Best Concerts of Sziget 2015 #9: The Horrors

The post may as well begin with another gooey confession, namely that I love The Horrors. I didn’t always love them, mind you, their first album was musically pretty much off my radar, and I had a good chuckle or two over their gothic meets geometry outfits. Whatever then happened to them around their second album was actually nothing short of a miracle- out go the short angry punkish yelps,  in come long shoegaze anthems. Of course they’re not really a shoegaze band, and they don’ completely fit other genres either- and it’s exactly this borderline nature of their music that makes me love them.

So I was very prepared to give them the top spot just as I did last time they played on Sziget- when their afternoon set was as flawless as the ridiculous timing allowed it to be. Only this time it didn’t quite work out as expected- maybe it was the heat, maybe it was the crowd still on a come down after a decidedly different type of performance by Gogol Bordello, maybe it was Faris having one of those days we all have. For the first songs something didn’t quite click and the band seemed very aware of it, being more jittery than usual with Faris’, ahem, dancing taking on a decidedly dervish prey to the hives nature. 

They did however make it back on track and there were a couple of songs in there that made me grin with delight, now then, this IS The Horrors.  And the end, well, it was special in a very horrors-y way: Faris took a jump into the crowd, which was alternatively interpreted as a bungled stage dive attempt or simply his way of signing out from a performance that probably didn’t satisfy him all that much. Either way, he just left into the sweltering early evening heat only to be later spotted at various venues around the island.

But before signing of in an abrupt fashion as well, we must make it clear that this wasn’t a bad performance by the usual standards, it’s just that we set the bar so high for The Horrors that occasionally the only way out is a dive under it. 

The Gods of Rock Bring Wine and Mathematics- Sziget Day One

After two days of missing out on the ritual, I finally pulled myself together and had the classic pre-Sziget meal in Szeráj, the veteran of Budapest's ever expanding and changing Turkish fast food scene. As I was sitting there and munching exactly the same dish as ever in the past thirteen Sziget years, it dawned on me how the cashier looked just a tad older than he used to. Then on the tram I got to explain several times to wide eyed first time Sziget goers how to  reach the island, where do we get off?!, oh god, what a strange name, feee-ah-to-ree-gaaht. Don't worry about it, I shouldn't have either back then, you just follow the crowd and you'll be fine.

So this got me in a pretty nostalgic mood by the time I made it to the main stage at four, where, as it has been for all the previous days, people were huddled together matching the exact outline of the shade. I remembered with a sigh how we would be those kids hanging on to the fence for dear life, suffering valiantly through any act the whim of the festival organizers threw at them, just to be able to get a front row view of their beloved headliners. Things could have escalated in the wrong direction from here, but then life often sends you the best answers when you least expect them: here comes Eugene Hutz, skinny devil with the eternal wine bottle in hand, belting out over the dust and heat: there was never any good old days, they are today, they are tomorrow.

To every Eastern European sitting in a bar staring depressively into their beer and complaining that life is elsewhere, there is one running straight into it, wherever that might be, screaming at the top of their lungs, life is here, life is now. There is nothing essentially game changing in Gogol Bordello's music- if not the sheer lust and energy with which they steal bits and pieces from everywhere and make it into the whole of a sublime and zany wandering circus. It was their fourth time on Sziget and when we thought that, spectacular as it might be, we have seen it all before, Eugene, ever the trickster, pulls an ace out of his sleeve: he starts singing in Hungarian- not the one or two lines anyone could pull of, but two tracks with an absolutely passable accent, no mean feat, as anyone even slightly familiar with the language will understand.

By the end of the concert even the main stage helpers are doing a crazy dance, and the most stern of security guards has started to twitch his foot to the rhythm, which by his standards is full blown insanity and enjoyment and might be one of the signs of the second coming.Eugene's profuse consumption of red wine has also convinced me once and for all, that as far as Sziget goes, veritas is indeed in vino. So I raise my glass, ahem, plastic cup of red life giving liquid, to the might of Gogol Bordello, or, as our gypsy troubadour would say, respectus maximus. 

Having The Horrors coming up straight after Gogol Bordello was bound to be as odd a programming choice as one could ever imagine- and well, it was. Where Eugene is every bit the seasoned entertainer, Faris Badwan always looks slightly bemused on stage, even more so when dancing: who am I, why am I here, why is this happening to me, I'd rather be in a quiet room doing an abstract sketch, or something. There's a basic gaucheness to everything they ever did that could easily topple over into an artsy kids trying to be interesting gimmick, except it doesn't. It's just simply that, in a musical scene chock full of similar acts, Horrors have always been doing something different, and well, actually and genuinely interesting. 

6 PM in sweltering heat might not be their natural habitat, and there were quite a few people in the audience who were as bemused by 7 minute walls of sound as Faris is about life in general, but as it always does with the Horrors, the whole thing strangely worked out. Having a song as perfect as Still Life does help a little, as the crowd comes to a charmed halt, as the hot air stands still over the island, things are indeed as they have to be. And then at the end, to break the spell, Faris takes a dive into the crowd- not one of those I gently let myself into the loving arms of my minions dive, but a full swing header into the pool dive, and then, just like that, he disappears.

We then got to swing flags, which is of course utter fun- a bit dangerous in the long run though, as people run around the whole evening with flagpoles sticking out of their bags. None of the early evening acts seemed over exciting, especially after the onslaught of the afternoon, but such breaks are more than welcome every now and then, so we headed out in the yet again tantalizingly honey tinted sunset to the trustworthy beach for some lounging, accompanied by people flinging fire, because such is life on the island.

Next up on the main stage- Alt-J, or the programme responsible's ill disguised ploy to put as many art school dropouts on the main stage in one day as they can. As one of the crowd's on duty wisecracks kindly explained to us, Alt-J are hipsters (surprising to us, given how their name is actually a triangle, pardon, delta sign and all), they never wanted to be famous, ahem, mainstream, and are now horrified stiff by their success. The wisecrack, for his part, obviously listened to them way before they were cool and reveled in oft pronouncing some of their more exotic track titles, such as Fitzpleasure or Breezeblocks. To be frank, they did seem a bit ill at ease on stage, lining up mathematically like birds on a wire, but they also sounded, well, wonderful, clean and melodic, soothing to the ear and mind- a chamomile tea of a headliner in the best sense of the expression.

Enter Shikari are no chamomile tea- as a matter of fact, I can't really think of a drink that correctly describes their fusion of energy and anger, maybe a yet to be discovered chili cocktail that occasionally blows up in your face. They are a well known Sziget darlings, and darlings of the city in general, as right before the gig they announced an autumn club date, to follow up last year's absolutely literally boat rocking mayhem of A38. The crowd wasn't as numerous as on some previous occasions- it seems that the enlarged main stage area draws away people from the A38 tent no matter which acts are going head to head. The decreased numbers were compensated for in intensity, both on and off stage. These are very angry young men, and in a world where so many people think and feel too little, we need them.

Look Who’s Coming To Sziget- Continued

This could very well be entitled the post I just had to come up with to shamelessly re-share our old Horrors pictures and be all smug about having guessed correctly they would join the line up as well.

I can also express my elation at this having happened, and my bafflement at them still being shoved into an afternoon slot- they were actually great on Sziget in the same slot last time, but they forever will be one of those bands better suited for the darker shades of life.

Since I touched on this subject, I can indulge a bit in the classic Sziget-goer sport of making the time slots a bigger deal than they actually are. Like Kasabian going on the Main Stage before Avicii, oh sweet blasphemy, and Interpol being exiled into A38 at midnight no less- okay, got it, someone actually realized they were dark matter as well, but midnight might be a tad extreme. Also, since when is Ellie Goulding a headliner?!

To be frank I just realized I haven’t really listened to her properly, so I am presently pressing a Youtube play button in a rather distressed state. Had to stop a NIN album for this so it better be good...nope, it isn’t, off for some beers it will be for me right after Foals. Since I had ventured out into the wilderness anyways, I investigated The Script as well and they are either Westlife for sad grown ups or U2 for very senile senior citizen. Or both rolled up into one bundle of Irish scary.

I also confess to having checked the line up to see whether MØ and Major Lazer are on the same day, to figure out if she’s gonna pop up during their set for my Thai lunch soundtrack song- I still can’t really figure out whether I hate or like Lean On, or whether my love of pad Thai makes all that irrelevant. But since they seem to be slotted for different days, they might as well both play it, how lovely.

My dream of having a blast in A38 during the shiny flame throwing main stage apocalypse seems to have been a vain dream after all, as both Passenger and Milky Chance are for me two blokes who wrote an insanely catchy song each- and both songs are perfect for advertising some hipsterish product that you could perfectly well live without- but won’t. I am of course open minded enough to give them the benefit of doubt, and I’ll make sure to let you know how it went.

My other fever dream was to spend Saturday evening at the World Music Stage instead of the main one, watching Goran Bregović for the umpteenth time, but this was dislodged as well, in a rather more positive way- although I never loved Kings of Leon quite as I did other indie rock bands, they were always a group I wanted to add to my ’seen live’ record, hoping this would be the test of whether they’re the real deal.

I will however definitely visit the World Music Stage at some point or other- most acts have already graced the island previously, which is great, because you know what to expect, and I was particularly delighted to see HK & Les Saltimbanks making aanother appearance, they were one of the most pleasant random discoveries of Sziget back in 2012. Yes, I am already excited about this year’s random discovery and I scan the programme feverishly to get an idea who it might be- which is of course the wrong way to go about it, because the random discovery must be unexpected.

When it comes to lessons (never) learned, I am hoping to avoid falling in love with an act right after Sziget and forever regretting not having seen them, so I’ve done some more successful youtube-ing than Ellie Goulding, and came to the conclusion that Foxes on the other hand is not bad at all- only to realize she sort of clashes with Kings of Leon, but A38 is just a really short dash from the Main Stage after all, so I might catch a bit of her as well. Because a crazy stage to stage dash is also compulsory for every Sziget, I can only hope that this year’s venue revamp won’t lead to getting catastrophically lost, as I so very often did in other years.