Concerts for free are actually not rare in Copenhagen. But the special thing about these concerts is that they take place at Nemoland on Christiania.
Not long ago I had the pleassure of visiting Christinia again. I often came here when I was in high school but now a days I don’t come here a lot. When I studied at the University of Copenhagen I wrote my thesis about a Danish documentarist called Poul Martinsen. Back in the 70’s he made a tv-documentary called “Diary from a freetown” where he would have a suburban family switch lives with a family from Christiania for one week. At that time (as it actually still is today) many Danes had lots of prejudice about Christinia and the kind of people who lived there, in spite of the fact that most people hadn’t actually been to the freetown. On request from many artist from the political and the artistic left wing Poul Martinsen decided to make a tv-documentay that was to show how life on Christinia is and maybe even to demystificing the place.
The two families switched lives for a week and, just as Poul Martinsen expected it, came to the conclusion that Christinia wasn’t such a bad place after all. The suburban family experience a warm and inviting society on Christiania where everybody took care of each other. And so, when they went back to the suburbs, they had made a bunch of friends whom they would definitely come back to visit.
Allegedly the documentary changed the negative view on Christiania for many Danes and was therefore the main reason why the freetown was not closed down in the 70’s. Good job, Martinsen!
A month ago I was at a release party in the freetown, and I kept wondering: Why do I not come here more often? It’s so nice out here! So that is one of the things that I would love to do some more in Copenhagen; visit Christinia.
The concerts at Nemoland takes place every summer and you can see which bands are playing on this website: http://www.nemoland.dk/
/Louise