I planned my trip to Budapest having no idea was the Sziget festival was. When the friend I was visiting suggested we get a day ticket I was like, "sounds cool". My expectations have never been further surpassed in my life. The biggest festival in Europe, it was like nothing I have ever experienced. Maxing out at 70,000 people, the festival had 13 stages, countless bars, lounges, restaurants, markets, dance clubs, activities (rock climbing, bungee jumping, etc) and more and took up a whole island almost 4 miles around. Honestly, it was more like a city than a festival. It was amazing. Check out the map below for an idea of just how big it is.
So I figure its just easiest if I post my pictures in chronological order and give you an idea of what my day at the festival was like. Below is a look at the schedule, in Hungarian.
Because the festival is on an island, the music on the smaller stages can go pretty late without bothering the residents of Budapest.
Early on, from a bar near the main stage. Anti-Flag was playing. The lead singer wouldn't shut up and was kind of embarrassing me as an American.
We explored some of the more chill smaller stages. There is a band playing to the left... We got ambush kisses from painted men and had to wash up to hide the evidence.
MGMT!!! By far the band I was most excited about seeing at the festival. They put on a great show. The album is so great it would have been hard for me not to be into the music, but I think I can honestly say they had great energy and ensemble.
I was pleasantly surprised at how popular MGMT is in Europe. Not only did they have a great turn out (even at an early time slot) but the crowd was singing along and so very into the music. Apparently they are played on MTV Europe almost every hour. I wish I had MTV Europe.
Between shows we had a beer and snack in front of the Yoga tent. The snack was good, but for the first time in my life I thought a food had too much cheese.
Flogging Molly was awesome. Its not the kind of music I generally listen to, but its such a fun concert to see. And I was so impressed with the talent of all of the individual musicians (especially the fiddle player!). As you can see from the video, even on the edges of the crowd, people were really into the show. As you can also see, people look stupid dancing when you can here the music.
Those Flogging Molly fans sure are excitable, just ask this lady.
Exploring again, we saw some people that were getting an early start at one of the dance clubs. These are probably people who also got an early start at the bars.
Alanis Morissette was so great. She is an amazing performer with a flawless voice. To my joy she played mostly old stuff, and nearly all of her hits from Jagged Little Pill. I was slightly distracted by some cute French guys behind us. Upon finding out they were 21 and 22 I became obsessed with age for the rest of the evening. Looking around, I would guess that 75% of the crowd was between 18 and 22. Which is consistent with the fact that all of my friend's friends (25+ locals) that we had been hanging out with all week were so over Sziget.
While eating dinner near the Kooks show, we met some locals. They provided a drink that was sweet Hungarian wine mixed with club soda. Delicious!
They showed us the museum quarter where there was a lot of cool interactive art, including this exhibit with some much appreciated bean bags.
The tents were beautiful under the lantern light. Don't worry, we didn't go inside any.
We checked out the Heaven Street Seven DJ set. Apparently he is in a Hungarian band that my friend really likes.
It was a pretty unimpressive DJ set, but the music was fun to dance to.
We did some more exploring, above being an example of the late night scene between stages. With the help of a 24 year old German gentleman, we started to survey the age of the Sziget population. After a 21 year old responded to my age with "25?!!! Where are your grandchildren??!" I nearly wet my pants and had to stop the survey.
We checked out a Hungarian band Kiscsillag. They were pretty good but I was pretty... tired.
This is a pic from another night, just to show the main stage crowd at night.
Sziget was one of the best experiences of my life. Two of my favorite thing are music and meeting people. I frequently meet people at shows but because people come from all over Europe to go to Sziget, it is even easier to talk to everyone. It's a place where "Where are you from?" is the new "Nice pants" and where being from New York is exotic. I can't wait to go back!
Beck: I almost don't want to say too much, except for that it was one of the best shows I have ever seen. He played a great variety of all of his best stuff. He and the band sounded very well rehearsed and had a good energy. The female vocals were a pleasant addition, really adding a lot to all of the songs. And the visuals were beautiful, fitting perfectly with the music. It was just great. You have to see it.
Please don't judge the sound of the concert based on this crappy video taken with my little digital camera.
