Tuesday, August 23, 2005
Das Festival
[tags: _travel]
So it's Sunday morning, and we've recovered from the previous night's excesses. Van, Marie and I pack up our stuff and, after a cake and coffee breakfast head out into the gray(ish) morning for Sziget 2005. Sziget literally means "island" in Hungarian, the island in question being directly north of Margaret Island (Margitsziget, strangely enough...). Having survived V Fest last year Vanessa and I were prepared for, well, a festival experience (no running water, plenty of mud and bugs, etc). Boy, were we surprised.
First of all, the queues were incredibly non-existent at the gate. You lined up at one of the many booths at the entrance, paid your 2000 HUF, and went in. You DO have to put on your wristband ticket correctly (sorry Van and Marie...), and we waited as we were set straight by the guards. Then we looked for camping space. We walked practically to the other side of the island where the world music tent was, pitched up in some random space, and finally, at 1230, went for a wander round the festival grounds.
Sziget is huge. Stalls were everywhere selling the usual festival fare (shirts, tattoos, alcohol) to the unusual (bungee jumping, EU membership). We ate sausages, gulyasz and potatoes and beer at one of the many feeding stops and walked the rest of the day, round the different venues. At this point the sun was out in full force; it felt great to have the afternoon to laze round with a kaffe in one hand and your camera in the other. After checking out the main tent area we stumbled across one of the dance tents, a veritable arena of mud since the dance floor was liberally showered from above to keep the ravers cool. Fan-fucking-tastic. We spent the better part of an hour there.
Van and me at the main stage - we're the ones looking at the camera.
Afterwards, we lazed about in a freetrade tent (free coffee too, though they had run out at this point); lazed about in a shisha tent; and lazed about in a smoothie tent. Oh yes, a lot of lazing was done, my Internet friend. That, and checking out the musical acts. This was the first world music festival I'd been to which actually lived up to its name. Tents and stages everywhere were packed with people setting up for the evening's shows, or just had random people strumming guitars, holding salsa lessons (Van danced at one while Marie slept the afternoon away), getting high (I was offered pills, maybe twice, in one tent) or getting horizontal (ehrmm... kids these days!). And the music ranged from techno to trance to folk to classical (yes I heard the distinct strains of a string ensemble) to headbanging Hare Krishnas. I kid you not.
At around five-ish Marie's friend Mathilde and her brother showed up, and we went back to our tents to make space for them. We headed off to the first of the main events that night, Tarace Boulba, a ska/fusion band with a bewildering array of performers dancing up and down the stage, and one weirdo who just provided comic entertainment with his hairdo. Like Put3ska, only Frencher.
Juliette Lewis wakes up, sees audience ogling her in night-shirted glory. Guitar guy hides head in shame.
We danced, laughed, nipped out early to catch Juliette Lewis and the Licks on the main stage. Now that was something special. Despite the crowd not knowing any of her songs, something she cheerfully admitted, she absolutely blew everyone away with her singing - like the Pretenders on crack - showmanship, and plain old fashioned sex appeal. Too many prepubescent males melted with her grrly antics. Too many wannabe rock chicks swooned when she crowd surfed for her band's finale. The band itself was "suspiciously handsome" as Van put it, but played blisteringly fast punk rock like it was 1982. Amazing.
We took a breather after this one, and so will I.
So it's Sunday morning, and we've recovered from the previous night's excesses. Van, Marie and I pack up our stuff and, after a cake and coffee breakfast head out into the gray(ish) morning for Sziget 2005. Sziget literally means "island" in Hungarian, the island in question being directly north of Margaret Island (Margitsziget, strangely enough...). Having survived V Fest last year Vanessa and I were prepared for, well, a festival experience (no running water, plenty of mud and bugs, etc). Boy, were we surprised.
First of all, the queues were incredibly non-existent at the gate. You lined up at one of the many booths at the entrance, paid your 2000 HUF, and went in. You DO have to put on your wristband ticket correctly (sorry Van and Marie...), and we waited as we were set straight by the guards. Then we looked for camping space. We walked practically to the other side of the island where the world music tent was, pitched up in some random space, and finally, at 1230, went for a wander round the festival grounds.
Sziget is huge. Stalls were everywhere selling the usual festival fare (shirts, tattoos, alcohol) to the unusual (bungee jumping, EU membership). We ate sausages, gulyasz and potatoes and beer at one of the many feeding stops and walked the rest of the day, round the different venues. At this point the sun was out in full force; it felt great to have the afternoon to laze round with a kaffe in one hand and your camera in the other. After checking out the main tent area we stumbled across one of the dance tents, a veritable arena of mud since the dance floor was liberally showered from above to keep the ravers cool. Fan-fucking-tastic. We spent the better part of an hour there.
Van and me at the main stage - we're the ones looking at the camera.
Afterwards, we lazed about in a freetrade tent (free coffee too, though they had run out at this point); lazed about in a shisha tent; and lazed about in a smoothie tent. Oh yes, a lot of lazing was done, my Internet friend. That, and checking out the musical acts. This was the first world music festival I'd been to which actually lived up to its name. Tents and stages everywhere were packed with people setting up for the evening's shows, or just had random people strumming guitars, holding salsa lessons (Van danced at one while Marie slept the afternoon away), getting high (I was offered pills, maybe twice, in one tent) or getting horizontal (ehrmm... kids these days!). And the music ranged from techno to trance to folk to classical (yes I heard the distinct strains of a string ensemble) to headbanging Hare Krishnas. I kid you not.
At around five-ish Marie's friend Mathilde and her brother showed up, and we went back to our tents to make space for them. We headed off to the first of the main events that night, Tarace Boulba, a ska/fusion band with a bewildering array of performers dancing up and down the stage, and one weirdo who just provided comic entertainment with his hairdo. Like Put3ska, only Frencher.
Juliette Lewis wakes up, sees audience ogling her in night-shirted glory. Guitar guy hides head in shame.
We danced, laughed, nipped out early to catch Juliette Lewis and the Licks on the main stage. Now that was something special. Despite the crowd not knowing any of her songs, something she cheerfully admitted, she absolutely blew everyone away with her singing - like the Pretenders on crack - showmanship, and plain old fashioned sex appeal. Too many prepubescent males melted with her grrly antics. Too many wannabe rock chicks swooned when she crowd surfed for her band's finale. The band itself was "suspiciously handsome" as Van put it, but played blisteringly fast punk rock like it was 1982. Amazing.
We took a breather after this one, and so will I.
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