You know this feeling when you wake up and you know it is the last morning in a place you do not want to leave? That was my wake up to the last day of Sziget festival. Apart from having a hard time packing as everything was wet and very muddy, we managed to move our stuff to closed Auchan and bring it successfully home. Wondering how many people were sad that it is not open – send your thank you cards to Viktor Orbán, the prime minister of Hungary and his political party Fidesz.
The storm that hit the festival was truly a gift from the sky as you could immediately feel that all the dust is gone. This was something that really made my day and I knew that the final day of Sziget will be a good one. I love mud at festivals, it adds up to the experience. As most of the people live in cities, they cannot enjoy walking in mud, ponds and getting dirty that easily. This is the festival experience that I like and that I was missing in the 6 days of heat and dust at Sziget festival.
Rudimental
We alredy saw the Rudimental gig at Colours of Ostrava and I must say, it suits them better when it gets dark. I think that it was too early and people would have partied more, if it would be later in the day. But still, they managed to entertain the crowd quite well. So overall it is good that the Kingdom of Hegyalja festival was cancelled and Rudimental could play on a bigger festival instead.
I liked how they were engaging with audience and how they as well realize that if they want to feed people new songs that they do not know, it is necessary to give them first some song they know. After the concert, we went to have another quesadilla.
The staff of MexKitchen were already welcoming us and #alpaca like their best friends, Judging from the queue that was there, this place has grown some new fans! Soon after we recieved our food, the chef announced there are only 5 portions left. It was funny to see people argue, who will still recieve a portion and who has to go find an alternative.
The owner was saying people are especially hungry today and it seems they underforecasted and as it is Sunday, they cannot go and buy more ingredients anywhere. Closed shops on Sunday, right. So they had to close at 19:15 already.
Limp Bizkit
Finally a band, which is older than 1 year (just a joke)! Judging from the crowd, people were really looking forward to this concert. The crazy dancing group doing pogo in the middle was unbelievable and you could totally feel the energy being transmitted from the band to the audience and back.
The crowd was so big that there was even a moment when Fred Durst, singer of Limp Bizkit urged the crowd and everybody at the festival to look out for each other and help each other if you see somebody in need. A very special moment.
I just tried imagining that it was not even an hour ago Rudimental were playing on exactly the same stage the song Waiting All Night and now it is Limp Bizkit playing hard and putting so many people into a musical paradise. Really strange dramaturgy.
Limp Bizkit is an experienced band that knows how to make the audience crazy and although I do not know many of their songs, I really enjoyed listening to them. Also the sound level was moderate given the music style. I think that such types of bands should be coming to Sziget more often – experienced with a drive.
Fauve
If you wanted to find a French lover for the night, this was the concert to go to. I had the feeling that there were all French people that came to Sziget. Fauve managed to create a marvellous atmosphere. The band was seriously touched by the amount of people that came and admitted as well that they are very stressed and nervous.
They tried talking in English, sometimes switched to French, leading to a funny sentence: “This one is quite… récente vous comprenez” All in all, these guys were very cute and I think they had hard times falling asleep that night. Memory that they will probably never forget.
During the concert, you could see some staff tightening up the ropes of the A38 tent. This was already giving the sign that the long expected storm is coming.
Passenger
This was for me the best concert of Sziget Festival 2015. At the same time, it was a huge fight too – who will be louder – Martin Garrix with his DJ set on the main stage or Michael David Rosenberg on the Passenger ride as an alternative wih just an acoustic guitar. There were moments when you could hear the main stage while Passenger was playing and it was quite funny how he was thanking the people all the time for coming to his gig and not to the end show.
Passenger threw a magical concert. This guy would be able to persuade a statue to click the fingers to the rythm of his indie folk songs! I loved especially the way how he engaged with the audience, talking all the time in between the songs, entertaining everybody. A magic that worked, he was touched, people were almost crying especially during the song “Let her go” and I believe that he had also hard time falling asleep as this was a strong breath-taking experience for everybody.
He also changed the guitar several times during the gig. The nicest moment of the whole concert were the final fireworks and although he thought that the people run away from his concert to see them, it was actually so nice to stand on the side of the A38, watch the fireworks with the silhouette of the A38 tent and hear him play his songs. A very special moment that will stay in my memory forever. I have not seen the show of Martin Garrix, but for me Passenger is the winner.
Milky Chance
The wind started to blow hard and the storm came. As a consequence, the A38 tent got full. I am actually curious how many times, compared to last year, it got full. The storm was very strong and the tent was actually not getting so fresh with so many people in it. It was impossible to reach out from the place, where we were standing to the bar to get some water, so I was not surprised that a girl fainted not far from me. It was a bit challenging to get her some medical assistance, but we managed and I hope that she is good now! The tent was really head on head, but as I saw, there was no water dripping and it stood solid.
The start of the Milky Chance concert was majestic, the tent was full – the best audience you can have is the one that cannot escape as the storm outside was stronger than the urge to run away from the concert. And then something happened and the sound and especially the basses got very veeery bad. So bad that I had to sacrifice my last tissue to create ear plugs as I could not bear it anymore. This is the second time I had this feeling, before it was at the Akkezdet phiai concert, but there we were in the first row.
I do not think the gig was bad, people had fun, they managed to entertain the crowd quite well. Side note: it feels very strange to appreciate when a band manages to engage with the audience. This should be automatic, no? Argh… And if the sound would not break down, I believe I would be able to enjoy the song Stolen dance too. This way, it got a bit painful and I was quite happy to see the rain stop (maybe we can thank the basses for it?) and to get out of the A38 for a short, muddy walk and a little snack.
Btw already during the last two days, there were runouts on tapped beer. I am Czech, I like my beer tapped and it is very hard to satisfy me with a warm can (I can count on exactly 1 finger how many times I had a properly cooled down can). Logistics problem? This would never happen in a Czech festival. Oh, I am so mean, but really, beer is the blood of any festival!
C2C
Based on a recomomendation, I decided to end the festival with this gig. Maybe it is my wet shoes to be blamed or my 7 day party experience, but the C2C music was too electronic and after the bad sound experience from Milky chance, I was not ready to absorb something so intense. So I gave up and headed back home.
It was quite funny to see so many people taking last time selfies with their shoes and clothes totally muddy, but with a smile on their face. Moron of the day is a guy in white mokasin shoes, who was trying to fit plastic bags on them, so that his leather beauties would not get dirty. Ah, these weather forecasts are so unreliable…
And that was day 5 for me, I also want to thank the BKK for making my ride home safe and fast. I really liked that the HÉV was waiting in Filatorigát to get fuller as there were a lot of people coming all the time and the fact that the night tram driver was not closing the door, but waiting for the whole crowd that arrived to squeeze in to the 6 tram. Well done!
This is the last post from my Sziget Festival 2015 Diary. I am also planning to write a review (a bit later as I need to digest all those memories first) on the festival in a separate post. I wanted to keep the diary exclusively about music and performances so come back for more.
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If you are curious about the other days of Sziget as me and #alpaca saw it:
And again a few pictures from the last day of Sziget Festival:
