If Music Be The Food Of Love. . .Rock On!

So, as sure as day follows night and tock follows tick, so arrives another update in the greatest piece of 21st century literature since yesterdays copy of The Sun.

I've just arrived back in the land of the living having been at the Roskilde music festival for 6 days. I arrived back into Copenhagen in the early hours of Monday morning on what was something akin to Madnesses 'Night Boat To Ciaro', except it was a train and I was going to Copenhagen. The reason for this hasty departure from the festival was because we appeared to somehow get camped in the scally part of the festival site where 16 year old kids thought it'd be a top notch idea to set fire to tents. I know my tent stinks but arson is a bit strong! I'll get on to talking about the festival and Denmark in a minute, but first we have the small matter of Berlin to contend with.

As I'm sure you remember (and if you don't just scroll down and read it again) I signed off last time by mentioning the Berlin wall and a certain Mr Hasselhoff and my mission to locate both. Unfortunately, but perhaps more significantly, I only managed to loacte the wall. It was the longest stretch at some 300m and it did make you think about the the odd history Germany has had but also what a crap job the Russians did in trying to stamp their authority on the world. I was diassapointed to find that the aforementioned Mr Hasselhoff wasn't still 'Dancing To Freedom' atop the wall, but let's face it it was always a long shot!

To give a brief overview on what else Berlin had to offer, Checkpoint Charlie was quite interesting, The Jewish Museum (a museum about the history of Jews, turns out they don't have a very interesting history) the Reichstag and the Bradenburg gate. Just a quick comment on the gate, apparantly I was 1 of 1 million people there to witness Germany against Sweeden. That is a lot of people to watch television.

Now, as many of you are aware I'm not exactly a fan of what the kid's call 'dance music', infact i'd even go so far as to say "burn down the disco, hang the blessed DJ" (Morrisey/Marr) But that said Berlin is meant to be the capital of European club culture so I thought I'd put on my dancing shoes and hit the dancefloor. However, in my own inimitable style, we mangaed to end up in a place that bared more than a striking resemblence to the loft in which Oliver Twist, The Artful Dodger, Fagen and Bill Sykes AKA Oliver Reed lived i.e. it was a shithole. The whole feel of it was nicely complemented by the fact that instead of having your run of the mill furniture they had deck chairs.

A couple of final things on Berlin, on the way to the Brandenburg Gate you had to walk past the Adlon Hotel i.e. the hotel from which Michael Jackson felt it necesary to dangle his baby over the balcony. Chamone Motherf*cker!! Also, and this doesn't relate to Berlin specifically but more so to every country I've been to so far. It appears that you don't have to pay for public transport in Europe, I mean, yes, you are supposed to and, no, it's not optional but no one actually pays, it's quite remarkable really.

As for the rating the old east Germany gets i'll give it a decent score of 7.61. It was good just not as good as it's western counterpart.

Next stop after Germany was Copenhagen before Roskilde and the train journey was incredible for the sole reason that the train transformed into a ferry. I'm not talking the full Optimus Prime routine here obviously but the train had to be parked on a ferry to take us across the island on which Copenhagen is located. A bit more advanced than Richard Branson and his tilting tracks!

Not much really happened in Copenhagen, although I did make a sucessful return to the Sydney Two For One Tuesday eating contests when I consumed a pizza that was at least 22 inches in diameter - viva la junkfood!

Get ready to rock out now because i'm about to turn the amps up to 11 and tell you about Roskilde and it has to be said it was brilliant. However, it was on the first night when there was no music and I was bored out my tree drinking cans of warm Tuborg and upmarket goon that I decided as a trainee lawyer I was maybe a bit too old for this camping and not washing lark and made the conscious descision that this was to be my last festival. However, Thursday came around, the music started and I soon changed my mind.

The day kicked off rather late with Editors followed by Radio Soulwax, a little bit of Guns 'n' Roses (I missed most of this because I'd heard that the singer wasn't gonna turn up because he had been arrested for biting a security gaurd). After that I moved on to watch Sigur Ros, who were wicked right up until the point that somebody vomited on my shoes. These, were no ordinary shoes either, these were the same pair of Converse Allstars that I have been wearing for the last 5 years and I was going to retire them in some kind of prize giving ceremony at the end of the festival but the vomiter went and ruined all that.

Anyway enough of the sentimental crap, Friday saw me entertained by the likes of Babar Luck, Gogol Bordello, Martha Wainwright, Morrisey, Rufus Wainwright, Bob Dylan and The Streets. I have to give a special mention to Bob Dylan in the most uncomplementry way possible as he was shite to an unbelievable level.

Saturday.Football.Portugal.Wankers.Bollocks. Other than that I went to see a DJ called Tiga who played a rather dubious version of Everyday I Love You Less And Less by the Kaiser Chiefs and Kanye West who did a mega mix approaching Jive Bunny proportions which included Eurythmics, The Verve, Al Green, Michael Jackson and A-Ha.Bonkers.

I´ve already told you how Sunday finished but that was in direct contrast to the rest of the day which began with Arctic Monkeys, followed closely by The Strokes who were absolutly brilliant, then Franz Ferdinand and finally the Kaiser Chiefs who were most entertaining indeed. I would have gone back to see Roger Waters do Dark Side Of The Moon in full, but for a couple of reasons i.e. he´s shit and a pikey was going to burn my tent down I left early. I also went swimming on Sunday, that´s right, they had a swimming lake at a festival. If you are reading Mr Eavis, pull your socks up and get that sorted for Glastonbury next year please.Thank you.

Anyway, I´m in Switzerland now, and rest assured I´ll give you the lowdown on that soon but Denmark gets a score of 8.5, mainly because of the festival. If it was for the actual country it´s self it would still score quite highly but it would be more in the 7.1 region as it is so expensive and there is not a great deal to do.

I´m going now,
Rich