Caroline Polachek and Lorde, Monday, August 14, Main Stage

The ladies have been bundled in together not only because they performed together Lorde’s Green Light, but because, even before the duet, the two shows seemed intriguingly interconnected, like two sides of the same coin. Musically, I would always go for Lorde. It recently dawned on me that she may be the last ‘teen star’ that I fully connected with- when she released Royals ten years ago, I was still mentally and emotionally close enough to her generation to vibe with it, whereas these days, while I do appreciate a Billie Eilish or an Olivia Rodrigo, I will find myself reflected much more by the ‘sad dads’ of The National. Or by Lorde herself- while some fans were a little sniffy about Solar Power I often found myself listening to it on repeat. Not so with Caroline Polachek. She inhabits a strange territory, of music that I should theoretically like, and sometimes do, but a couple of her songs annoy me so much that I dash through the flat to skip them whenever a playlist includes them- and playlists inevitably include them, because the algorithm also knows that I should theoretically like Caroline Polachek.

Her Sziget performance turned out to be a watershed: it was just a brilliant show. She’s so natural on stage, the kind of performer who completely owns it, striking the right poses at the right time and creating a connection even with a fairly fickle festival audience. A textbook case of she came, she played, she conquered. Lorde, on the other hand, seemed more tentative. She was late and looked a little zoned out in the beginning of the set, prompting silly debates about what she had consumed backstage, with most people hoping it was pálinka, for local flavour. Some fans were surprised by the show- not the die hards, for they would have known that she was touring Europe with a ‘sped up’ festival set, more of a dance party than a classical Lorde show. Reading her blog later on, it emerged that in fact, she might not have been in the best of places, emotionally, when she played these summer festivals. It showed. And it was great. This was not Rihanna coming late and not giving a damn, this was an artist who sometimes gives to much of a damn, and it breaks her. As things sometimes break all of us, but it’s easier to cheat your way out at work when all you have to do is pretend you’re filling excel sheets, when in fact you’re watching cat videos. It’s way harder when you have to be in front of thousands of people and they all have their opinions and expectations. So it may have started as a hot mess, but it shaped out to be quite a memorable Sziget performance- with Caroline there to lend a helping hand at the end.

Bewis de la Rosa, Monday, August 14, dropYard Stage

Full disclosure: I ended up at this gig by a fortuitous accident. I had no idea who Bewis de la Rosa was, in fact, I still don’t. As in, I haven’t googled her, which is what you do these days with pretty much everything. I don’t even like Latino music all that much, which is a horrible, broad generalisation I am ashamed of, but unfortunately it’s true. You can kill me with reggaeton, salsa or cumbia. With Argentinian friends, I try everything, talk about Messi, Maradona, Borges, Cortazar, inflation, how the Malvinas son argentinas. Anything to stop them from playing some music. They always play some music. It kills me. So there I was, by the dropYard stage, and a Spanish lady with a large wooden spoon, and knickers hung out to dry as a backdrop, was rapping away in Spanish. She was angry. And without fully understanding what she was saying, I knew why she was angry. And I agreed. A few days later, the superb Spanish women’s football team won the World Cup, and a (male) moron ruined it for them. Presciently, that is (among other things) why Bewis was angry. And we need that anger, to make things move along. I haven’t googled her not because I am not curious about her, I haven’t done so because I want to preserve that wonderful feeling that Sziget every so often throws at you, of finding unexpected ways to connect with others through music. Last but not least: a round of applause for the power politics of the unshaved female armpit, as displayed by both Bewis de la Rosa and Caroline Polachek. Oh and also, is that an onion tattooed on her arm?!

Amyl and The Sniffers, Monday, August 14, Freedome Stage

I shouldn’t start all these with full disclosure. But, full disclosure: I didn’t see this concert. I heard it, too well, in fact. I heard it from a table outside the Freedome tent, where we parked our aging bones for some well deserved hydration. Not of the bones themselves, that would have been weird, but you get the gist. The sounds coming from the tent were atrocious. It’s just another weakness of mine, one of the many, as regular readers here may have learned. It’s not only reggaeton. Punk also kills me. A bit less than reggaeton, because punk means there will be post punk. And post punk is good. But galloping, distorted tracks with a person screaming their soul out over them just won’t cut the mustard for me. Everything sounded all the same, and it was bad, and I wanted it to stop and then the blog’s industrious co-photographer emerged from the tent transfixed with joy. Apparently, on stage, there was a goddess of debauchery, who showed up in a flimsy golden attire with three different types of drinks in her hands as she arrived. She then screamed, spat, scratched, jumped, licked and kicked, and it was all glorious, and the only thing securing the attire (securing sounds like too strong of a word, here) to her chest was some fluorescent yellow scotch tape. The blog’s industrious co-photographer put the performance in his pantheon of unforgettable Sziget nights, alongside Snoop high as a kite, and a Fidlar concert with naked crowd surfers. You see, I don’t like punk music, but I like punk as an attitude. So I think that I might have made a mistake here: instead of hearing a bad show, I could have just gone inside to see a good show. For the two things don’t always go hand in hand. Another Sziget wisdom for you, right there. (I mistyped wisdom as wisdome just now, so I will call anything meaningful learned on Sziget freedome wisdome.)

Macklemore, Monday, August 14, Main Stage

Yup, full disclosure. Didn’t see or hear this one, either. However, the blog’s industrious co-photographer, being less sniffy than yours truly, does occasionally attend the ‘overrated’ headliner. And while many of these headliners do leave him cold, he, quite unexpectedly, returned with rave reviews of Macklemore. Long and the short of it was that Macklemore’s show was great fun. Nothing groundbreaking, he’s way past that. Most people in attendance probably didn’t even know he had an album out earlier this year- it’s called BEN, you guessed right, Macklemore IS in fact called Benjamin. Thing is, Macklemore himself does know he is way past edginess (provided you accept he ever had any), and doesn’t want to recapture it either. He revels in the here and now, an attitude which is evident in his appraisal of Eastern European shows. The man would never headline Glasto, that much is a fact. But here is a chunk of the world where he is a bona fide festival mega star and he’s basking in the glory of it all. He wears folksy shirts and raves on Instagram about wanting to live here. The enthusiasm, then, works both ways, and feels sincere. There is this crowd who love Macklemore, and he loves them back. Both parties have honest fun. And you can never begrudge your fellow humans some honest fun. That would be graceless.

Sleaford Mods, Tuesday, August 15, Freedome Stage

A final full disclosure for the 2023 edition: the last day was a bit of a blur. There weren’t all that many concerts we wanted to see, and a storm was brewing over the horizon, albeit, eventually, it never came. The last day is always a bit sad, too, because you have to say goodbye to friends you might not see until the next edition, and so alcohol flows even more generously than in the days before. A very niche pleasure, such as the Sleaford Mods, is just not made for this environment. The Freedome tent was almost deserted, as most people were already flocking to Billie Eilish. Only a few of those present really knew the band, and the infamous Freedome sound system, on one of its worse days (it was, in fact, a pretty poor year overall), proved challenging for an act that relies heavily on the punch of the lyrics. This is not to say that it was a total fiasco, there was a nervy intensity to the performance, but it never fully clicked into gear. I kept thinking that while this is good, it could be better- on a different day, perhaps at a later hour, with a crowd which is less exhausted. Just too many elements were out of line, and the band must have felt it too.