Four days into a festival in England, and you’re pretty much done with your drunken escapades and heading home to die in bed for a week, but here at Sziget, day four is merely the Wednesday-on-Saturday of the Island of Freedom. It’s all still in full swing, and, needless to say, after completing a full ‘UK’ festival term already, we were starting to flag.
So, to get a break from the island, we grabbed ourselves a city pass and went to explore Budapest’s thermal baths. We went to a gorgeous local bath called Lukács Thermal Bath and Swimming Pool to get a much needed shower in, and a proper meal that didn’t come from a hole in a truck. The rest and shower were much appreciated and just what we needed to recuperate ourselves for round two of the festival.
We made it back just in time for Kodaline and Muse, two headliners we were particularly excited to see. I’m always a tad apprehensive about seeing slightly more ‘chilled’ bands, as the sets can sometimes be arranged in such a way that you get bored, but Kodaline delivered a solid performance, with a very well thought out set and fabulous stage presence. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves, and the sound, as well as the atmosphere, was excellent.The Irish were out in full force, supporting the Paddy band, and spent a considerable time milling around after the set, filling the A38 tent with Irish songs and football chants, and it really was a great atmosphere in the tent from the start of Kodaline’s set to the finish, and even after!
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After such a good performance from Kodaline, I couldn’t wait to see what Muse had in store for us. Alas, like Rihanna, they were vastly disappointing. They played mostly new material from their most recent album, which is a lot more ‘instrumental’ than their previous ones, and didn’t make much of their hits as they sort of just slurred from one song into the next with – honestly – pretentious and not particularly musically accomplished transitions. Whilst they weren’t awful, I did expect the set to be a lot more fun, and didn’t enjoy myself nearly as much as I should have.
After Muse’s rather disappointing set, we needed a pick-me-up, so, naturally, headed to the bar. During our first few days at Sziget we had found it near impossible to find anything that wasn’t house or drum and bass playing after 1am. Since that isn’t really our scene, we’d been going to bed relatively early and having a pretty tame experience by festival standards. However, running into some friends from home who had the knowledge – we spent the night dancing to some wonderfully cheesy and well put together DJ sets in some of the bars behind the main stage. So, to anyone who is/was fretting about there being no ‘good’ music beyond 1am, fear not! Head away from the Colloseum and towards the Mainstage and you’ll be sure to find something to your tastes!