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Roskilde Rising is an initiative that we cannot stop raving about here at St Paul’s Lifestyle. The idea is to support striving Nordic musicians (i.e. musicians from Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden) for free and provide them with an audience and coverage. This is a mission that ties in perfectly with our own aim of supporting striving musicians for free, and it is incredibly heartwarming to see the level of support that these musicians often get.

Here is Soren, the organizer of Roskilde Rising, explaining the objective of Roskilde Rising in his own words.

Nelson Can are a Danish band who started playing live a little over six months ago and have started to make an impact on the music scene, and their song “Apple Pie” has captured the attention of many fans. Despite only performing for a relatively short amount of time, Roskilde Rising have given their support, which you can see in this video here which has given them more exposure (it is in Danish, so we recommend a quick revision of your Danish vocabulary).

Here's Nelson Can with "Do you really wanna get rid of me?"

Here’s Nelson Can talking about the support they received from Roskilde Rising.

Roskilde Rising has provided a platform for these up and coming Nordic musicians to perform at one of Europe’s top festivals, and it is hard to imagine such support being so well established at a British festival such as Glastonbury or Reading. Another band they’re supporting is Team Me, a fantastic six piece from Norway who have supported The Wombats and have the same eccentric and grandiose feel as bands like Mew. You can check them out below.

Although not part of Roskilde Rising, the same sentiment of supporting musicians and working together is apparent in the Copenhagen Collaboration. The group is a project composed of several established bands in the Copenhagen area that work together to perform beautiful songs. You can read more about them here. What I find heartwarming is the lack of ego that one would normally expect in such a large group with so much talent, and their saying “leave your ego at the door” is very apt for this group. The idea of working together and supporting smaller bands in a large project is something that has been very apparent at this year’s Roskilde festival.

The support that these fantastic bands are getting from one of Europe’s top festivals is amazing, and sets an example for other festivals. It would be brilliant to see a similar level of support in this country rather than regurgitating the same old well-established bands.