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Pills, thrills and backaches
Upon failing to successfully fold a full-sized mattress into my rucksack, I packed myself off down to ÖoB and Apoteket to pick up some proper camping gear.
A pack of headache pills, ear plugs, sleeping mask, inflatable ‘mattress’, 3.5 tog sleeping bag, wet wipes, dust mask, wellington boots and one mess set later, and I was ready for Operation Shock and eh, yeah, Roskilde.
I’m arriving down on Wednesday, a full three days after the hardcore fans set up camp. No doubt my efforts to put up tent will provide this bunch with an afternoon of entertainment before the music begins. Footage of me wrestling with ropes and canvas will probably be on YouTube or whatever Web 3.0 website the zeitgeist-hopping teens have chosen to broadcast their lives on by Thursday morning.
I’m hoping the tent I’m bringing is as simple to erect as it looks. I’ve been there before, hammering pegs into solid rock until they bend like paperclips, unfurling complex layers of material and bunting and basically humiliating myself. Final constructions have resembled Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim Museum drawn by a maladroit llama with a crayon strapped to its hoof. This time I’m hoping tent makers have catered for me, things appear – at least according to the instructions – to have moved on in the tent-design world since I last attempted such ill-advised folly.
This progress seems to be mirrored also by the rock festival organisers. Last time around (back in 1994) I was left clutching a decrepit, rain-soaked sheet of paper with a barely legible list of Britpop bands by the second day. This time I can log on to the Roskilde festival website, pick and choose the bands I want to see and then I get an email sent to me with an entire schedule. And I can access it online or through my mobile phone, if it was newer than a beat-up 2003 Nokia. It’s almost civilised.
But with one day to go, I’m optimistic. I can see the fields of green and heard the sweet music of Gossip, the highlight of my Thursday evening. If the ground is dry, has a little give and my tent pops out of its bag a fully formed three bedroom suburban house and I don’t forget my wet wipes, this festival malarkey might just work out for me….
Until Thursday, then…
