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Text & Photos : Ezra Natalia
| Set on Óbudai-sziget (”Old-Buda Island) in the middle of the Danube River in Budapest, Hungary. Sziget is one of the largest music and cultural festivals in Europe, not to mention it is the cheapest one of most. Music is just one chunk of the spectacle, with 13 main stages and headliners such as The Prodigy, Fatboy Slim, Klaxons, Lily Allen, Faith No More, Bloc Party, Snow Patrol, Editors, The Ting Tings, The Offspring and Placebo. Sziget has loads of other things on offer to festival goers, as well as the music, there is; theatre, dance, classical music, cabaret, performances, films, fine art, crafts, literary presentations, programmes for kids, sports and other free time activities. I mean, crazy, right? 500,000 people came to this island over August 10-17. The festival has a 5+2 day schedule again. The “zeroeth day” has a Rock Against Racism concert, featuring mostly Hungarian bands and unlike almost any other festival, they were allowed to set up their tents wherever they wanted. No rules. There are hundreds of artists from 41 different countries. All in all, this is set up to be a most varied and entertaining spectacle.
Wednesday, August 12. Since the festival covers a whopping 76 acres, it was clear the best way to begin was to have a quick walkabout. My first impression was that this was an incredibly diverse crowd and the variety of foods, activities and atmospheres was fantastic. People of all ages, shapes, flavors, styles, with no discernible fashion trend, except perhaps the preponderance of uncovered body, but that was just a very drunk few people. There was food to make everyone happy, from munchies, gyros, Chinese and pizza to enormous New York hot dogs. And, to top it off, there is Plenty of Beer for everybody. You name it and they have it. Now, bring on the music. IAMX, the side project from Sneakers Pimp’ Chris Corner, started off the festival on the Main Stage. If you remember, Sneaker Pimps brought us really dirty, erotic music like “Spin Spin Sugar” and “Underground.” Well, Corner’s new band sounds After, it’s time for Snow Patrol to rock the stage. The crowd tripled in size and so did the energy. They were outstanding performers. Besides the fact that they played all of their hits, they also treated us to songs off their latest album, A Hundred Million Suns. Gary Lightbody introduced us to “The Lightning Strike,” and it was fantastic. |
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On the large video screens on both sides of the stage, we were treated to crazy, colorful animations as well. The swirling flowers from the cover of their newest album, they were animated, too, bursting into a million colors. It was all very trippy hippies and a really nice compliment to the music.
Follows by Nouvelle Vague, this time Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux are accompanied by Melanie Pain and Nadeah Miranda (lead singer of The LoveGods) as singers. Melanie surely brings the quirkiness yet sexy to each song, but Nadeah was mesmerizing stage presence with her frenzy yet naughty performance.
Headliner of the night, Lily Allen coming out from the backstage, walking around very slouchy, smoking ciggy after ciggy, while wine has had already prepared for her. She had the see-through top, the sexy black heels, her face painted with glitter, but why the cargo shorts? She start her performance really ok almost boring but then BOOM! I was totally caught off guard. She started smiling and jumping about and even told the crowd, after a nice rendition of “Smile” that we were, in fact, “the best crowd she had ever played for!” What? She busted into Britney Spear’s “Womanizer” and had the audience going nuts. She also played her new single, “22,” along with “Fuck You” (her ode to George W. Bush), and much more. So, here I was bored at beginning and actually ended up buying into it. Shit. Bravo, Lily. |
