– Just delicious – VG
COPENHAGEN (VG) Several thousand hugs are together in front of the main stage at Tivoli. No barriers, cohorts or evidence of negative testing.
– This means everything to me. This is the biggest ever, the Danish rapper Tessa shouts from the stage to the large crowd.
It’s not the first store concert to have been held at Tivoli this summer – but it’s the first to have had to show corona passes to enter. The crowd is not divided into different areas with barricades, and there is not a single person to be seen with a face mask – not even among the employees.
According to Ekstra Bladet, 12,300 people had turned up on Friday night.
It smells of hot asphalt, smoke and spilled beer, and no meters apply. This I wish I could have been 2019 before some had heard of the corona.
– Just delicious
-It’s just nice to see so many people, exclaimed the DJ who warmed up before the concert.
The Danes have fully reopened society – from Friday, the coronavirus is not defined as a socially critical disease, and the last measures domestically are gone. However, if the trend reverses, the virus may regain that definition.
Through the gradual easing of measures this summer, many Danes have already turned to a more normal everyday life. In practice, the last major change is that no one is allowed to show a green corona passport with vaccine or test status in some places domestically. Although it has not been the biggest entry in people every day, it makes it much much less visible.
– It feels like you are free again, says Christian Sauerberg (45) who accompanies his daughter Cecilie (12) at his first concert.
1 of 3Photo: Nikolai Linares
The streets in the center are also full of people – some who have decorated and are shopping outside the clubs, others who walk or cycle along the streets in search of food, or a pub to spend the evening.
At Rådhusplassen, there has been a crowd that turns others around to “Upside down” by Diana Ross. Several of the VG do not ask who has set up the speakers. A young man in the crowd shouts “Someone just came with a car and then people started dancing”.
The starting point turns out to be a «dance demo» for freedom, which has taken place every Friday since earlier in the shutdown. At least now Denmark is much freer than it was when it started.
– Next level
The previous big step in the Danish reopening was last week, when the nightclubs were reopened as usual – until 05 o’clock in the morning. Now slipper people also straight in without showing any coronapass.
Norwegian Andreas Strandskog (23) is studying in Copenhagen, and is one of those who have stood in the long, close shopping outside the nightclub Arch on Friday night.
– I hope it is worth it, he says.
It seems at least Daniel Rada (22), who has a table inside.
– It’s like before, but it’s the next level – so it’s better even before. I have missed it, he says.
1 of 4Photo: Nikolai Linares
– They miss being close
The club had been closed for a full 539 days, until last weekend. VG also went inside earlier the same day, and met partner Benjamin Berg Harts, who was rigging ready for the evening. They have used the long descent to refurbish.
– We would rather push the reopening yet to open with restrictions. We can not get this business to run at half capacity or at a distance. People talk loudly, they talk loudly, he says.
– Now it’s almost as if it came back right away – you get a slightly euphoric vibe. People are in a way happier – they miss being close.
The first days the club reopens when he was packed. Now he just hopes it lasts, and that people have not turned too much to a more confined life. He believes that infection does not increase too much in a Denmark where so many have now been vaccinated, even though it may increase.
– It is behind us and now we are moving forward.