The Copenhagen Report

This years line-up for the annual Roskilde Festival is looking pretty good. It's likely not the best ever, but it's pretty solid. A nice mix of the tried and true alongside the untested and new. And with the release of the daily program yesterday, the final countdown is now on.

Myself, I've seen The Red Hot Chilli Peppers (outstanding performance), Bjork (memorable) and Basement Jaxx (great to dance along to) performing at Roskilde before. This year among the biggest names, The Who should be a treat, and perhaps the Beastie Boys, as well. The two I'm most anticipating are The Killers and The Sounds. Arcade Fire (from my home country Canada) should be very good along with Trentemøller (to throw in a bit of Danish content).

And there are plenty of diversity amongst the lesser-knowns, which suggests plenty of potential to surprise, which is generally what separates the good Festivals from the great ones. Pleasant surprises always happen wandering from concert to concert.

Oh, and the Roskilde Festival also happens to be sold out (once again). That's 75,000 tickets, I believe. So if you want to go and you haven't got your ticket already, well, you're probably going to have to be creative to get one (or fork over a lot of money). If you're determined enough, there's always a way to get there for free. There's something like 10,000 volunteers doing a variety of job - from glorious to gruesome - the general agreement is for you work 3 x 8 hour shifts, and for that get into the festival for free. The range of jobs I've known people to have run from being the mc introducing the bands on one of the stages (what more could you want?) to cleaning washrooms (yes, I'd sooner pay for the ticket twice over...). Stage security at one of the smaller stages is also a good one, and the classic (and perhaps most common) job of working at one of the take-out stands is never a bad deal.

And the best thing of all about going to Roskilde Festival, aside from the music, is avoiding that horrible feeling of regret that tends to hit the week of the festival when Copenhagen's bars and clubs become oddly quiet. And plenty of grubby but excited individuals with backpacks and boomboxes can be seen at the train stations all across Copenhagen.