Making The Big Time

How playing Scandinavia's largest festival went for this funny little DIY guy

Photo taken by Cæcilie Nygård Koefoed, 2025.

It took me a minute to understand what I was hearing.

Denmark was drizzly that morning, but no one seemed to care: in my private shuttle on the way to the stage, I’d seen thousands of bikes neatly chained up and winding lines of people in raincoats, soaked and grinning.

“I’m so impressed they’re all still coming to the festival,” I’d said to my driver. She’s volunteered at Roskilde Fest, the biggest music festival in Scandinavia, for 30 years now. A lot of the festival volunteers have pulled multiple decades as drivers, hospitality staff, and ticket takers. Roskilde love runs deep.

“Oh yes,” she’d said. “If we can still walk in the weather, we go to Roskilde. It’s what gets us through the winters.”

Now that I was backstage in the final 20 minutes before showtime, I’d been trying to find ways to occupy myself. Drink gallons of throat coat tea: check. Run through the rain to the artist’s bathroom to piss after the throat coat tea runs through my empty system: check. Practice that one interval in that new song about forest fires again: check. Too nervous to sit down, I’d even tried to offer to help sweep the floors with the team of volunteers.

“You’re being too nice,” they laughed. “You’re the artist! You don’t clean!”

So I went back to pacing, clutching my guitar to my chest like a shield. Soon I’d walk out onto the Gloria stage, beautifully decorated with real trees and palms that a gardener had grown and designed for this moment, and play a set to what I initially had guessed would probably be around 500-800 people. Gloria is Roskilde’s most intimate stage, and with my early afternoon set time it was likely that number would stay small, but 800 was still more people than I’d ever played for at once. Thank god it would all happen in a functioning animal barn. The lingering smell of sheep calmed me down. I’ve played in barns before. I know how to play in barns. It maybe be a Danish barn, but it’s still a barn! Rodeos happen in here! Sheep get judged on their fluffiness! Breathe in. Breathe out.

Suddenly, I realized something. That growing buzzing sound was people. A lot of people. A massive crowd, in fact, and it felt close. My angel of a stage manager, Daniel, came bounding down the steps, grinning.

“There are 1,200 people out there,” he said.

“That’s… that’s twice as many people as they said there’d be,” I said, dumbfounded.

“Yes it is,” he said. “Are you ready?”

My stomach dropped into my ankles. I wondered if it was too late to vomit. I didn’t want to make the floor messy again for the volunteers.

I chose to laugh, helplessly, instead.

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A note before I continue

In light of how ~things~ are going in the world right now, I’m choosing to move some of my more intimate, personal, and emotional writing to being available only for paid subscribers. I just need it to not be quite so available to the prying eyes of the State. Don’t worry, tour dates and photos and more general thoughts about my Europe tour are coming next week for free! And if you wanna join my paid subscribers but $5/month is too much, email me at creekbedcarter@gmail.com and we can sort something out. Love to y’all for being here, in whatever capacity! xoxo