 4AM, after feeling like a drowned hypothermic rat I finally shouted out to the remaining couple that it was time to go (“Let’s get the fuck out of this shithole!”). They agreed and we grabbed some of our shit (but left my unused tent, sleeping bag and mattress) and stumbled off into the quagmire that was our piece of Roskilde.
Loading up the mattress and setting of into the sunrise.
We headed for Copenhagen and the sanctuary of a hotel. I was in a bad way and was very unsteady on my feet and passing in and out of consciousness quite a lot. We STANK of human waste and when we sat on the train, in addition to me leaving a large puddle, we also cleared out our section of the carriage of business type people doing the early morning commute. I then proceeded to sleep in the train station whilst my companions organized a hotel. Upon arriving at the hotel I checked into my room and had to cut the laces on my boots before passing out in the shower for 1 ½ hours.
The next day was spent generally being sick before finally rousing myself to do some laundry. Everything I had was wet and stank. The hotel room also reeked and everything was sodden, including our passports, phones, etc. I finally borrowed a t-shirt, put on some wet shorts and thongs and walked to the laundry. It was not a fun day. Chia showed up mid afternoon with her own little bank of Roskilde craziness.
The next couple of days were spent in Copenhagen before finally heading back out to the festival for the final night on Sunday. It was still very muddy but was nowhere near as bad as the Thursday and the main areas were mostly dry. Chia and I wondered back to our camp and the place looked like a war zone. Amazingly there were still a few people camping in the area which had turned from a lake into deep, smelly swamp with debris scattered everywhere and all manner of equipment embedded in the mud.
Sunday was awesome with consecutive sets all on the same stage by Artic Monkeys, Muse and Basement Jaxx respectively. We all got outrageously drunk and danced like little bitches. We then went over to the final gigs of the festival and got down to some crazy cabaret / techno show before walking back into Roskilde town and getting two taxis back to Copenhagen at 6AM.
The actions of our crew on the flight home pretty much sum up our mental state.
All in all an exhausting and stressful experience but not one I’d take back.
Apart from that it's been mostly nose down, bum up since returning from the swamp masquerading as a music festival. A notable exception was last-last weekend which saw my flatmate James and I get drunk with no sleep on both Friday AND Saturday night. And all powered by Vodka & Redbull.
A painting in the lounge room which is fecken awesome
Chia and I also went to a Dali exhibition on the weekend which was interesting. Will hopefully go and see a Shakespeare play at some point to try and squeeze in as much culture as possible. Finally, trying to get tickets to the 'V' festival this year which looks pretty good so that should be fun also. Hopefully less mud than Roskilde though....
