During the first week of June the streets of Copenhagen are host to the largest electronic music festival in Scandinavia. What started as a street party with mobile DJs from the local club scene in 1998 has grown into the Distortion of today, which includes dozens of bands and DJs from all over the world. There was even a rapper from Syria this year.
The festival follows a unique format with two days of street parties, where bands and DJs set up shop in two of the trendiest and hip neighborhoods of Copenhagen, Nørrebro and Vesterbro, followed by two days at an abandoned industrial site by the harbour (Refshaleøen) that is converted to a festival arena. These are street parties on a scale that I have never seen before. An estimated 80,000 attended the first day in Nørrebro and 85,000 the second day in Vesterbro. They have been described as “civilized hedonism” and in each of the neighborhoods 40-50 street parties took place. There are no tickets for the street parties but the two day main event, Distortion Ø, at Refshaleøen is a ticketed event.
In just a one hour I had met people from nearby Sweden, but also from Norway, Iceland, Finland, Spain, Sicily, Czech Republic, Albania, Danes from all over the country and of course fellow Americans.
