Lister

By Søren Folke Larsen

Translated by Tim Lawson

In fact, the area in front of the largest of Roskilde Festival's stages looks insignificantly small, when standing on the sideline to where Oasis, Nine Inch Nails, Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds and Pet Shop Boys are to win the festival-goers favour this year.

”It doesn´t look like much,” the guide says, “but when around 60,000 people are standing in front of you, it suddenly looks VERY big”, as we all think about how we feel and how it must be to be Noel Gallagher or Niel Tennant shouting “Hello Roskilde”.

The Promised Land

It is a dream for most, especially Danish bands, to one day stand on the leading Danish festival's stage, but it is only a few that get to the Promised Land. There are also limitations for the staff working at the stage. The musician area is still only for the chosen few.

“There is a shared understanding that we don’t bother them, and they don't bother us,” our guide explains as we pass through the closed area. It is nothing special, just a couple of benches and tables with flowers on them to make it cosier.

The stairs

We descend from the stage the same way as we ascended, by the stairway that the artists use, and it gives a little tummy tickle to think about how it must be to slowly climb the stairs, gradually seeing the sea of people in front of you.

As we are on our way out, a large bus with toned windows rolls into the artists area with the next band that can write themselves into Orange Stage’s history books. We leave the area with a little bit of magic.