Devotees of Denmark’s Roskilde Festival like to refer to the “Orange Feeling,” so named for the festival’s famous tented orange stage and referring to the overall vibe of the fest in general. I’ve got to say that I’ve come to understand said feeling, having succumbed to it’s charms after attending last year. For such a massive festival, it can also have a really small scale vibe to it as well, catering to the most obscure of tastes while also offering up the massive crowd pleasers. Back for another round this year, I was eager to take it all in again. And so, after skipping out on most of The Shins‘ set (sorry, Natalie Portman,they never really changed my life), I wandered over to the Pavilion Stage to check out Clock Opera.
Having heard good things about the London band, I was hoping to be impressed and they did not disappoint. The matching floral print shirts on three quarters of the band were kind of worth it alone, but their grandiose sounding electropop tunes also held up. Songs like “Once and For All” really got the crowd going and the band themselves were impressed with the reaction, with frontman Guy Connelly noting that many festival crowds would have partially dispersed for greener pastures by that point in their set. He also mentioned how they’d never been given that amount of time in which to play before, another nice thing about Roskilde being their dedication to giving each performer at least an hour onstage if they so choose. Clock Opera were definitely experiencing the “orange feeling.” And loving it.
From there I was drawn in to the arty noise metal sounds of Today Is The Day. Frontman Steve Austin’s an intense fellow, but not without a sense of humour, as evidenced by the band’s cover of Bad Companys “Feel Like Makin’ Love,” which the band played with their usual trademark intensity. “How to take a piece of shit and shine it,” noted Austin, before adding, “I hope you all get laid tonight.” Austin and co. continued on with this theme later in the set, adding another sex themed cover song, The Beatles’ “Why Dont We Do It In The Road.” They may seem like scary sorts at first, but these guys know how to have fun onstage, and festivals are all about fun. Chalk this one up to orange feeling too.
Also fun was A$AP Rocky’s set later that night, a smart bit of counterprogramming for all the kids who didn’t get what weird old Uncle Robert and his mates in The Cure were up to on the main stage (for the record, it sounded great). Rocky really got the crowd going, leading them through chants of A$AP! (of course), asking how many in the crowd smoked weed (apparently a lot), and giving various people in the crowd a shout out, such as this gem: “Shout out to my boy in the back with his arms up and shit. I see you.” And luckily for those throwing their beers around, they weren’t throwing them in the direction of the stage or this show may have ended very differently. Rocky impressed with his swagger and high energy show. He definitely caught a bit of the orange feeling that night. However, for the duration of his set, I think all involved would agree to change the name to purple feeling for A$AP Rocky’s sake