Sziget Logs - Part II

August 13th and August 14th

My favourite thing about the Sziget festival is that it's basically camping with background music. All day long there is music coming from somewhere and, since the campsite is on the festival site and not seperate from it like most other festivals, you are always surrounded by sound.

We accidentally found the perfect camping spot the first year we went (2003 - Joanne, Jenn and Emma) and we have put our tent there every time after (2005 - Joanne, Jennifer, Niels and Carol and now 2008 - Joanne, Jennifer, Niels, Werner and Steffie). The spot we found was across the road from the Szupermarket and the showers and it's behind the Afro-Latin World stage and tents. I've marked it on the map with an X, you should be able to see it if you click on the image to enlarge.

Camping there is ideal because you get the shade of the trees and you're near all the things you'll need when you're not on the main festival area. Namely, breakfast and coffee. Also, the Afro-Latin World area has a cocktail bar, dance classes, fans with mist coming out of them (very necessary in the heat) and is just generally a fun place to be.

A thing every Sziget goer (or Islander, as we get called there) learns is that there is no point getting girly about staying clean. It is impossible. The island is one giant dust lump and you get covered in it head to toe. Seriously, you get visibly dirty elbow pits. It gets everywhere. You may think you are really tanned but you aren't. We always bring wipes and try to maintain a bit of hygene but it's futile, really. Best thing to do is embrace the Lord of the Flies-ness of it and go with the flow. Sziget is not a place where you should get wound up about anything, especially not the state of your nails.

Exhibit A

It may seem like there isn't a lot going on during the day before the Main Stage acts start but that couldn't be further from the truth. There are rugby matches, dance classes, massages, language courses, bungee jumps, obstacle courses, climbing walls, chill out zones, stalls where you can shop and food stands like nobody's business. During the day is when the real party animals sleep and the rest relax, poke around or shop. Some people even leave the island and do the tourist thing in Budapest. We like to chill out, read a book, do a puzzle, play some cards or chit chat.

Sistahs.
Jenn and Steffie at the cocktail tent in Afro-Latin World.
Me with newly purchased Emily the Strange bag.

And then the Main Stage and other tents get going and it's time to be a real Islander. As soon as the line up gets announced people are already planning who to go and see when and at what stage. Your favourite bands/artists get highlighted on the print out or circled in the Sziget booklet you get from information when you land on the island.

My choices for Wednesday were: Flogging Molly and Alanis Morisette on the Main Stage.

Flogging Molly was an experience in and of itself. What a tornado of energy and fun! I was expecting a good show but I did not expect to find myself singing along (I don't know any songs) or grinning like a fool from the first chord to the last echo as they left the stage. I certainly didn't expect to get goosebumps and emotional during a song (Whistles the Wind). I was so impressed that I Googled the lyric I could remembered in order to find the title so that I could download it from iTunes. Which I have now done. Looking back on the whole week, I would have to say that FM was definitely one of the strongest performances of all.

Alanis Morisette came after FM and I was really looking forward to seeing my 90s heroine live. I knew Jagged Little Pill backwards and forwards and Steffie, Jenn and I were hoping she would do the hidden track. Alas, it was not meant to be. But she did do an amazing rendition of Perfect, a song I really love which more than made up for it. Her voice is amazing and I really let go and blasted along to the songs I knew. I also really enjoyed the songs I didn't know - the ones from her latest album. It might be time to get back on the Alanis bandwagon. Yes, it really might be.

We didn't have any real motivation to see the bands that were playing Thursday afternoon so that became a really chilled out bunch of hours and a moment to attempt the lines at the showers. By nightfall, though, we were all looking forward to Jamiroquai and Kraak & Smaak. I think Thursday was the most disappointing day of the week.

Jamiroquai, in my mind, was going to be as much dancing fun as Flogging Molly. Jamiroquai was going to be a sing-a-long dream. Jamiroquai was not supposed to be a hard to understand show with poor energy and no momentum whatsoever. Unfortunately, that's exactly what it was. The sound was poor and it seemed they didn't have a setlist because there was a very long pause between songs which meant that the crowd was left hanging every 6 or 7 minutes. It was a crying shame because that should have been the best show all week.

Steffie and Werner at Jamiroquai

Jenn and Niels test gravity and breast support

Kraak & Smaak was another let down. Not so much for me, though, because I had never heard of them. But I had heard that they were a really fun set of DJs that got the house jumping every time they played. They were supposed to start at 11pm in the Converse Wan2 tent so right after Jamiroquai finished up we headed over. They were still soundchecking at 23:15. Shortly after that the crowd (I think it was all 6000 Dutch people that had made the trip over as K&S are Dutch themselves - an amazing amount of people given that Jenn, Emma and I were the only ones who even spoke Dutch that we encountered the first time we went to Sziget in 2003) began to start chanting and singing every single Dutch football song they could think of. All of us. In chorus. Which was pretty cool. Until 23:35 when they finally started. By that time we were so tired of waiting that we called it quits and headed to the tents. It sounded cool, but there is only so much tolerance in me (read: none) for sweaty people pushing up against me and bouncing around erraticly.

Still to come ... Friday, Saturday and Sunday (August 15 - 17) ... after I eat lunch.

(for some damn reason Blogger doesn't want to put blank lines where I want them - it's annoying me)