Roskilde Festival 2009 is a thing of the past and it’s time for a flashback. Considering you had 67.000 hardcore festival-goers plus 12.000 one-day guests gathered on a field outside Roskilde, it is amazing how few problems arose. Organization is one reason, and Roskilde Festival’s impeccable here, another – even more – impressing is the audience. Everywhere you look and go people have joined together with one purpose: Making this the best party possible.

Every type is represented, from the calm and collected to the plain mad. From the very influenced Icelandic dude who could only present a wristband saying “unknown male” from a visit to the local hospital the night before, but claimed to be like illusionist David Blaine (“everywhere I want to get in, I get in”), over the English guy who visited Denmark and the festival for the first time and was so incredibly happy and excited about everything (“I’m definitely coming back to Denmark at least once a year”), to a heavyset Norwegian fellow who didn’t talk, but instead forced copious amounts of lukewarm white wine down our throats, causing a very early Friday night demise of editor Krogholm (last seen that evening leaving Roskilde wearing a not really becoming straw hat).

It takes all kinds, it’s been said, and it couldn’t be more true in this case. And then there’s of course the music. Which brings us to the pick of the gigs as heard by yours truly, Thomas Brunstrøm (TB) and Peter Krogholm (PK).

Post Scriptum: All photos by kind permission of RockPhoto, the official Roskilde Festival photographers. See more and buy your favorites at RockPhoto.dk.

MFMB - Photo by Anders Birch/ROCKPHOTO

MFMB (SE) – Tuesday, Pavilion Junior
Not so long ago I spoke highly of Swedish electrorock outfit MFMB’s debut release(s) (explanation and review here) so there really was no way around their Roskilde debut. Fortunately they didn’t disappoint, although they did come off to a rocky start where a combo of nerves, bad sound and a not great first song (a new one that seemed oddly detached from the rest of their repertoire stylistically) did little to engage the “afternoon in the sun”-crowd in- and outside the tent. However, the quintet took it home in the end, not least with massive hits ‘Tune On’ and ‘Control’, some very promising new material (didn’t catch any titles) and great energy on stage. (PK)

Alamaailman Vasarat (SF) – Thursday, Astoria
That Finns have an affinity with metal is a well known fact, but regular readers of ALL SCANDINAVIAN know that there is more to Finland than heavy metal. Even so it seems that they do have a hard time not throwing in just a bit, even when they do instrumental klezmer. As it is the case with Helsinki six-piece Alamaailman Vasarat (“The Hammers of the Underworld”). Heavily distorted cellos, in the opening riff played with a giant plastic comb, trombone, pump organ and a wide variety of saxophones played by frontman Jarno “Stakula” Sarkula (who looks like a bad guy from a Dickens novel) are just some of the elements which helped make this a delightfully avant-garde and fun experience. (PK)

Katzenjammer - Photo by Ditte Valente/ROCKPHOTO

Katzenjammer (NO) – Thursday, Pavilion
Leaving the klezmer-metal Finns I headed down the hill to catch a glimpse of the great Norwegian country-folk girl quartet Katzenjammer. And it was literally just a glimpse as their rumor as a grand live band had preceded them. A packed tent jumped and danced, which is pretty much impossible not to when being treated to the songs from debut ‘Le Pop’ (2008) by such a well playing and absolutely adorable band like this. They just carved a big smile on my face and added to my long running theory that if it had been the Norwegians who’d started WW II, nobody would have been really mad. (PK)

Trentemøller (DK) – Thursday, Orange
One of the most anticipated events at this year’s Roskilde Festival was Trentemøller’s DJ-set/concert on the main stage Thursday night. Abandoning the tradition with an early first night, the Danish DJ had been given free hands and thanked by delivering a two our set of thumping house, elegant mash-ups with among many others Britney Spears, Joy Division and Bruce Springsteen and a wide range of special guests from the Danish scene, among them legendary punk singer Steen Jørgensen (Sods, Sort Sol) who took the stage and co-delivered a highlight with Trentemøller’s excellent clash of Soft Cell’s ‘Tainted Love’ and Sods 1979-classic ‘Copenhagen’. I must admit I had my doubts whether a DJ-set could stand the test of the intimidating main stage, but they were for the most part put to shame. There were a few dead passages here and there, but all in all Trentemøller managed to create a show and a party more than worthy of repetition. (PK)

Volbeat - Photo by Jens Dige/ROCKPHOTO

Volbeat (DK) – Friday, Orange
I first saw Volbeat live at Roskilde Festival in 2006 playing at 2PM at the small Odeon Stage. In 2007 they opened Orange and this year they returned as a Roskilde household name. It’s quite interesting to see how the Danish metal ’n’ rollers have changed from a band where you can’t help but wonder if they got enough material to fill out an hour to a band than can easily play great songs for an hour and a half and still leave out some of your favorites (Oi! What’s wrong with playing ‘Soulweeper’ all of a sudden?!). Besides leaving out a few of my favorites, frontman Michael Poulsen (donning a snappy shirt/vest/tie-combo – Roskilde is still a special occasion) and the rest of the band played a great set with all the hits from their two latest albums and a handful of songs from their debut, ‘The Strength/The Sound/The Songs’, to please the “I liked their earlier stuff better”-crowd. The thousands of people enjoying the sun, the beer and the brilliant rock‘n’roll were even treated to a new song that might or might not make it to the new album when Volbeat enters the studio in January next year. However, judging by the crowd’s reaction to the song featuring a guitar riff a la Queens Of The Stone Age’s ‘No One Knows’ and a chorus suitable for both headbanging and sing-a-long it probably will. (TB)

Skambankt (NO) – Friday, Odeon
Many things went through my mind while listening to Norwegian Skambankt Saturday night, e.g. “Wow, this is awesome” and “I think I might need to throw up at some point”. The latter was brought on by a Norwegian fan the size of a small car who repeatedly insisted on putting the ALL SCANDINAVIAN editor in chief and myself in headlocks and forcing lukewarm white wine down our throats. The first thought was brought on by the fact that the pönk rockers from Norway are great on record but awesome live. Terje Winterstø has made yelling in key into an art form, Hans Abelsnes knows that if you are the proud owner of a Gibson SG you shouldn’t just play, you might as well show off doing it, and the band in general does not so much play concerts as they throw parties. Parties with shouty anthems like ‘Dynasty’ and ‘Malin’, plenty of air guitar wielding – and now lots of cheap white wine. (Incidentally, I managed to get through the night without throwing up. I don’t like to point fingers, but let’s just say that the editor wasn’t as lucky…). (TB)

Tim Christensen - Photo by Ditte Valente/ROCKPHOTO

Tim Christensen (DK) – Saturday, Arena
I have mixed feelings about Tim Christensen. His solo efforts contain great songwriting but they are also very acoustic, melancholic and honestly borderline whiny. The first half of the concert was impeccable - Christensen’s band is great, he is an excellent guitarist but the whole thing was a tad boring. However, then Christensen decided to remind everyone that once upon a time he was Denmark’s grunge king numero uno, fronting the massively successful Dizzy Mizz Lizzy, and launched into brilliant versions of solo song ‘Get The Fuck Out Of My Mind’ from 2001 and then Dizzy classics ‘Rotator’ (1996), ‘Waterline’ and ‘Silverflame’ (both 1994). The more he stepped back in time, the more the crowd loved it – even teenagers who were hardly born when Dizzy debuted. It is nice to see that even though Tim Christensen has gone mellow on us his rock legacy lives on. (TB)

Dawn Of Demise (DK) – Saturday, Pavilion
The metal bands, especially the Scandinavian ones, weren’t treated nicely this year when Roskilde handed out gig times as most of them were playing ridiculously early in the day. Dawn of Demise played at 1PM which in Roskilde time is early in the morning, but the Danish death metal outfit did a honorable job nonetheless. Their take on death metal isn’t exactly new and exiting but they are tight and certainly energetic. And the fans were treated to a nice surprise visit by Jacob Bredahl (formerly of Hatesphere, now Last Mile), who decided to come by and scream along on the final track. Great. (TB)

Oh No Ono - Photo by Anders Birch/ROCKPHOTO

Oh No Ono (DK) – Saturday, Odeon
They really are a creative powerhouse, Danish quintet Oh No Ono. Their recently released second effort, ‘Eggs’, have abandoned much of the debut’s (‘Yes’, 2006) futuristic and manic expression for more grandiose, downtempo 1960s psychedelic rock which worked really well live. Not least because they are impressively tight and here struck the near-perfect balance between the organic band and the many orchestral samples needed to deliver the songs from ‘Eggs’. Unsurprisingly the bulk of the set-list was from this second album, but a couple of debut oldies snuck in along with a live premiere with a gutsy cover of Radiohead’s ‘Weird Fishes/Arpeggi’. (PK)

The Whitest Boy Alive (NO) – Sunday, Arena
A pleasant drop in temperature after three days of baking hot weather, a beautiful girl in a big-ass, red cardboard fez on my left, the above mentioned happy English dude on my right and a brilliantly dedicated audience clapping, dancing and singing along from the get-go couldn’t have matched Norwegian/German outfit The Whitest Boy Alive’s laid back funk-jazz-disco-pop better. Fronted by the very understated and quite funny Erlend Øye, looking like a guy who spend more time on math than girls in high school, they created an immensely pleasing hole in the time-space continuum with Øye’s little-big songs, aiming for both heart, mind and dancing shoes. The Whitest Boy Alive played a much hailed concert at Roskilde 2007, which I missed, so I can’t really say if this one matched. But it was really rather good… (PK)