The final day of Roskilde was about one thing: football’s continued journey home towards England.
Whilst British Summer Time in Hyde Park were forced to concede there was no possible way to show the match, Roskilde are dab hands at rolling out a big screen in the camping area every two years. Of course, it’s pretty rare that England fans have much cause to come down there beyond the knockout stages, so now that Southgate Bae and our collective psyche have decided it most definitely is coming home, the fans who were watching the quarter finals on Saturday were even more drunk and delighted than usual.
What they maybe didn’t anticipate, is that Denmark’s Roskilde is one of the biggest festivals in northern Europe and attracts hundreds (maybe thousands) of Swedes, who were of course out in force. But the English had a reputation as the world’s loudest fans to uphold, so the tiny clump of fans came equipped with vuvuzelas, a megaphone, and Oasis singalongs.
At Denmark’s Roskilde Festival: England fans singing Oasis in extra time next to hundreds of Sweden supporters. #ItsComingHome ??????? pic.twitter.com/eraLwnilD5
— Helen Meriel Thomas (@IAmHelenThomas) July 9, 2018
Playing a couple of hours later was Dua Lipa, who opened her set to ‘Three Lions’ before flooding the main Orange stage in tropicana pop. She later shared a video of herself and her troop of backup dancers warming up whilst the track played onstage. A true hero.
https://twitter.com/DUALIPA/status/1015711153337618434
Dua kept up the hype throughout her set, and though her incessant jumping may have led to a few weak notes as she struggled to stay connected to the mic, it was certainly an effective way of whipping up her sun-dazed crowd. During ‘New Rules’, she asked them to crouch in anticipation, before pulling them all up to “Jump! Jump! Jump!” as she counted off the various ways to dodge a fuckboy.
https://twitter.com/DUALIPA/status/1015698292779487232
Later that night, Gorillaz would take to the Orange stage as the festival’s closing headliners – wearing England shirts. Hot on the heels of their huge Open’er set, the Roskilde show on Saturday night was similarly loud and at times experimental. The setlist was a combination of tracks from their new album ‘The Now Now’, longtime classics like ‘Feel Good Inc’ and unexpected deep cuts, with South African Moonchild Sanelly brought onstage to perform ‘Out Of Body’.
However, the band unfortunately had to cut the set short, after Del the Funky Homosapien fell offstage during final track ‘Clint Eastwood’. “It’s a really weird way to end a beautiful night,” said frontman Damon Albarn, addressing the crowd. It wasn’t the Roskilde ending anyone expected, the lights rising and the band awkwardly exiting the stage, but for anyone wondering, Del is gonna be fine, and football’s still coming home.