Roskilde Festival 1974

Roskilde Festival 1974
Authored By John Nicholson

The Roskilde Festival began in 1971 and still happens every year. It is one of Europe’s biggest festivals and also one of the most cool. Here’s a thing. All profits since 1971 have gone to a foundation which distributes them to humanitarian causes. Isn’t that fantastic? In an era which lost its idealism quite quickly, for Roskilde it wasn’t about making money, wasn’t about exploiting the fans for as much cash as possible and that is a truly beautiful thing. 

Spread across three days, a lot of local Danish bands would play, but with a few bigger UK acts headlining and the occasional American band. In 1974 Tempest, a great heavy rock fusion band along with the Incredible String Band and Captain Beefheart headlined each night. Camel were also on the bill along with Fred Frith’s avant garde band Henry Cow, who were wrongly listed as being from the USA

Later they’d have a naked race - well it is Denmark. Everyone works at the festival for free. Yeah, it’s all very groovy and proof that idealism isn’t dead and the hippie spirit is alive and well.   



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