Documenting Dreams Coming True – Part II. Just like my previous essay featuring Dopha, this is a story of documenting dreams coming true. This time for Joyce, a band that has also had to wait for 2 years during the pandemic to finally play their concert at Roskilde Festival. The members of Joyce are actually all from Roskilde, so I imagine they have dreamed of playing their hometown festival since they were kids.
Joyce burst onto the scene in late 2019, I discovered them in early 2020 through their incredibly energetic and catchy second single called ‘Djævlen’. I then photographed their concert on 8 of March 2020, the last concert before the 1st corona lockdown, check out the photos here. Instead of releasing their debut album and going on to play all the Summer festivals in 2020, Joyce like the rest of us found the entire world and all work, all festivals, all concerts shut down. It’s honestly still crazy to think back on 2020.
Fortunately Joyce managed to release their debut album during the pandemic and play quite a few of the corona style seated concerts where I photographed them a further 3 times, loving their live energy. Joyce pulled off the impossible, with their excellent songwriting and great album released and some corona-concerts they built up a big fanbase during the pandemic. So big that when Roskilde Festival 2022 finally was allowed to go ahead, Joyce was not booked to playing the warm-up days but jumping straight onto the stage in the Pavillion tent, the 3rd largest stage at Roskilde!
Fast forward to 01.30am on 1st of July 2022, and Joyce are ready to live out their dream, to play Roskilde Festival and knock over the large Pavillion tent with their melodic yet extremely energetic music. I joined them backstage an hour before the show, and it’s a bit weird with these super late concerts, it was my day 3 working at Roskilde Festival and my old body and head was tired but then you sort of have to pretend it’s not 1am but that the day just started now and tell your mind and body to reboot. It helps that as soon as the music kicks in, there is just so much adrenaline and so much awesome energy in the band, the music, the fans, there is only now, only living in the moment, make pictures on instinct and you can sleep next week!
I recommend you play some Joyce and dive into the photo essay from this incredible concert, and go catch Joyce live if you get the chance, they are a fantastic live band!
