  
After three days at Sziget Festival we're still discovering new places and new people! After a relatively quiet first day, we finally had the chance to check out the smaller stages that began their schedule on Tuesday and we were not disappointed.
The start of the second day caught us at the A38 Stage where checked out Babylon Circus, one of the coolest French bands that we ever had the pleasure to hear. The energy that the seven band members emanated was incredible. A whole hour of ska and reggae madness and a few thousand dancing and screaming people transformed this concert into a brilliant festival experience.
The A38 Stage was pretty busy on Tuesday, with bands like Kensington, Future Islands and Jungle making sure that the guys playing at the Main Stage had to work hard to keep the audience from coming to see and hear them. Let's not forget the magnificent Selah Sue, who had the pleasure to sing in front a crowd that almost filled the huge A38 Stage tent.
Although more people attended the Main Stage concerts, the only band that really impressed us on Tuesday was Florence and the Machine. It's almost impossible to describe the magical experience that is a Florence concert because you really have to be there to fully understand. She is a barefoot goddess on stage. Even though Robbie Williams probably had a larger crowd, we dare to say that Florence Welch entertained them better. We hope that's not blasphemy...
The other artists that sang on the Main Stage on Tuesday were Gentleman & The Evolution, who made us dance a little thanks to their reggae beats, Asaf Avidan, who had the most boring first part of a concert in the history of music, and Quimby, a Motorheadish Hungarian band.
The main problem with the third day of Sziget Festival was the heat. Because the temperatures probably surpassed 38-39 °C, every street on Obuda Island had a "The Walking Dead" feeling, with people crawl-walking to the nearest stand for a bottle of water or a glass of beer. Nevertheless, we endured and had a lot of fun.
The first band that we saw on Wednesday was Gogol Bordello and we have to say that it was awesome. The gypsy punk band made everybody forget about the heat and instead do an epic moshing in front of the stage. After a short trip to A38 Stage, where we had the chance to not understand what the Dutch hip-hop band Typhoon sang about, we returned to the Main Stage to see The Horrors. Even though we had high expectations from this concert, in the end we were kind of disappointed by the lack of interaction with the public and the general bored attitude that the lead vocalist Faris Badwan emanated from every pore. Actually, the only reason we're talking about them is because of the really weird jump off the stage that Badwan made at the end of the concert. At the end of the last song, he just went for it and fell awkwardly on the unsuspecting heads of the people in front of the stage. Fortunately, he managed to not break his back on the pit fence.
After this weird scene, we had the very big pleasure to watch the brilliantly active and happy guys from the Irish band The Script. The lead vocalist Danny O'Donaghue and guitarist Mark Sheehan consistently interacted with the crowd and made them a part of the show. Probably the coolest moment of the concert happened when O'Donaghue jumped the pit fence and sang an entire song among the people attending. Unfortunately, the only people that didn't appreciate this stunt were the security guys who were constantly running after him and trying to protect him.
Because a festival isn't only about the main stages, we dedicated a part of the third day to other activities and to some of the smaller stages on the island. Thus we had the chance to attend a show called La Globa (The Bubble) performed by the Argentinian group Fuerza Bruta and we had a lot of fun. The show was a new kind of theater that included the public in the performance and... oh, who are we trying to fool, it was a mindf**k, but a really cool one.
Last but not least, we had the pleasure to listen to the cool little French band Scarecrow The Blues Hip Hop at the Blues-Irish Stage, who really nailed this unusual musical combination. We're really glad that we discovered them and we recommend them with all our heart.
That's about it from Sziget for the moment. We have really enjoyed ourselves so far and we can't wait to see what other wonderful surprises this beautiful festival has in store for us. |
