Impressions from Roskilde Festival '01

Arriving thursday about 1 pm we thought it would be easy to find an empty place for the tent, but the camping areas were already crowded with tents, so we were lucky with the place we got in the most north west corner of the festival area.

We planned to listen to Placebo as our first gig at Roskilde, but it turned out rather powerless, for sure the worst of so far 3 Placebo gigs. Especially the first 7 or 8 songs sounded like Brian wanted to make something special but failed quite miserable. After I recently got a recording from St. Gallen from the day after I was more than impressed by the great show they did there, just 24 hours later, but so much better ...

After the bad accident last year, security was said to be well improved. Apart from the fences that probably did their job I must say that the crowd security was great, they gave water to everyone who asked and even smiled when you gave them your rubbish ...

The next show on thursday evening was Tool, some friends recommended them to me, and after all it turned out that this was already the highlight of Roskilde '01 (at least to me). Such a fantastic show, videos perfectly supporting the music, excellent (if anyone has a recording of this show, please let me know).

... some impressions from Orange Stage ...

Friday was to see Nick Cave (after some good shows at the afternoon like The Gathering). I don't like his music that much, but his show was also very good, great show, dark and intense atmosphere - I guess I would go to see him again just to catch this atmosphere again. This turned surprisingly out to be the second highlight of Roskilde '01 (again, if anyone has a recording of this show, please let me know).

Not much to say about saturday. Bob Dylan was nice to see live. PJ Harvey was quite nice live, but not too impressing, I listened afterwards to her latest album and it was less impressing. Stereo MCs were funny, good for a laugh.

Sunday was waiting for The Cure ...

From 2 pm onwards the meeting point was crowded by many Cure fans mostly from Finland, Belgium, and Germany.

Special thanks go to Beachy who is probably the most obsessed fan I've met so far, you were so nice :)

Also many thanks for all the other guys I saw there, special greetings to Candide :)

Early in the afternoon the first fans were already 'sitting in line' to get to the front rows late in the evening.

Before starting standing in line to get into the front rows, we took a short glance at Apocalyptica, quite great sound from 4 celli, definately worth listening to for a while ...

... and people were sitting also in great numbers outside the tent, seems that Green Stage was a bit too small for the bands that played there!?

Then it was time to stand in line to get in the front rows, that is watching 2 hours Patti Smith on the screens that doesn't help waiting for the show that would come at 10 pm.

Finally Patti Smith finished, security cleared the front rows from rubbish, and the fans were let in there. When opening the gate people were pushing from behind that hard that probably those 3 security guys couldn't have helped if someone stumbled ... maybe one thing that's to be improved with security in the future.

In the afternoon there was some speculation about the setlist, but this had an end when at 10 pm the Adagio started again and brought back the memories from last year. The Adagio was played quite a bit longer than usual and they finally started with the well known songs.

The first surprise was to see Trust early in the main set (didn't really fit between Open and Maybe Someday, nevertheless nice to hear), this should remain the only surprise in the setlist. I think it's the first time that they recycled that much from a past tour. The only valid argument may be that this was replacing last year's concert.

Maybe it was because of the predictable setlist, but probably not ... the band played very concentrated and all (good versions of Kiss and 100 Years (though lights were missing)), but to me it seemed more a routine gig than that they were enjoying playing that much. I was standing in front of Simon and Perry, no smile from those two for the whole concert, almost no smiles from Roger and Robert, too. I couldn't see Jason, so I can't tell for him. Don't get me wrong, the concert was still very good, but to me far less excellent than last year's shows.

Finally, it was great to see The Cure live again, and the fan meeting was so much fun, in addition especially Tool, Nick Cave, and all this friendlyness and the nice wheater made Roskilde more than worth while the long ride.

See you again in Roskilde '02? We'll see ...

ps: sorry, no photos from The Cure, the camera broke at the beginning of the show, for photos, see Roskilde at Chain of Flowers and Candide's review at his site. More reviews in the Roskilde Festival Reviews Dream Book (1st part) at One Hundred Years.