Lister

The sun is shining, birds are singing, and one of the Festival’s few Swedes throws up in his neighbour’s tent. Roskilde ’09 is raving, and people have put up their bamboo fences and planted a few green plants. Orange Press went for a walk on the grounds with their ‘estate agent' hat on.

The Strip

Some new things have happened in the camping area this year, and one of them is the strip at Agora E, or ’The Strip’ as it is called among the mob. This is particularly dominated by Promilleservice (‘blood alcohol level service’), Van Damme Camp and Orange Camp, where music is played with the whole body. In the backstage area at Orange Camp the boys are sitting around recharging their batteries for another day of live music. Their solar panel generates 35 watts, and that’s plenty to keep the sound system going.

2009 Climate

Behind this camp is the new Strandvejen (coastal road north of Copenhagen with DK’s most expensive addresses, ed.), the poshest of the posh, the part of the camping area you have to be worthy of living in: Climate Community. The sound of the words smells like champagne and cocktail parties, and as you would expect the paths are totally neat and tidy.

However, during a chat with Camp Lange Løg (Camp Long Onions) we learn that you can’t keep safe, even amongst the posh. They had their mobile and a solar driven light string stolen and would like to call on the thief to return the effects, as burglary is simply ‘low-down’.

A little further up the hill, you find DTU-positive energy. Here resides a flock of nerds that have a giant teepee with a windmill, solar panel and an enormous dome with mirror ball and energysaving huge speakers. They are about to embark on a luxury brunch consisting of refrigerator-cold mackerel in tomato sauce on bread that hasn’t been stepped on. Aren’t they lucky, the posh.

The provinces

A different atmosphere is found down by the train stop in G. Especially the last piece of ground next to the tracks is clearly reserved for the brutal working class. Collapsed tents, people sleeping in other persons’ urine, the smell of diesel from the trains thundering by. It is hard and down-to-earth, and it is pulsating with a totally different energy. No worse, no better, just different.

Towards the East: Fancy summerhouse area

In East a kind of beach holiday culture has established itself, and the crystal ball predicts that this side of the Festival is definitely on the way up again. After having been looked down on a little by the West-campers, since the evil gravel pit took over the camping area formerly so sought after, since it is close to the Festival ground. It’s a bit like suburbs exchanging ‘hipness’.

East also offers unique opportunities for the creative. The town centre is efficient, the swimming lake is close, and it is not far to Arena and Orange. The imminent danger of being torn down by a mud slide, if so much as one drop of water should fall, of course deducts a few points in the over all assessment.

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