Roskilde, day 5 - the festival really begins

Although there's camping and entertainment for over a week, the actual music festival proper only starts about half-way through the eight-day party.

This is part 5 of a series. If you haven't been following along, you may want to know what I did with the first half of the festival.

Resurrected 80's glam rockers Guns N' Roses filled the main stage area with a crowd of something like 70 000 people. The whole festival only has about a hundred thousand guests, so they're obviously holding onto popularity! The only problem? The band didn't show up.

I gave them about twenty or thirty minutes before I left for another band, by which time the crowd had moved from excitment to uneasiness to agitation. There was a banner waving in the audience that read:

W. Axl Rose
You were my hero.

Of course, there were also people holding pirate flags and aliens doing naughty things to sheep.

Indie favourites Clap Your Hands Say Yeah were disappointing in a different way — I guess you just have to be familiar with the album material before the stage show is fun.

In strong contrast, the haunting peace of Icelandic soundscapists Sigur Rós was captivating even without being in the dark inner circle that served as a sort of anti-moshpit. I want to drive around the countryside at night listening to those angelic sounds.

In the next episode, we get burnt swimming with frogs and drop in on acts from across the world.