It is now about 60 hours since
Eddie Vedder told us that they'd stop playing for a couple of minutes and asked us to take a few steps back from the main stage at the
Roskilde Festival. Few minutes later he sat down and cried on the stage while the guards were dragging lifeless bodies out.
I've seen people faint at concerts before and someone told me that some guy broke his back during a
Pearl Jam concert once, which might explain
Eddie Vedder's reaction, so I didn't think much of it and went over to another stage to watch
Underworld, where I met a friend of mine.
After the show, she received a call on her
cell phone and was told that 5 people were killed and about 50 were injured. For a while
everything stood still. My younger brother was at the festival and had probably gone to see the show, as had several of our friends. The news hadn't spread yet and all around us
everything looked the same. All I could say was "It's so wrong", so I repeated that a couple of times. Wrong like when a
nightmare turns so weird that you realize you're having a
nightmare.
Then we talked. I don't remember the conversation. We decided to stay at the festival, but I'm still not sure if I really should have gone home. Then we went to sleep.
The morning after the count was 8, all male.
I called my parents and my brother had already done the same. He kind of knew one of the dead, a friend of a friend I think. That scares me.
There is no technical explanation on how it happened and no one has found any flaws in the security. It had been raining so it was a bit muddy, but not as muddy as it was a couple of years ago. According to eyewitnesses (I wasn't that close to it), the victims fell in mud from being pushed by large human waves pushing back and forth. They were unable to get up by themselves and the crowd was so packed that there was no oxygen down there. Due to the pushing it was impossible for other people to help them get up.
The festival continued, though many bands canceled (
the Cure,
Oasis,
Pet Shop Boys,
Live, maybe more) and a lot of people went home. 40,000-50,000 sad people were trying to keep the
Rock'n'Roll spirit going.
I know how helpless you feel when you're in the middle of a crowd and you're being pushed from all sides. I've been there countless times. A couple of years ago
Pearl Jam played on the same stage and I dug my way through the crowd to get up front.
It's just so
fucked up I can't describe how I feel. My thoughts go to their loved ones. So many lives are affected by this.
Updated a week later:
A 24 year old male from Australia died from his injuries some days ago, making it a total of 9 deaths.