Roskilde !!!

Here' s some information about the place where the Roskilde Festival is taking place.? Wink

The city of Roskilde

Roskilde is an ancient city, and was the capital of Denmark until about 1400, when that role transferred to Copenhagen. The Roskilde train station is a major stop between Copenhagen and the rest of the country west of the capital. Partly because of this, the city is a center of economics for the region with a central walking street (g?gade) with a myriad of shops, restaurants and cafes running down the center of the city. Several tourist attractions draw visitors from around Denmark and the world, along with an education program inviting international students to attend the local university for a year.

Roskilde Cathedral

The city's early importance is evident from the fact that the Roskilde Cathedral was the only cathedral in Zealand until the 20th century. Built in the 12th and 13th centuries, it was the first Gothic cathedral to be built of brick and its construction encouraged the spread of this style throughout northern Europe. The cathedral is the burial site for Danish monarchs and is a major tourist attraction attracting over 125,000 visitors annually. Since 1995 the cathedral has been listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. A working church, it also hosts concerts throughout the year.
Connected to the church is a palace. Roskilde Palace was built between 1733-36. Built onto of the former location of another palace (that of a former bishop of Roskilde), it is today a museum and residence of the current bishop of Roskilde.

Viking Ships

Another attraction in the city is the Viking Ship Museum (Vikingeskibs Museet). The centrepieces of its collection are the well-preserved remains of five longships and Warships, excavated from nearby Roskilde Fjord in the late 1960s. The ships were scuttled there in the 11th century to block a navigation channel, thus protecting the city which was then the Danish capital, from seaborne assault. The museum also undertakes research in experimental archaeology centred on Viking shipbuilding and seaworthiness. These five ships repersent two distinct classes of Viking Ships. The Longship and Warship. This does not exclude smaller fishing and ferryships, which range from 10 feet to 50 feet.

Roskilde Festival? beer

Since 1971 the Roskilde Festival, a rock music festival, has been held annually on the fairgrounds near Roskilde. It has grown to become one of the biggest rock/pop festivals in Europe. All profits from this festival are donated to charities. The fairgrounds are also the site of regionally popular agricultural and animal exhibitions, as well as large flea markets. [3]
Roskilde Festival is held south of Roskilde in Denmark and is one of the two biggest annual rock music festivals in Europe (the other being the Glastonbury festival). It was created in 1971 by two high school students, Mogens Sandf?r and Jesper Switzer M?ller, and promoter Carl Fischer. In 1973, the festival was taken over by the Roskilde Foundation, who has since run the festival as a non-profit organisation for development and support of music, culture, and humanism.
It being Denmark's first real music oriented festival, originally for hippies but today covering more of the mainstream youth from Scandinavia and the rest of Europe. Roskilde Festival 2003 gathered more than 65,000 paying people for the concerts, along with 20,000 workers, most of them volunteers.
Traditionally the campsite opens the last Sunday of June, which gives the festivalguests plenty of time to settle down and "warm up". The festival officially starts the following Thursday at the Animal Showgrounds (in recent years simply known as the "Festival Site") and lasts for 4 days.

Trying to catch a glimpse at the Arena Stage

The tents are called 'stages', which were until 2003 named after their colour, but as the names had not matched the actual colour of the tents for a period, it was decided to rename all stages except the Orange Stage, the central and main stage. The Orange Stage is open in front of a huge field, whereas the other tents cover the whole audience, the largest of which is the Arena stage (formerly known as Green Stage), the largest tent in Europe with an official capacity of 18.000 people.
The music covers such styles as Heavy metal, HipHop, Electronic and Rock, but the festival wants to promote new artists and has setup a special stage for alternative music. It has also become a tradition to let an up and coming Danish band open the Orange Stage on the first day of the festival. There's always a stage for world music, not too big, but strategically located, so that people passing by will stop and learn something new. And there's usually at least one performance of classical music, often a full orchestra playing (parts of) well-known compositions.
Apart from music there is always some theatre and 'lone acts' wandering around the festival site. Terrain and tents are always decorated in various ways.
Until the mid-1990's the festival attracted mostly Scandinavians, but in recent years it has become more and more international (with an especially large influx of Germans). A Scandinavian alternative remained in the Midtfyns Festival, until that closed in 2004 following declining ticket sales.
Tragedy struck the festival in the year 2000 when nine people were killed. They were trampled to death in the crowd in front of the main stage during the Pearl Jam performance. As a result, massive security measures were installed for the festival in 2001. After the tragedy, a memorial site was set up close to the main stage. It features 9 trees and a stone inscribed with the words "How fragile we are".

Specific years

- 2003
Very hot indeed. Sun shining every day. Good show such as Metallica, Blur, Coldplay, Bj?rk, Massive Attack, The Streets, Iron Maiden, Queens of the Stone Age.

-2004
Rain, rain, thunder, rain, a ray of light and lots of mud. The 2004 festival featured artists such as Iggy Pop and the Stooges, Santana, Fatboy Slim, Wu-Tang Clan and Morrissey. David Bowie was scheduled to play at Roskilde 2004 but cancelled due to health issues, with a notice on his website. Instead, Slipknot, who were on tour in Europe, filled the spot.

-2005
The 2005 edition featured artists such as Audioslave, Autechre, Snoop Dogg, Black Sabbath, D-A-D, Duran Duran, Foo Fighters, Green Day, Brian Wilson, Fant?mas, Kent, Sonic Youth and more than 160 other bands and DJs. This year was also a huge contrast to the previous year on the weather front. Hot and sunny all week.

-2006

On January 25, the first three bands that will be performing at the 2006 Roskilde Festival were announced. They are Franz Ferdinand, Kanye West and Tool. After this, several other bands and artists, including Placebo, Morrissey, GUNS N?ROSES, Sigur R?s, Bob Dylan and Roger Waters, has been added to the list. For a complete list, see the Festival website's band list:

http://www.roskilde-festival.dk/

Just wanted to inform you guys a little about the next "battle scene".? Grin