Pitchfork

Crowd photo by Terje Sørgjerd

Welcome to Day 3 of Brandon Stosuy's Roskilde diary. For Day 2 (Thursday), click here. For Day 1 (Wednesday), here. For Jason Crock's Friday diary click here. For Jason Crock's Thursday diary, click here.

Big news: It stopped raining. Thing is, I'd started to enjoy the mix of adversity and music, so I'm happy to report that there's still plenty of mud-- by nightfall the muck had reached an interesting level of semi-firm, boot-grabbing suction. Still, minus the random sinkhole, it's easier now trudging between stages and beer stands.

Photo by Jane Lea

I could also finally confirm the existence of festival grounds beyond my peripheral-vision killing vinyl hood, and it turns out real people do, in fact, live and breathe beneath those homogenizing rain jackets, rain capes, and modified trash bags: People guzzling mid-sized containers of wine ("adult juice boxes," according to my fellow intrepid Pitchfork explorer), a girl in some plastic-looking outfit with a huge red "bad girl" hat, folks perched in the trees, posses lounging on huge piles of wood chips, kids eating lime 'n' chocolate ices, and a roving drum/horn/shaker troupe dressed in white and pulled on a float by folks in white t-shirts.

Photos by Jane Lea

I learned a few more things about Roskilde. A reader wrote in regarding the blow-up dolls that depict an alien fucking a cow: "There's an 'Alien Fucking Cow' camp somewhere out in those fields...just gotta look for their flag when the gigs are done for the night, or in the morning." The flags I see people carrying-- whale, "ass" (the word, not an image), Jolly Roger(s), lucky clover, different color stripes and different countries-- apparently signify the camps they're housed in during their stay. According to that same reader, on the last night folks hoist their entire tents aloft on "heavily-reinforced poles."

Katatonia [Odeon Stage; 4 p.m.]

Photo by Terje Sørgjerd

During Katatonia's set someone from camp System of a Down waved his logo proudly. I'm not usually a System fan, but would have welcomed them as a break from the Swedish crew's boring doom-lite melancholia.

In Flames [Orange Stage; 5 p.m.]
Photo by Terje Sørgjerd

In Flames were also surprisingly too easy listening: Dreadlocked vocalist Anders Fridén was decked in an Adidas warm-up jacket and Dickies, all old-school style, but at this point, post-Come Clarity, the Swedes' melodic death metal sounds more like radio-friendly alt-metal. At one point Fridén noted, "I was here when Rage Against the Machine was here... there were no words for it." How about "Audioslave"?

Anthony B [Cosmopol Stage; 12 a.m.]

Photo by Thomas Kjær

Unlike most festivals I've attended, Roskilde allows the band to play normal-sized sets, offering an opportunity to see four or five tracks from one group and then head elsewhere for fragments. I experienced a few bands this way: Beastie Boys-- seemingly everyone's favorite words of the day-- buoyant reggae dude Anthony B., Roky Erickson, and New Young Pony Club, whose vocalist Tahita Bulmer saucily, all diva-like told the crowd they had one song left to prove what they were made of. I was eating a spinach crepe, so couldn't prove myself just then.

One band I wish I'd seen less of: My Chemical Romance. It's official, Gerard Way sounds way horrible live, the triumph of The Black Parade is sucked in by his wheezing emo post-nasal drip.

Boris [Pavilion Stage; 7 p.m.] / Crowd

Photos by Jane Lea

Boris was the first actually heavy, satisfying set I caught on Friday: "Farewell" sounded gorgeous droning from the Pavilion tent along with the blue, yellow, and white lights, ample supplies of Sunn 0))) smoke and silver Viking ceiling hangings. When the trio kicked into "Pink", the lights switched to pink and red-- coincidence? As always, Atsuo, the hype-man drummer, yelled "Yeah!" and "Whoa!" louder than main vocalist Takeshi, while charming the crowd with his gong. The set was a great mix of drone and rock and gong ("Just Abandoned My-Self" sounded excellent). The crowd seemed to prefer the quickness: If a slower piece started, folks streamed out in droves. It hadn't been raining at all, but during Boris' set something extraordinary happened: The clouds parted and I spotted the sun.

Trentemøller [Arena Stage; 9 p.m.]

Photo by Thomas Kjær

While many of the guitar-toting acts were bland, the electro spinners brought down the house in gloriously light-synced ways. Danish ice sculptor Anders Trentemøller, joined by a full-band, felt every bit like a tambourine-toting Trent Reznor with his creepy, flickering stock footage: Betty Page striptease, 1950s-looking fresh-faced girls, a chorus line… Teddy Roosevelt? It was a truly revelatory set-- I want to rush home and put The Last Resort on repeat-- that contrasted heavily with the guys playing a drinking game to my left. Seriously, the second you want to stop fixating on the drinking, you walk past someone making a beer fountain, or someone tosses beer on your head, or an inventive soul fashions a physics-defying Tuborg gravitron.

M.A.N.D.Y. [Astoria Stage; 11:30 p.m.]

Photos by Jane Lea

During M.A.N.D.Y.'s set someone waved an acoustic guitar above the crowd: The poor wooden six-stringer seemed impotent astride a sea of dancers zoning out to the scratchy beats and huge, slow-release bass. At some point the lights that read "Astoria," marking the tent's name, switched to a red and blue "M.A.N.D.Y."-- and somewhere in there, screens projecting a "Booka Shade" logo ran alongside it. Our spinning, knob-twiddling leader made us wait awhile for that beat, teasing it out slowly-- the crowd rejoiced with each new interweaving-- before ending the set with a spun "keep the dream going."

Booka Shade [Astoria Stage; 12 a.m.]

Photo by Jane Lea

The dream continued quickly when Booka Shade took to the stage within five or so minutes. Walter Merziger and Arno Kammermeier, behind Blue Man Group instruments, got the body language going immediately, turning the space into even more of a free-for-all. Fittingly, they played along to projections of Star Wars-style light-speed stars.