Best Concerts of Sziget 2016 #6: Bloc Party

It kind of ups your indie credential if you have a song, possibly from an old (read: first) album, possibly a big hit (read: your biggest hit ever) that you then conscientiously refuse to play live.  It paints you in fashionable faded grays as a difficult, tormented artist producing over catchy hits which you then almost regret, but well, you’re good, you just could not help it.

But let us not be too harsh on Bloc Party- they do actually play Two More Years every now and then, just not too often, and not on Sziget this time. Just as they don’t always split up, but when they do, it’s not really forever- indefinite hiatus is one of the terms which keeps popping up so often in their biography that they might as well name a song in it’s honour.

They also tinkered with the line up a bit, confusing some of those in attendance, who stared into the mysterious depths of their beer looking for an answer as to whether the band’s drummer was always female. And that’s a no- Louise Bartle joined the band after the slightly acrimonious departure of Matt Tong in 2013, of which Kele Okereke enigmatically said to have involved disagreements over cocaine.

The one obvious thing though is that this fresh incarnation of Bloc Party definitely seems to be in a better place than the late troubled version of the previous line up. They sound better as well, the songs following each other in a strong, clear sequence, with Kele’s voice still being one of the most distinctive ones to have surfaced from the seas of noughties indie. And then there’s the punch, the moment when you feel that a song becomes a bit of a festival anthem, with the crowd singing along and swaying to the rhythm- this happened around Banquet, incidentally my second favourite Bloc Party song, and I almost forgave them for that Two More Years omission- I say almost not because the set itself did not make up for it amply, but because I occasionally indulge in holding harmless grudges.

In case you wonder whence the silly love for Two More Years, well, it happens to belong to a very elect and select list of indie songs which I have decided to use as the basis of fundamental existential guidelines, sort of a replacement for holy texts and self help books, which I find a nigh impossible to read. The relevant bit is 'You don't need to find answers for questions never asked of you' and I dare you to argue with it, because, of course, it's pointless and you will lose.

The backbone of the set was obviously built on the older albums, maybe a bit conspicuously so for a band theoretically promoting their latest release, but then again festival playlists are always a bit of a compromise and leave space for less experimentation, which given the onslaught of acts following one another does make sense in the grand scheme of things. And in this very grand scheme of things we are glad to have Bloc Party back with new faces but good old vibes. 

The Lull in the Middle- Sziget Day Three

Sziget's third day was the first genuinely hot one at this year's festival, although, to start the post with the mother of all stereotypes, the Brits in the toilet queue claimed to have been irrationally hot since Thursday. Sunbathing people populated the main stage area in the run up to the day's concerts, which unfortunately consisted in possibly the blandest lot ever to have graced the festival's biggest stage. First up were local boys Halott Pénz, against whom we have no fundamental objections, it's just that during Sziget we tend to go for acts which otherwise don't play in Budapest that often. Next up were Sum 41, against whom we have several fundamental objections, first and foremost being the one about why they are still around in 2016. They are disturbing even as a backdrop to buying food, so from that point on we kept as far away from the main area is possible. The day was made complete, though that term might not fit in this context by Tinie Tempah- again, no fundamental objections, but also no incentive to leave wherever we were just to immerse ourselves in his art. Of the headliner we will say that he's a knob fiddler and leave it at that.

The good thing though is that there are plenty of things to do on Sziget even if the musical line up is not the strongest on a particular day, so we checked out the Luminariun, found the queue was yet again prohibitive and decided to try again later. Next on was the Hungarikum village area, where we indulged in some cider and will here take time to mention our happiness at cider being available on the island. Since we touched upon the topic: I am still not enamoured with Dreher and suspect it of giving hideous headaches, but the cold hop version tastes considerably better and has yet to cause real misery on the day after. 

We then headed off to the opposite side of the island mainly to get a stamp- a few years ago passport styled programme booklets were introduced to replace the formerly traditional PestiEst Sziget special edition, and they come complete with a quest to obtain a number of stamps at different locations, which appeals to the five year old in each Szitizen. Sweet victory lay ahead as we collected ours at the sport zone, where more reasonable people were busy playing football, volleyball or ping pong, bag jumping and especially engaging in the most tiresome of sports related activities- watching others sweat blood for medals in Rio. The hot day also provided plenty of fodder for the bubble party bath, though our co-photographer, made industrious by Sziget delights, despondently remarked that the bathers were overwhelmingly young men. 

With a pit stop at the Colosseum, where it's still 3 AM, we finally arrived at the day's first concert, quite naturally happening in A38. We were quite dismissive of Oscar and the Wolf in our pre-Sziget investigation, and only really decided to check him out when we saw a festival T-shirt on which he was topping the bill alongside dEUS and got intrigued, but he provided a pleasant surprise by sounding like he'd now finish bottom of a Eurovision contest, not because he's the British entry, but because his music does not fit in that demographic anymore. The demographic he fits in is still overwhelmingly late teen and Belgian, but I'd choose his pleasant enough electro over a lot of alternatives and took a bit of time before I left the yearly Belgian love in and slowly headed into the unknown.

The unknown was the Blues Pub, which seemed pretty secluded when we went round from A38, but then turned out to be a stone's throw away from the World Music and Afro Latin stages. The new set up of having almost all the stages grouped as closely as possible has fans as haters- the first group tickled pink by being able to easily go from one concert to another without necessarily getting lost, the second complaining of the existence of twilight, or better said twisound zones, where you can hear the rumble of at least three stages melting into a familiar Sziget noise. The reason for visiting the Blues Pub was that the pretty un-bluesy Palma Hills were playing there. They were my favourites in the Sziget Romania talent contest, introduced themselves as being from Transylvania (it's them and Count Dracula, then) and were marked as a Hungarian band in the festival programme. I will try not to read anything into this and just assume that on Sziget you are first and foremost a Szitizen anything is possible and you can be whatever you want to be, so today I'm Irish. Given the weird time slot and genre grouping the crowd was sadly scarce and mostly located in the pub-by seated area at the back, but the band's rather catchy indie sounded exciting enough to merit further listening, and hopefully a more suitable location next time they're around, which I hope to be pretty soon. 

Back to A38 again we checked out BØRNS, who turned out to be a bit below expectations- there was some sort of monotone mid level in all the songs, one of those rather unhappy occasions when the record sounds much better than the live performance, or, at least, the live performance adds nothing exciting to the music. When in doubt on Sziget, the World Music Stage is often a safe bet, especially this year when it hosted basically everyone it ever hosted before, like a best of line up of familiar names. This time it was Rachid Taha's turn to play a concert he's played before, and on several occasions- but at least in very different corners of the island, like that wilderness far off which has now become the sport zone, and which used to cause great misery when having to quickly commute to the main stage. There was hardly anything stellar in the performance, but the familiarity of unchanging things often proves surprisingly comforting.

On our way to Bloc Party's show, you guessed right, A38 on duty again, we checked out French ensemble Lacaj, who, fittingly enough, play some thumping electro from inside an illuminated metal cage. They proved to be a nice prelude to Bloc Party, a band I'd seen several times before, both on Sziget and elsewhere, and who always fell somewhat short of the mark, not being able to translate the exciting sounds of their records into the life performance. I was however glad to notice that right after having mused on the comforting nature of unchanging things, I can now further philosophize on the wonderful nature of things which do change. Because Bloc Party were finally the heavy indie sound machine I'd always wanted them to be. And although the overall feeling of the day might have been somewhat muted, this last discovery alone was worth the wait. 

I Know What You'll Be Listening to Come August

I might as well start this year’s second Sziget line up review with the same world altering concerns I had last year: the day 0 headliner and the knob fiddler of the end show. So the fiddler is Dutch, who would have thought- there is something super rotten in the kingdom of the Netherlands, and they seem to be producing these absolutely average but ridiculously successful one man acts like other countries make chocolate rolls. Don’t really know how chocolate rolls popped into my mind first, but they seem vastly more entertaining than Hardwell- for that is the man’s name, and with this off my chest, I shall approach the next subject, namely that of Rihanna.

She’s the face majestically staring off into the distance over Margit bridge on the festival’s biggest poster, so we can safely infer she’s therefore it’s biggest star. There’s really no need to argue with that, what certain people argued with is whether Sziget needs such a big star at all. On the day of the announcement Facebook was flooded with posts of how people either thought this is the end of days, or described the speed with which they snapped up their ticket to her show.

On the one hand, Sziget is a big happy place, and can fit both Rihanna and semi unknown acoustic acts, on the other hand, one cannot but think at how many lesser, but festival friendlier acts could have been signed with the same undisclosed amount of money. Rihanna’s fans aren’t necessary the festival going type either, though presumably her presence will give day 0 a whiff of Coachella, which is not necessarily a whiff I’m particularly fond of when foreign influences are concerned.

Luckily, there’s plenty to see and listen to if you’re feeling a bit ANTI- yes, that is a bad joke and I apologize, but sometimes I can’t help it, just like Noel Gallagher couldn’t help badmouthing his brother in the late Oasis days, which in a meandering way led to him coming to Sziget with his oddly name outfit of High Flying Birds. He’d probably be taking offence at his new effort being labelled a poorer attempt at being Oasis, but then again, so is Liam’s Beady Eye, therefore we’re being totally just.

For a more genuine 90s experience, one should probably scurry to whichever tent UNKLE will be playing in- let’s just hope it’s a tent, and it’s late at night, and dark, as it should be, though lately the Sziget programmer has been in a bit of a whimsical mood so fingers crossed we won’t have a trip hop picnic in the blazing island sun.(In the meantime I ogled the press release better and got confirmation that UNKLE will indeed be ensconced in the cozy darkness of A38, but now the trio hop picnic idea sounds strangely appealing.)

There’s plenty of repeat offenders this year as well (and that really isn’t a complaint), though with Manu Chao soon it will be hard to tell when he isn’t in Budapest. Jake Bugg on the other hand is pretty young to be a repeat offender, but the man just likes to tick boxes at such a tender age. Kaiser Chiefs have seen finer days- last time they were in Budapest they got a police escort from the airport to the venue and I bought one of their band T-shirts- but they should still be entertaining enough in one of the earlier Main Stage slots. Skunk Anansie are slowly becoming a Hungarian festival staple in the unlikely company of The Prodigy (who are gracing VOLT this year) and Enter Shikari (who don’t have a Hungarian date for this year yet, and I’m beginning to worry.)

There is of course no Sziget without a reminder of past sins- though I will forever blame missing out on Die Antwoord last time they were on the island on the oft reviled programmer, who scheduled them to go head to head with Kasabian. And one does obviously not desert a Kasabian gig, entertaining as Ninja and Yo-Landi might be. Missing out on Crystal Castles should however qualify as a bigger sin, firstly because I have no idea why I did it, and secondly because this time it’s an Alice Glass-less act, which is missing out on half the fun. Or almost all of it. Bloc Party are also returning with a changed line up, and also, alas, a rather tentative fifth album- but I still expect them to provide more entertainment than Bastille, who are basically back to annoy me. Actually they’re back to make little girls happy, which in the grand scheme of things is not such an objectionable mission. I’m probably just bitter I’m not little anymore.

The World Music stage is basically one big jolly repeat offence as it is, with regulars such as Goran Bregovic (also pretty much always in Budapest, just like Manu Chao), Rachid Taha, Leningrad, Fanfare Ciocârlia or Pannonia Allstars Ska Orchestra all making appearances. It does however give me a little heartbreak not to have Shane MacGowan present, especially given that the man has new teeth and could have finally shown Sziget a smile that wouldn’t scare the living daylights out of us. And it’s also supercool to have some Irish music in general- which reminds me, there was a year when I got free Guinness on Sziget, that’s one idea right there on how to make this year’s edition both appealing to the masses and old school at the same time.

But there’s plenty of new names as well, like Norwegian Aurora- whose wiki page revealed firstly, that she’s ridiculously young, being born in 1996, and that there are several bands by the name of Aurora, one of them being, naturally, a British Christian girl group. Whatever that means. Aurora sports a blonde bob, which comes in very handy to link her to another artist on her first Sziget appearance, Sia.

Good electro is not always easy to find, so it’s double nice that one of the bands who are doing it quite well these days is from Romania- Golan will be playing on the Europa stage, which will also host the winners of the Sziget talent contests held in 16 European countries.

I’ve also successfully identified a lengthy host of artists I have never heard of before- which first threw me into fits of panic along the lines of I’m getting old and disconnected from new music, but then I realized that all Sziget line ups have been similar, it’s just that in the past we weren’t so glued to the Internet, dissecting the line up months in advance.

At some point in mid-summer, the good old PestiEst special edition came out with the programme, and you really couldn’t be bothered with the acts you did’t know, you just focused on the ones you wanted to see and the logistics and financial conundrums of doing that. Riding the wave of online possibilities, I have decided to give all these strange names a chance and listen to at least one of their songs- the verdict, however, is left for the next installment.