An Islandful of Wonders: Sziget 2018 Days Three and Four

Day three is the day when most festivals end, on Sziget it’s the ‘it finally began in earnest’ day, also the day when I could spend a good session of moaning over my spritzer that maybe the line-up isn’t all that it’s hyped up to be, and I literally (few things feel more satisfying than…

The Rules That We Break: Editors @ Barba Negra

In the run up to this Monday’s Editors show I was harbouring one of those ‘important’ existential concerns that envelop me every now and then with basically no sense or clear outcome either to myself, or the wholeness of being in general: I have written so many ecstatic reviews of the Editors, both of club…

Genre Bending: Carpenter Brut @ Akvárium

I was once lying on the cold ice of the Városliget rink, face down, having just discovered that I can neither stand, nor stop or get up on ice, so basically the position I found myself in was also the only one available to me altogether at that point. It was however a good position…

Clubbing for Introverts: Com Truise @ A38

Whenever, for unfathomable reasons called bad judgement and peer pressure, I did consent to going clubbing, the second I entered the door I felt like Lieutenant Commander Data sent to a very strange alien planet to investigate the habits and customs of the locals, to his great puzzlement and moderate amusement. My advantage over Data…

Breaking the Mold: Son Lux @ Dürer Kert

As I was packed in a tight, sardine-like and increasingly fidgety queue waiting to finally be reunited with my coat, many thoughts were swirling in my mind. Somewhere deep in the subconscious was the truism of Romania’s ex-president, namely that winter is not like summer, because if it were summer, I would now be carelessly…

Dark Nights and a State of Grace: Ghostpoet @ A38

Concert etiquette, like most decent human interaction, needn’t be a difficult thing. There are no tips and tricks on how to get it right, no blurred lines between what’s alright and what isn’t. If you are a pest to those around you, and your presence hinders them from enjoying the show, you have failed. If…

An Awesome Walk and ALT-J @ Wiener Stadthalle

Vienna on a Sunday morning is both very closed, and very open. Shops are closed, except for tobacconist’s, a few pastry shops and newsagents. The situation of the latter is, however, more complicated: those which are open are usually split in half with a rather random red tape, and beyond the tape lies a world…

When We Are Young: King Krule @ A38

It is exceptionally rare by Budapest standards that a concert sells out on the first day when the tickets are available- I for one can’t remember any, though of course some popular dinosaurs might have done that, since there seems to be unrelenting interest in them, but I try to refrain from any such endeavours…

The Wedding Singer: Omar Souleyman @ Dürer Kert

The blog’s industrious co-photographer made it as clear as the light of day that the last and only time he saw Omar Souleyman, at the Electronic Beats festival, was one time too many for him and he’s seen and heard this all at village weddings and wants none of it. And in many ways he…