Sziget Festival (Budapest)

[pic: the Budapest sign at the festival]

As I mentioned in my last post I changed my plans around a bit to go to the Szegit Festival and to see Muse and Kasabian. The Sziget Festival (pronounced "shigit") is the largest open air music festival in Europe, with Paleo in Switzerland being the second largest. Its held at a very cool venue, on an island on the river that runs through Budapest.



[pic: the bridge into the Sziget Festival]

To get there I took a flight from Berlin (as I couldnt be bothered with the long train ride and Berlin is where I could get cheap flights). Berlin really is a great place - its been the surprise package for me this trip. I`d go back in a heart beat.

The Sziget Festival was very similar to the Big Day Out except it was larger in size, went over an entire week, and there was practically zero crowd control. The crowd did as they pleased and there were constantly people crowd surfing and "fight circles" were breaking out in the middle of the mosh pit where everyone retreated into a circle and then charged into each other and started shoving each other around. An experience, but very crazy - there was a serious chance that people could be crushed to death if there was a sudden panic. At the festival there was also a place to go if you wanted to go zip lining (essentially a HUGE flying fox) and they even had a Karaoke stage right next to a bar...



I got there in time for Billy Talent who is a Canadian hard rock band with a foul mouthed lead singer who has a cartoon voice. This cracked me up, he was swearing away, singing a really aggreeive style of music and when he chatted to the crowd between songs he sounded like like a cartoon character.



[pic: the Billy Talent gig. Although it looks like there is a lot of room in the crowd and its quite sedate its actually a fight circle - you can see a guy with blondish hair about to take out the guy with the blue baseball cap. Very psycho. Note also the crowd surfer in the background]

For the main acts, my plan was to get as close as possible to the action but this proved difficult. I was about 20 meters from the front for Kasabian, and got about 5 meters closer for Muse.



[pic: part way through Kasabians set]

Both bands were pretty awesome. I really enjoyed Kasabian but again Muse took the cake. My only criticism is that the set they played was pretty much exactly the same as at the Big Day Out, which was disappointing. In the bands defence this festival is part of the same tour that began in Auckland so maybe I`m being a bit harsh. In any event the atmosphere was electric and it was a terrific show. Again they had an awesome light, smoke and lazer show to accompany the music. The crowd was as tightly packed as anything I´d ever experienced and every time I took a pxt or photo I was terrified that I was going to lose my camera. There were plenty of crowd surfers as well which was more frustrating than anything else, if you didnt keep an eye out there was a good chance one would fall on you....



[pic: the start of Muse`s set, the lead singer Matt Bellamy wearing some silly glasses]



[pic: Muse busting out the lazers...]



By the end of the show I was drenched in sweat, spilt beer and mud, and I was exhausted from trying to hold up crowd surfers, but I had a smile all over my face...

All in all a great night.

Anthony