What follows is the report of Roskilde Festival from a photographer point of view. I’ve to warn you, it’s not going to be all warm and fuzzy Orange Feeling this year: as the rain turned the green fields into mud in no time, this year organizational changes towards us photographers turned my fireworks-happy-end-on-a-high last festival of the season into a difficult, hostile and very much uphill four days I couldn’t wait to be over.
But let’s start from the beginning and proceed with order.
Compared to the past years, this year lineup wasn’t the most remarkable (for my personal taste in music): relatively flat with few very big spikes of names you cannot miss for anything in the world. Foo Fighters, PJ Harvey, Róisín Murphy, Jane’s Addiction – those were my must have, so, fond of the memories from the past two years, I packed my cameras and went, full of hopes and dreams.
Report by Francesca Garattoni
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• Day 1 •
The shocking arrival
Forget that delightful moment when you first see the spikes of the Orange Stage peaking through the trees.
Forget feeling butterflies in the stomach at the thought of all the artists that walked those grounds and that made history at the festival.
Loaded like a sherpa on the Himalaya, run. Just run. Head down, dribble people, avoid the last lawn mowers refining the grass, show your wristband at the check points and walk. Fast. The White Rabbit in my head screaming “It’s late! It’s late!”, because, without decent notice, new rules to secure access to the main stages were announced earlier in the morning and I had to get to the press area before 12:30 instead of the usual 14:00.
It was like getting up with the wrong foot and that feeling of something off persisted throughout all the days. The unsettling thing was that it was not just me, but everyone among my circle of photographers friends were feeling it, like an inexplicable tension.
Breathe. Calm down. I made it.
After an extensive round of hugs with the closest friends I usually share the pit with and those that I’m happy to find year after year at Roskilde, it was soon time to wear the purple vest and go out for the run at the opening of the gates. Weirdly enough, the other side of the gate was empty. No big crowd eager to flood the grounds, running as fast as possible to be the first to touch the Orange Stage as per tradition.
What’s going on?!
With a new opening gate protocol, another tradition of the festival disappeared and I could do nothing but turn around and retreat in the backstage village.
At least, with this change of plans, I had time to fit in Better Lovers before my first planned concert to shoot at 19:00. Given the mood, a metalcore band with Greg Puciato as frontman was exactly what I needed to try and get rid of the bleah-ness I was feeling and that didn’t disappoint: energetic, liberating, with a lot of activity on stage and in the crowd, a very good start.
Next up, Frank Carter and The Rattlesnakes: you understand it’s the concert to be at when the gotha of photographers attend it, squeezing in the pit of one of the minor stages. I haven’t seen Frank Carter since his days with the band Gallows, a young redhead punk spitting on the crowd, and I’m very pleased to have found a more mature, decently mannered man on stage, although “on stage” isn’t the place that Frank prefers, given that already at the second song he jumped into the crowd, creating ladies and minorities only mosh pits and walking over the heads of his adoring fan base. Nice.
One of the highlights of my daily plan were Bar Italia later in the evening, indie pop from the UK that we have heard and read a lot and I was very curious to see live. Perfect fit for the Gaia stage, with its rows of lightbulbs on the ceiling that create an intimate and warm atmosphere, this down to earth band would have been a delight to see beyond the third song. But duty calls and Doja Cat was up next on the Orange Stage, so, once again, go, run, fence the crowd, find the new entrance for the stage and pat yourself on the shoulder for having put the 2x teleconverter in the pocket because, surprise surprise, no access to the pit but we were allocated to the first barrier behind the crowd. A huge, tall runway extended in front of the stage and occluded the little view we could have had, behind thousands of hands and phones raised above the heads. Maybe it was not all that bad not being able to see what was on stage: huge hills that at a first glance looked like made of hay, but at a more attentive look, they were made of blonde wigs! Oh, the disgust! Doja Cat perfomance was nothing remarkable, beige as her almost non-existent outfit, blonde as her hairdo and shabby like her porn secretary glasses.
Let’s move on from that waste of time and focus on the main event, for me, of the day: Heilung at the Arena stage, where I had no pit access but I could find a good spot among the crowd to admire the primitive Viking rituals and primordial music of the band on stage. The stage itself was grand, with trees and props that seemed taken from the local anthropological museum; the crowd, in mystical awe, was responding like at a mass and, for once, being among the people made me feel the music deeply under my skin.
I couldn’t indulge much long, though, because the last concert I planned for the day was coming up soon, again at the Orange Stage: Jungle at 1:00. Got in front of the stage, the setup wasn’t promising anything really different from what I saw a couple of years ago; rain was starting to fall, I felt all my years on my shoulders despite I want to believe I’m still young and I decided before the show even began that a warm and dry bed was a way more interesting way to end the day.
• Day 2 •
The delays
My day started in the early afternoon with an intimate performance of Kara Jackson, singer and poetess, in front of a very intimate crowd. Because of the long distances between stages and press area, I decide to not cross the whole festival grounds but just patiently wait for While She Sleeps in the remote lands of the Eos stage. The time for the band to get on stage came and passed by: problems with the stage, a lift would have arrived soon to fix it. I realised that soon is a very flexible concept, because it took 45 minutes for the lift to come, fix and go. This delay didn’t prevent While She Sleeps to deliver a top notch performance and the crowd was even more pumped by the long wait.
Despite the best efforts of the staff to swap equipment on the stage, Belle and Sebastian had to push their performance by 30 minutes making it impossible for me to go and see Gel on my way back to the backstage village. At least, at that point, I could stay and enjoy the band from Glasgow, with their kind and timeless indie pop among a very well mannered (and a bit up in age) crowd.
Time to leave the far far away lands and focus on a couple of rap acts: Noname, on the very photographer friendly Avalon stage, and 21 Savage on the Orange Stage. While Noname’s performance was warm and relatable, 21 Savage attitude, or better his DJ opening and warming up the crowd, was borderline insulting for stage it took place. Herds of kids crammed at the rail and this moron of a DJ pumping them to create a mosh pit: even for someone who has zero knowledge of Denmark geography, that calls Roskilde “Copenhagen”, inciting a mosh pit on the same ground that 24 years ago took the lives of nine people it’s disrespectful in countless ways. About 21 Savage, what to say? A man with a tattooed face, wandering on an empty stage with a microphone in front of tens of thousands people.
My day ended with a rookie mistake: I opted for the close-to-reach stage with the trendy name playing instead of another crossing of the whole festival grounds (we’re talking of approx 1 Km), so I ended up shooting at a very shabby PinkPantheress instead of the more classy The Last Dinner Party. At least, by shooting PinkPantheress, I could confirm that the latest trend on stage is “the shopping lady”: singing and dancing with a shoulder bag. Why? Can anyone explain me? And if that’s really a trend, at least, please, do it with a bit of taste and style, not looking as you’re going to the grocery store late night because you’re out of milk.
• Day 3 •
The Rock’n’Roll
Today is the big day. Today is Foo Fighters day.
With two out of the three limited entry concerts requested granted, I begin the day trying my luck to get access to two more restricted concerts: Alvvays and Aurora. With a pack of stickers in my pocket worth of a Pokémon player, I’m good to go.
Throughout the day the main concern among us photographers was about Foo Fighters: would they allow us to shoot from the pit, from front of the house or to shoot at all?
In the meantime, show must go on, therefore I keep myself occupied with a couple of female acts: Aurora on Orange Stage and one of the latest Rock Queens Kim Gordon at Avalon. While Aurora’s perfomance is fresh and ethereal, with her layered dress beautifully floating in the wind creating many interesting photo occasions for us in the pit, Kim Gordon was totally the opposite: dark, hard and monolithic. It was undoubtedly a privilege standing in front of such icon, but the feeling was she didn’t really want to be on stage; no emotions flow between her and the crowd.
Still no news about Foo Fighters photo policy, but Alvvays surprised us all with a no pit access and the following request: “No closeups of face and only pictures from waist and up”. Ok – let’s do that you don’t get pictures at all so we’re on the safe side and we, camera-carrying people, don’t do anything you might not like. Do we come and tell you how to play your songs? No. So, dear musicians, let us do our job how we believe best.
Then the announcement from Foo Fighters finally arrived: first three songs from behind the audience pit. This means long, heavy lenses and the need to have a line of view above the hands of the crowd. The air in the press room was electric, tense, everyone checking their own equipment to be ready to the big show not of the day but of the whole festival because, let’s be honest, so far it was quite boring.
Loaded with cameras, monopods, foldable stools and a lot of expectations, we get escorted to our allocated spot. First bad surprise: we cannot use our stools. Despite we were in an area where we wouldn’t have blocked security in any way, nor the view of the crowd behind us, we had to shoot with our feet on the ground. It is already difficult enough to deliver a good photo report with only three song, shot from hundreds of meters away from the stage, and we have also to do that with our cameras stretched over our heads? That’s not photography, that’s try to blindly catch something, hope you’re a good enough photographer to know which shutter times and apertures to use to get something good and pray in the performance of your equipment. Where’s the art in this? Oh, there was also a second bad surprise: on the way out from our spot, we were pushed back by security saying we had another song to shoot! Great! Unfortunately the security of the stage was not that well coordinated so we were caught in a discussion between staff and the extra potential song was over. Thank you very much for the splendid organization.
At least my day ended with a real performer on stage. The chameleonic and theatrical Róisín Murphy delighted us and the crowd with three outfit change in three songs, delivering what is expected from an artist: art, performance and connection.
Spirit lifted in the end.
• Day 4 •
The Rain and the Relief
Finally, I got to the end of this Roskilde Festival. The last day seems all downhill after the boredom of the first two days and the tension of the Friday.
The plan for the day is minimal and minimalistic: two must have names, a couple of indie, niche acts and maybe one last pop star to close the Orange Stage.
Throughout the day rumors were that SZA didn’t want photographers at her concert, but I wouldn’t have been heartbroken by that.
The game of the day was to avoid the heavy random rain showers that poured down from the sky, plan the concerts to shoot and the transfers among stages to minimize the extra layers of rainwear and keep the cameras dry. I was successful at that game for the first two acts, the adorable indie English Teacher and the terribly boring but talented Lankum, then by the time to go and step on the platform in the pit for PJ Harvey, the sky defeated all of us with a massive downpour. Many years in the Scouts taught me well and my layers kept me and the cameras dry, but still, it wasn’t pleasant at all. The rain passed, leaving a dripping Orange Stage over our heads and allowing the divine PJ Harvey mesmerize the many patiently waiting for her.
This was my goodbye to the most iconic stage of the festival, its swan song, its last year. What the new stage that will replace it will be, no one knows yet; perhaps it’ll still be orange, for sure it’ll be bigger to accommodate bigger productions, my hope is it’ll not end up being soulless.
Goodbye, Orange Stage. Goodbye, good luck duckie.
While waiting for Jane’s Addiction, the text with the confirmation of the total photo ban for SZA came in. I was told I had the first genuine smile of the four days on my face because of it: what I read in that text was the projection of me driving the 200 Km that separated me from home at a decent hour of the night and a fantastic sleep in my own bed.
Last concert for the day, then, it was Jane’s Addiction, one of those bands that you must go and see when they’re around. While Perry Farrell was dressed like he had to participate to an Alpine guard meetup and Dave Navarro seemed displaced from a Sergio Leone movie, the two of them were like focus magnets for the (sadly) slightly sparse audience, able to effortlessly and powerfully deliver an amazing performance.
Returned to the press area, it was time to pack and say my goodbyes to the lovely and talented people I had the pleasure to spend these four days with. Maybe, see you next year.
