Among the many renowned artists slated for Budapest's Sziget Festival 2018 is the highly original folk/ethnic/world music band known as Värttinä - an ever-evolving group whose current members include vocalists Mari Kaasinen, Susan Aho and Karoliina Kantinen, accordionist Matti Kallio, bass player Hannu Rantanen, and percussionist/drummer Mikko Hassinen. Adding to the fusion, their featuring artist this summer will be hip hop/folk musician/rapper and local Finnish legend Paleface.
As a band whose evolution ran a parallel course to groups the likes of Hedningarna, Värttinä has outlasted most of those who aligned themselves to recasting ancient folk motifs within the realm of a more contemporary sonic sensibility. Having been highly selective when choosing both projects and collaborations, Värttinä's recent foray into a world of lyrics that are - if Paleface's presence is anything to go by - steeped in socio-political commentary is bound to be both emotive and thought-provoking.
Jewish Monkeys
Besides Värttinä, Sziget's World Music stage will host other exciting juxtapositions of sounds such as UK's Transglobal Underground who will be featuring the highly acclaimed artist, Natacha Atlas. When it comes to fanciful frolic there's always France's Les Negresses Vertes, a band that manages to blend flamenco, medieval ballad and the world of Enrico Macias into one ongoing party. Likewise, Hungary has several enigmas at play. Pannonia Allstars Ska Orchestra merrily belies all assumptions that revolve around its name to create some very memorable and unpredictable melodies, while Zuboly fuses jazzy Broadway brass with quirky soundscapes and spoken word. As for undeniable humor and groove, there's the Israeli band the Jewish Monkeys who take kvetching to the next level by making it sexy and fetishistic to boot… or to shoe, or to the feet in either boot or shoe.
Lykke Li (courtesy of fansite)
When it comes to Finland's neighbors, Scandinavia is amply represented at this year's upcoming Sziget Festival. On the main stage there is Kygo from Norway, and the and the dazzling vocalist and earthy indie blues rock band Kaleo from Iceland. From Sweden, there is stormy and outspoken Lykke Li/ , the heartfelt singer/songwriter Zara Larsson, and the feverishly pulsing experimental electro sound project Fever Ray (Karin Dreijer of the Knife). From Norway, singer/songwriter Aurora, And returning for her umpteenth time from Denmark, the anarcho-punk-to-pop princess MØ who rightly believes that Budapest is a party capitol where unfiltered enthusiasm and emotion both flow as freely as the fine local wines.
Sziget Festival, Photo by: Rockstar Photographers
While folk music is bound to heat up at Sziget's World Stage this year, if you're one of those folks that want to see summer sizzle, the Main Stage will likely do the trick. SZIGET 2018i
Hitting the stage with their usual dose of high octane folk rock, the ethnic fusion band Värttina has clearly not had any of its luster tarnish over the years. As muscularly earthy as ever, the music took its usual leaps into whimsical and soulful while nevertheless retaining its pop-structured hooks and well-honed dynamics. Hungary makes for a good crowd – appreciation for singular artists was perceptible amongst all audience age groups.
Echoing the zeitgeist, the feeling evoked by the city of Budapest and the mood of the nearly half-million passport carrying ‘szitizens’ of Sziget Festival 2016, one voice captured it all. The incandescent sound shuddering its way through the audience carrying with it the familiar but evocative cry: “Shine bright like a diamond” belonged to none other than Sia.
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Unlike the gyrating megastar, Rihanna, who had days earlier received ovations on the same main stage; the song was being sung by the vulnerable soulful Sia (Sia Furller) who - together with producers Benny Blanco and Stargate - had penned the chart-topping Diamonds. Reiterating the self-generated sentiment of our post-ironic age, Sia belted out “I choose to be happy” while several thousand gaping mouths merrily concurred.
In truth, Sia’s show was a watershed for large venue performances, a benchmark in ‘how to’ when it comes to dazzling festival audiences. Hidden behind her iconic window-curtain of a two-toned wig with oversized bow, Sia stood unobtrusively stage right while her leotard clad alter-ego - played by a top ranking modern dancer – in the company of several brilliant mimes, articulated her vision in a highly entertaining cross between installation art, performance art and modern dance choreography à la Ryan Heffington.
Relying on large screens, laser lighting and smart stage sets and costumes, Sia reconciled the world of pop music with something that would otherwise have felt as remote as Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle. Singing Cheap Thrills(presently #1 on Billboard Hot 100) along with classics like Breathe Me, Sia’s multi-layered performance is a keen reminder of why she is the mastermind behind songs for Beyonce, Katy Perry, Britney Spears, Christine Aguilera,Jessie J, Will Young, Kelly Clarkson, Kate Pierson, Kylie Minogue, Gwen Stefani, Shakira, Neon Hitch, and, among many others, of course, Rihanna.
So whether or not you acknowledge her as one of the most innovative forces in pop today, it is more than likely that Sia is already the hidden voice behind one of your favorite hits. As a festival that prides itself in being a cross between Art and Music, Sziget did well by being the first to host Sia’s formidable fusion of a show – a paradigm shift as acts go – one that will leave audiences world-over in awe.
As for the ‘Shooting star I see, the vision of ecstasy,’ part of the Diamonds song, well, that glitz-blitz of a title still belongs to Rihanna. After a characteristic late start, she made good on expectation, delivering a glam-slam of a performance with just enough ‘flirt and dirt’ to keep her audience revved. Though the heartfelt evening of sultry song, steamy dance, and touching asides came with few surprises, she managed to keep the momentum going strong till the end.
FROM BROODING TO AMUSING TO MUSING
If there is such as a thing as antidote to hosting Sigur Ros - the ethereal slowburners whose swirling mass of architectural sounds flow endlessly between the icy sheets of static melodies while Jonsi Birgisson’s frail but gravity-defying falsetto hovers plaintively across a cacophonic swell of complex chords – it is the operatic circus-like push-it-beyond-the-limit melodramatics of Muse. Muse is a band forever attempting to recreate the big bang, going from zero to hero, from supernovae to black hole in a matter of incalculable decibels. With all the subtlety of Queen on steroids, Muse is a band made for a massive audience. As for the visuals, the show came off like a puppeteer’s digital nightmare with godlike electro-magnetic hands moving the band to play, sing and finally recoil. Like deities of yore, Muse relies on bolts of lightning and thunder. They are in their element when covered in mounds of riffs and heaps of reverbs.
For fans who have more of a proclivity to metal – albeit with a decidedly romantic melodic core – there was Bring Me the Horizon. While the lyrics and delivery screamed: blood, mud, and gore, the compositions palpitated with longing and woe. Still the most interesting thing to hear was when the main stage lent itself to brilliant lyrics, wry wit and a pop psychedelia sensibility that boasted lush harmonies with genuine dynamics. For this there was The Last Puppet Show - the recurring project band of Arctic Monkey’s Alex Turner and Rascals’ rocker Miles Kane. From understated to playfully over-the-top, theirs is serious music that doesn’t take itself seriously. In a sense, this band has Hungarian temperament written all over it.
TASTING MENU
Walking about Sziget is like being lost in a post-apocalyptical wonderland where the most versatile artists have made an attempt to save all that is best of this world on a last remaining island. Besides the main stage, there are five large venues that hold a wide range of music.
The A 38 stage boasted renowned acts like the theatrical and highly eclectic electronic trio Chvrches, the electro-rock band the Editors, the gypsy punk band Molotov, the fearless post-disco singer Roisin Murphy, Bullet for my Valentine and the angry Canadian band, Crystal Castles, (now without their dynamo stage villain, Alice Glass) to name but a few of my favorites.
Of course, Telekom Festival stage was where I finally got a chance to listen to some noteworthy Hungarian artists like the stark hypnotic electro vibe of indie band Passed and the quirky world of Bin-Jip where clever electro grooves try desperately to keep up with vocals that sound like Karen O overdosing on Bjork with lyrics that oddly juxtapose Beat poetry with advert slogans. Then there was the conscientiously savvy Mary Popkids with their well-integrated indiepop by way of funk, electronica, soul and Motown; as well as the synth world of MGMT meets Hole by the highly dramatic and stage worthy Anna Pasztor of Anna and the Barbies.
As for surprises, it was Péterfy Bori and the Love Band which – despite classification as alternative rock – defies even the most ‘alternative’ of expectations. The Love Band is one that veers from spaghetti western motifs to ethnic themes to chanson moods all while managing to come off as though these eclectic juxtapositions were the most natural things in the world. With cinematic soundscapes, rock drive, indie matter-of-factness, punk edge and even ethno-electro moodiness, this is retro-music as defined by someone living in the year 2500. Of course, as it turns out that someone is the musical genius whose signature one can hear throughout each song, Ambrus Tövisházi, an artist who makes even the most difficult leaps in genre sound like the most conventional step someone could have taken. In my own opinion, just about anything Tövisházi touches – whether its Erik Sumo and the Ice Cream Band, Amorf Ördogok or the many intriguing film scores he has created - is a world onto itself, a fun-loving world that is very much worth worth listening to even for those of us who are not privileged enough to make sense of the the seemingly random but always emotionally genuine choices.
Another band with a very distinct edge is Best Bad Trip. Their sound is the patterns one discerns in chaos and the chaos one notices after staring at order for far too long.
Like a band schooled on John Zorn, Trey Spruance, and Primus - with a heartwarmingly idiotic touch of the Lounge Lizards – The Best Bad Trip are educated enough to allow for silly, savvy enough to be boyish, nihilistic enough to flirt with romance, cool enough to suffer fits of angst, and smart enough to give way to just the right amount of stupid. Mostly, of course, the Best Bad Trip is young – young enough to love everything that had come before them and young enough to demonstrate their love in a wonderfully irreverent fashion. In a sense, ‘lovingly irreverent’ defines Sziget Festival itself.
Having drawn guests from over 100 countries, the festival is one that seems to be growing exponentially by the year. Thankfully, unlike most other massive festivals whose increase in size and numbers has led to a mainstream homogenous look, Sziget has managed to maintain its very distinct personality. Its signature is evident in the myriad of different activities and in the joy seen on the faces of even those who work there to what I assume is a level somewhere beyond exhaustion. There's a sense of community and spirit that pervades the atmosphere - one that makes locals and guests alike reluctant to upset the balance. To illustrate the level of trust that existed on the festival grounds, let me just add that three different people I know had lost their phones while dancing over night, and -as 'Szigetian' fate would have it - all three of those people had managed to get their phones back the very next day at the Lost and Found.
SZIGET SHINES BRIGHT
When it comes to week-long festivals, Sziget is in a category all its own. Throughout the Island one saw wine bars sporting brilliant vintages, pubs with craft beers and even specialized Palinka stops.
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As fireworks lit up the sky on the final night, I couldn’t help but think that Sia was onto something. It was evident in the many thousands of radiant bodies moving to the music, evident in the ecstatic faces glowing in the dark, evident in the many eyes that were as resplendent as the stars they were watching overhead that each and every person at Sziget understood that "We’re beautiful like diamonds in the sky."
“Signal-to-noise,” I thought to myself as I stood amidst the gridlock of Sziget Festival’s main stage. Peter Gabriel was right. Like true content emerging triumphantly from the mire of what is otherwise merely an information overload, good music transcends background noise - especially with a little help from its friends like state-of-the-art sound systems and smart acoustics. As in Gabriel’s song, ‘signals deep and loud’ were being emitted all while ‘receive and transmit’ continued to take place. In parochial terms: despite the massive number of people listening to brilliant music in one place, the phones at Sziget managed to keep working.
Photo by: Balázs Mohai
Budapest’s Sziget Festival had 441,000 guests from 95 different countries and every single phone had perfect reception. This, while at Flow Festival, 70, 000 people were busy celebrating the annual signal meltdown. For some reason, the "technologically advanced country of Finland" regularly succumbed to reception failure during festivals and all major public events. Perhaps Hungarians were simply lucky. After all, ever since Nokia changed owners and consolidated, Budapest has had few "Finnish experts" to tell them why their servers shouldn't be able to handle a large number of simultaneous calls.
Photo by: Zsolt Fűrész
Traipsing about Sziget Festival’s Island of Freedom I received a day old SMS from a friend in Helsinki: “Hope you’re having fun. I lost my girlfriend and my mates while standing on line to buy water.” No such luck in Budapest, I thought. Here the water was free and readily available and, what was worse, my girlfriend was able to reach me even while trapped between the hordes leering at Robbie Williams. “Listen, deaf bitch,” came her loving message, “refill the bottle at the fountain and meet me on the left side of the main stage.” Like Gunga Din, I headed off in search of water. Little did I know when I set off that I would not only find water but I’d find a sandy beach filled with bathers in the moonlight who were taking a break from the music.
Photo by: Péter Kálló
Held on the Island of Freedom - an island floating between Buda and Pest, between east and west, between headliner acts and upcoming artists – the 7 day long 24 hour a day Hungarian extravaganza hosted more than 300 artists from 50 different countries. Besides Finland’s esteemed 22-Piste pirkko, the festival was a name-dropper's nirvana boasting headliners like Florence and the Machine, Limp Bizkit, Paloma Faith, Tyler the Creator, Ellie Goulding, Marina and the Diamonds, Interpol, Major Lazar and Gogol Bordello to name just a few.
Along with many local bands, the event proved to be a cornucopia for music with everything from industry heavyweights to eclectic to indie to opera to classical to jazz to world music.
Photo by Sándor Csudai
As Robbie Williams belted out the lyrics to Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, it became ever more difficult to determine “Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy?” What was certain is that between the ‘thunderbolts and lightning’ and lazar shows and stomping, there was something uniquely bohemian as well rhapsodic to the international event. With an idiosyncratically Hungarian artistic flavor added into the mix, it could be that the best way to describe the festival is as a Hungarian Rhapsody à la Liszt - a fusion of diverse cultures with a whole lot of drama, emotion and bravura.
Photo by László Mudra
Complete with several visiting circuses, dance companies, theater groups and art shows, activities are virtually endless. A myriad of ethnic foods, gourmet kiosks, cocktail bars, pubs, wine bars… the island made up a micro-nation of its own wherein the “Szitizens” (as they refer to the guests) could pretty much move about from one environment to the other, dwelling within whatever mood suited them.
Photo by: Kristóf Hölvényi
There was an Artzone wherein performance and conceptual artists drew you into a world of body paint and ‘portraits for a beer’ and ‘build your own installation from these given components’. In addition there was a designzone and a sportzone that boasted all sorts of gadgets in an atmosphere that I can only refer to as a ‘post-modern outdoor gym’ where one got to exercise on idiosyncratically futuristic contraptions that were as entertaining as they were good for you. Then there was the I ching Labiryth - better than what it sounds like. And a multitude of freestanding art structures reminiscent of Burning Man.
Photo by: Zsolt Furesz
“Your sex is on fire consumed with what just transpired”, sang the Kings of Leon to a hormone-driven crowd in the throes of exaltation. No discernible drugs. No heavily intoxicated football hooligans elbowing their way through the crowd. This was boho-heaven – a place where hugging, kissing and cavorting set the mood. It was an Island with its own rules. No closing hours; just an endless ‘party on’ atmosphere catering to all ages and nationalities.
Photo by: G Gott
A Danish girl jumped amidst a group of Brits and announced for no apparent reason: “This is so much better than Reeding and Leeds or the Isle of Wight. Better even than Roskilde. This is Woodstock 2015, Fringe Festival of the future - all of it rolled into one.” Though the Brits didn’t seem to mind the lecture - offering her a spliff by way of compensation - her boyfriend put a quick end to her symposium. Turning down the joint on her behalf, his barking eventually receded in a forest of lazars and sound.
Sziget's Magic Mirror
Magic Mirror, Sziget’s queer program venue also celebrated its fifteenth year. Besides a series of films, talks, cabarets, drag shows and performances, there were special guests such as sociologists and authors specialized in LGBT issues as well as Nadezhda Tolokonnikova and Maria Alyokhina from Pussy Riot. “You go mad if you live in constant fear”, explained both girls while reveling in the genuine adulation.
Boasting a large camping site for tents, the festival supports large numbers of young people being able to stay overnight for the full duration. However, since public transportation was available in and out of the city 24/7, we found it easier to stay in the center of Budapest while still being able to choose our own hours for revelry.
Photo by: Benedek Varga
As alternative universes go, Sziget is a place for discovery as much as it is a place in which to sit back and enjoy established works. Besides the vast number of exciting new bands such as Selah Sue and Balthazar – both incidentally from Belgium – and coming from as far as Israel (Infected Mushroom and Asaf Avidan) and Australia (Knife Party and Nevo), Hungary had its own standout talents in the form of artists such as Akkezdet Fiai, Irie Maffia and Anna and the Barbies.
With state-of-the-art sound systems, dozens of venues and a myriad of different things to do, Sziget allows you to call all the shots when it comes to how you spend your time there. In addition to calling shots, it also seems remarkably easy to call just about anyone by phone. As though taking cue from Peter Gabriel, Sziget manages “to turn up the signal and wipe out the noise”
Listening to Foxes sing Home, my Finnish girlfriend couldn’t help but recall her own home and the crisis her friends were having reaching one another at Flow Festival. All puns aside, I thought myself, let’s call it as we hear it: For a festival of Sziget’s stature and magnitude to have water and phone service so readily available, is enough to convince any Finn in Hungary to join Foxes in her final refrain: “It was only yesterday we spoke on the phone… But I’m looking at these strange faces and I’m not coming home.”
