Kickin’ It Fridays – Venues that Rock – Roskilde Music Festival
April 17th, 2009 by Jennifer Maley
Since we launched the Flight Centre blog a few weeks back it seems most Fridays posts have kicked off the weekend with parties, concert venues and/or places that rock out in general. Today, we throw down the gauntlet and profess that from this point forward Fridays will be officially known as ‘Kickin’ It Fridays’. We were originally thinking ‘Straight through. Rock ‘n roll! Hello Cleveland! Hello Cleveland!!! Rock n’ Roll Fridays’ but quickly realized that the title alone would eat up more than half our allotted Twitter characters. Please welcome our newest guest blogger Flight Centre’s Jennifer Maley who will be joining us as a regular contributor for Kickin’ It Fridays.
Gregg asked me to follow up on my comment about Roskilde with a little more information. And I, of course, am more than happy to oblige since I never miss an opportunity to natter about one of my favorite all time travel experiences.
The Rundown.
The Roskilde Music Festival is aptly named as its held just outside of Roskilde, Denmark…a quick and inexpensive train ride from Copenhagen. The music festival eeked out its first notes in 1971 with one stage, 20 bands and the same generational free festival spirit that spawned other festivals like Woodstock and Glastonbury. The festival has been held each summer since, and has continually improved and impressed with its stellar lineups, eco-driven mentality and good times Scandinavian-style.
My Take.
I was first introduced to the Roskilde Music Festival by a fellow couchsurfer and hardened Roskilde-addict in 2007. Music and travel are two requisites to my perfect summer so it didn’t take much arm-twisting before I was convinced to book my festival pass. I was traveling on a budget that summer so I winced a smidge at the cost of the pass (roughly $400 CAD) but then quickly reminded myself that I would spend as much on a few concert tickets where the festival pass covered six stages with hundreds of bands including a couple that I was dying to see. So all in all it was still an awesome value.
Coming from Canada, I got to Roskilde a bit later in the day than the rest of my group who had traveled from Sweden. They were able to line up early that morning to ensure we snagged a prime camping spot close to one of the services areas, where we could buy food, drink and supplies, but far enough from the music so that we could manage a couple of hours of sleep every so often. The first four “warm up” days are typically spent settling in to festival life enjoying a laid-back version of the soon-to-be electric atmosphere but 2007 was a bit unique for Roskilde. Normally Danish summers include a healthy amount of sunshine, but for us the rain set in on the second day and didn’t stop. Not to be undone by a little (a lot) of mud, we all cued up for a last minute shipment of rubber boots sold in the service areas and settled in for one of the wettest festivals in Roskilde’s history. After four days of mud baths and torrential downpours my campmates and I headed down to the festival site for our first concert…The Arcade Fire. Maybe it was a mild case of hypothermia-induced delusion, or a healthy dose of Danish beer, or even possibly that The Arcade Fire is one of my favorite bands but when they walked on stage that night I knew that every penny spent and raindrop I’d been soaked with was worth it. That feeling was reaffirmed several times that night and in the four days that followed as I got to see bands like The Queens of the Stoneage, The Beastie Boys, The Who, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Bjork etc…the list goes one. Really.
Picture Yourself There.
As of today, tickets are still available but they usually sell out by mid May. This years’ line up is headlined by Nine Inch Nails, Coldplay, Oasis, Kanye West and Lily Allen. Also not to miss Deadmau5, The Dodos, Fleet Foxes, Oh No Ono and so many more. Of all the European music festivals, Roskilde is the first one I recommend to my clients not only for the music but also because its incredibly easy to get to, you can buy most of your supplies on site at very reasonable prices and Scandinavian culture is an absolute gem that is the icing on the cake.
Wow, what a post to kick off Kickin’ It Fridays! Jennifer Maley is an International Travel Consultant based in Victoria, British Columbia and can be reached at 1 866 604 6340.
Roskilde Fesitval’s location is highlighted on the Flight Centre travel map.
Tags: denmark, music, roskilde, travel
Categories: Activities, Destinations, Off The Beaten Path
