Lister

Håkan Hellström and Roskilde Festival go back a long way. He went to Roskilde Festival for the first time in 1991 with his mum and dad.

”It was really funny – here you got to do all the things you couldn’t do in Sweden. All the forbidden things.”

The camp site has now been replaced with an entirely different setting – than Orange Stage. A development that Håkan is very proud of.

”First of all it’s an honour. I probably would have been pleased with playing on one of the other stages, but now that it’s Orange Stage, I think its fun,” he says.

It is a unique experience to perform at a festival.

”There is something very powerful about festival concerts. It is an amazing feeling to play for so many people as you do on a festival. Club concerts are more intimate, but I actually enjoy both types of concerts,” Hellström says.

More mature, but still childish
The last time Håkan Hellström visited Roskilde Festival was in 2005. Since then he has been on one of his rare vacations as well as become a father.

”I have definitely become more mature. For instance I can’t allow myself to wake up in the middle of a field, as I did 10 years ago. But I am still the same old fool that I’ve always been. Not much difference there,” Håkan explains.

Thus the audience will meet a more mature and grown-up man Saturday afternoon. This, however, will hardly reflect on his performance – it will still be as playful as usual.

The Swedish singer does not have an extensive festival tour planned this year. Besides Roskilde Festival he only plays at a festival in Norway and one in Sweden this summer. So unlike most of the performing artists, Hellström has time to hang around on the festival site after the concert Saturday.

"I’m going to see Dungen, Fever Ray and Slipknot," he says.