d&b's Js, Qs and C4s perform at the Roskilde Festival, Denmark.
Since 1971, music fans have flocked to the Danish town of Roskilde to attend what has become one of the biggest annual music festivals in Europe, if not the World. This year, just short of ninety thousand fans complete with tents descended on the town to listen to one hundred and seventy bands from around the globe. Bands and artists both well known, such as the Arctic Monkeys, the Kaiser Chiefs, Bob Dylan, Morrisey along with new and up and coming artists performed over five days. The entire area for the festival covered around 1.25 million square metres of ground.
Seven separate stages of varying sizes and audience capacity, with each devoted to a particular musical genre, gave music lovers plenty of opportunities to indulge their particular musical tastes including Heavy Metal, Hip-Hop, Electronic and Rock to name a few. Each stage has its own sound system with no less than three of the seven stages plus the 'Chill Out' area being equipped with d&b audiotechnik sound systems.
A variety of d&b equipment was used for the Metropole stage, which featured mainly electronic music. Here J8s and J12s, J Subwoofers, Q7s and Q1s were used to provide a PA system for the likes of Birdy Nam Nam, French vinyl-fetishists who turn loops and beats into exciting compositions; Happy Mondays, music with both dance, house, soul and Hip-Hop and also Steve Angello and Sebastian Ingrosso who produce house music drawing on 80s synth-pop and ItaloDisco. These and many other bands put the d&b system firmly through its paces. In the evenings, the Metropole turned into a disco where a variety of DJs entertained the fans using additional Q1s and Q7s for reinforcement plus MAX15s to provide surround sound.
The Roskilde Pavilion was one of the smallest of the seven stages and was primarily used for new and up and coming acts such as My Midnight Creeps who specialise in Dirty Garage Rock (appropriate for a d&b system since the company started in a garage), and Bursts, a dynamic metal core band. Here, the PA system consisted of loudspeakers from d&b audiotechnik's Q-Series along with J subwoofers.
Over the last eight years, as a bit of light relief requiring no stage setting, a tradition called 'The Saturday Race' has emerged and to some may be slightly more interesting than the music. Approximately ten male and ten female runners compete for a ticket for the following year's festival. The winner is the first person to complete three laps around the radio building. So what you might think. Well, here's the catch: all the runners must be stark naked! The show must go on however, naked or not, so it's back to work. The Odeon stage is the home of Rock at the Festival where loudspeakers from d&b's C-Series gave the heavies every opportunity to wow their followers. Memorably named bands such as Death Cab for Cutie played Gilt Edged and Sensitive Indi Pop, while Hatesphere, who treated fans to Warm Blooded Death Thrash music, used the PA system to its full potential.
And if all the loud music and naked runners becomes just too much, fans on music overload could visit the 'Chill Out' lounge known as the BAR'N where a C4 sound system provided low level music to soothe and relax. The event is organised by the Roskilde Foundation, a non-profit making organisation, which uses the income made from the Festival for humanitarian and cultural purposes. The above mentioned PA equipment was supplied and installed by three of Denmark's leading pro-audio companies, namely Duch Sound, Nordic and Conpro.
