At Roskilde festival in Denmark they have a two tiered queuing system for the main stage mosh-pits. Statuesque Nordic teens sit for hours in the sun in separate queues, half for ‘Muse’, half for ‘Florence and the Machine’. Nobody really dresses up, or looks that pissed; smiling stewards in orange hi-vis hand out cups of water, any prospective queue-jumpers get politely booed.
Avoiding the queues, and full of roller cola, I heave my girlfriend onto my shoulders, just as Pharrell Williams breaks into those first, relentlessly colonizing chords of ‘Happy’.
Familiar but strange.
“This goes out to all you beautiful Danish people,” He shouts, to adoring screams.
“And you’re beautiful Danish Blood!”
Back in a damp Glasgow July, the drizzle slowly removing any smell of sun-cream from my clothes and rucksack, I listen to Reggie Snow’s new tune on repeat for a while – willing its heatsick flange to oust the clouds from the sky.
No luck.
But, with a “biggie then some Whitney” approach to genealogy, Chance The Rapper’s pal Cam O’bi on production, and Rejjie Snow’s transatlantic lilt still wonderfully unfettered, “All Around The World” sounds gloriously seasonal, without appealing to any of my bodily fluids.
Familiar but strange.
• Rejjie Snow: http://rejjiesnow.com
• Honeymoon Records: http://www.honeymoonwith.us