The crowd was a bit tetchy, perhaps bored, people doing the compulsory drinks and toilet rounds, the festival circuit of water in nature, from beer to stomach to mobile toilet. There was texting, snapchatting and whatsapping, modern(er) technologies replacing the desperate battle cry of ‘I am in front of the main stage where are you’…
Category: Sziget
Be the Cowboys: Jain, Years and Years, Tove Lo and Alma (Best Concerts of Sziget 2019 Part Five)
I will call this the ‘festival feel good gig’ section and will readily admit that I did not stay through all of these concerts. Except Alma’s, as I was making a political statement of sorts to pretty much no one but myself about being seriously underwhelmed by Foo Fighters and choosing ‘girly’ pop over ‘manly’…
Positive Energies: Parcels and IDLES (Best Concerts of Sziget 2019 Part Four)
If you’re looking for a grand design as to why Parcels and IDLES ended up in the same article, well, there isn’t any. Perhaps the fact that I was familiar with one song each from both bands: for IDLES, it was obviously Danny Nedelko. For Parcels, my ignorance goes deeper: I only realized I knew…
Europe Stage Exotica: Hearts Hearts and Satellites (Best Concerts of Sziget 2019 Part Three)
I’ve already written a bit about my Hearts Hearts story (because I have one) in this year’s preview post, and also about what it feels like staying in front of the Europe Stage for ‘smaller bands’, whatever that tag means- Alma started her Sziget adventure on the Europe Stage, has progressed to A38 and, if…
About a Saturday: The National and James Blake at Sziget 2019 (Best Concerts Part Two)
It was a perfect night, so I’ll start by complaining. The National had been delighting me with special posters for all their previous shows during this tour (evidence to be admired on their Instagram), they didn’t have one for Sziget. James Blake had been playing Assume Form, my favourite track from his latest album, as…
A Tale of Two Franks: Best Concerts of Sziget 2019 Part One
It all began with me not really being able to tell the ‘two Sziget Franks’ apart, making silly jokes along the lines of the bands being called Frank Turner and the Sleeping Rattlesnakes and Frank Carter and the Rattled Souls. Then, absolutely out of the blue, a friend who’d loved Frank Turner very much passed…
Five Concerts You Shouldn’t Miss On Sziget
There was a point in the run up to this year’s Sziget when I felt I am somehow less happy with the lineup compared to other years, maybe I still feel, just a little, that this is the case. Nevertheless, I did manage to summon five names that I’m really looking forward to seeing, and…
In Wine There is Truth, in A38 There is Music: Best Concerts of Sziget 2018 Part Two
#5 La Femme As a part of my Summer of the Ignoramus project (the season is interchangeable, the ignoramus remains) I arrived at the La Femme gig knowing principally that they were French. As in did not just have a French name because it was cool, in the way all high street store T-shirts have…
A Matter of Energy: Best Concerts of Sziget 2018 Part One
This is somewhat of a novelty list for me: for the first time ever, I have managed to keep it down to an actual ten acts, and not go for some esoteric number like 12 or 17. I haven’t landed one of my favourite bands at number one, a crime to which I plead guilty…
And on the Last Day Cometh the Monkeys and the Flood- Sziget 2018 Day Seven
It’s been a strange and somewhat unwelcome Sziget tradition, but the rain insists to come on the last day of the festival and insists to do so in the manner rain generally prefers in summer time, in the form of the mother of all storms. As with any form of extreme weather, even such a…
Pocket Diary Budapest 