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 Was The Sziget Guinea Pig- So You Don't Have to Be

Since I am working super scientifically here, I will start alphabetically, with the suspiciously named Afrojack. I’ll also be honest- he was dead and buried as soon as I saw that most of his Youtube output is shared with Martin Garrix. I did give another song a go, also a collab, with someone named Fais, the video of which starts ominously with a vibrating mobile, so you automatically reach for yours, just in case, drop the headphones for a few seconds and those prove to be the best seconds of the song. The genre should be electro, but it’s boring and forgettable. Next please.

And as a next step, we might as well sink into the murky waters of national stereotypes: I immediately felt better about Boys Noize, given that he hails from Germany, and German electro always gives me pleasant Autobahn vibes. And indeed there is a brainy machine music whiff about his work, also mostly collabs and remixes- Starchild feat Poliça being particularly enjoyable. He will definitely not become my next playlist staple, but a pass nevertheless.

I was secretly hoping Carnage are the miraculously reformed Swedish death metal act, but then again, the presence of such heavy genres belongs to a foregone era of Sziget- and indeed, Carnage is seemingly, obviously, a Guatemalan DJ. I immediately sensed a Latino disturbance in the force when, instead of the sounds of doom and gloom, as I’d hoped, I was greeted by somebody rapping like Pitbull. And Pibull has absolutely maxed out the number of people allowed to rap like Pibull who should co-exist on this planet, so the farther I am from Carnage (DJ) the better.

All things are delicately interconnected: the most popular Dillon Francis song on Youtube is a duet with DJ Snake (can’t anybody make music on their own these days?!), which sounds like a bad version of everything Diplo ever stole from MIA, and oh yes indeed, DJ Snake collaborated with Diplo on Lean On. There is also profuse twerking in the video, much high art, such fun, next please. (Youtube promptly obliged and skipped to, yup, Lean on. Which I listened to as I was making my tea.) DJ Sliink is not even on Wikipedia, which I took to be a bad omen, and he then proceeded to thump my brain into a pulp. The unworthy of mentioning category indeed.

DVBBS sound exactly like an ad for Canadian toothpaste, in which the protagonists wash their teeth frolicking around the house and then drive out into the sunset with major grins, with the wind caressing their golden locks. In an amazing development, the video for Never Leave looks exactly like that, minus the toothpaste, which is a shame.

This is a conspiracy, and my brain will burst, Dyro is Dutch and sounds exactly like Hardwell, Tiesto and/or Martin Garrix. In a meditative take on the state of things in the world, is Dutch, erm, music so internationally beloved, or are we inflicted these people because the Dutch nation, bless their hearts, loves Sziget and moves in hordes from one end of the continent to the other come August? I am almost afraid to know the answer.

At this point I was starting to lose hope of ever being a sensible human being again, since I basically knew none of the acts coming up in the alphabetical list. And then Excision dropped the base in the most vicious Skrillex-like manner, and when evil of such proportion comes from the loveliest of lands, Canada, you know all hope is indeed and truly lost.

I was therefore absolutely delighted to discover that FIDLAR are Californian skate punkers and sing about pivotal stuff such as cocaine, Chinese weed and most importantly, cheap beer.Order of the universe restored to some degree- skate punk is normally pretty low on my list of priorities, but there comes a point when it turns into the sweet sound of redemption, and this is it.

JAIN (you guys, we get it even if it’s not capitalized) is a French singer-songwriter, which is indeed another gust of fresh air in our playlist. Some African vibes are added to the basic French guitar serenade type music- she’s lived in the Congo (which, let’s be honest, is something totally exotic to add to your biography) and is partially of Malagasy descent, so we’ll say she’s entitled to ride the African bandwagon.

It seems we’ve finally totally escaped the Dutch electro hell, which is a blessing, but there’s something decidedly mind bending in Movits! delighting us with swing in Swedish. Somehow a voice deep inside me insists Swedish was thought up more for organizing the landing of a marauding ship on foreign shores or halfheartedly explaining IKEA catalogues (or perhaps halfheartedly explaining the structure of a marauding ship.) Nevertheless, in the scorching heat and with a glass of cold cider the whole endeavour might seem like the most natural thing in the world, as opposed to assembling the LACK coffee table, let’s say.

The lead singer of Oscar and the Wolf seemingly had a rather unsuccessful stint at the Belgian Eurovision Junior preselection, and the first song Youtube threw at me sounds exactly like the entry finishing 17th in the competition. He’s sure to have some starry eyed fans with ages ranging 7 to 12, so here’s to parents chaperoning their kids on Sziget having a good time at a safe distance from wherever Oscar and the Wolf are belting out their teenage angst.

Tourist is a Brit doing a rather minimalist electro, which could be borderline pleasant if I weren’t on the comedown from a wild ride of oomphs and bass dropped randomly for the heck of it. In a totally random connection, Travis Scott has a song called Tourist, but I definitely felt better about him before I found out he sometimes writes his name with a dollar sign, which is being totally groundbreaking and unique, isn’t it. He’s probably someone’s cup of tea, and that someone is  a hip hop fan, and therefore not me.

And back to hell we are- Troyboi is one of Diplo’s many cronies, and true to form, he has some slightly oriental beats going on. The most exciting thing about him seems to be the collaboration with someone or something called Flosstradamus, which made me chuckle for two seconds, those being two more seconds of emotion than what Troyboi could elicit from me.

Vinai sound Dutch but are Italian- I don’t know whether that makes them better or worse, but they helped me in identifying the axis of evil which is Spinnin’ Records, a Dutch label which has harboured at some point almost all of the vile knob fiddlers on the festival circuit. In a more objective take, that kind of makes them wonderful at what they are doing, but they’d better do it out of my earshot.

I always go more easily on Brits- they’ve produced enough guitar music right up my alley to compensate for weirder meanderings, and Wilkinson has a pretty cool video for Afterglow. I mean, it involves a CAT, what more do you want from life these days, really.

And thus we’ve reached Zedd, whom I wish had a Pulp Fiction connection, but doesn’t. He’s Russian-German though, which is some sort of scary, come to think of it, and you won’t guess it, but he produces electronic music and collaborates with basically everyone. This round of guinea pigging being done, please excuse me while I go and, well, in the state I am, I might even ponder kissing the sky, but maybe I’ll just listen to The Last Shadow Puppets instead.