HUGE Budapest report OMG
Aug. 27th, 2008 12:05 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gothikmausI wanted to write an entry about both Budapest and Prague, but as I was writing I realised it would be way too long, so I'll just post the report from Budapest now. And before I start rambling, here are the links to the photo galleries:
Budapest + Sziget Festival
Die Ärzte @ Sziget
Sziget Festival, Budapest, 10-18 August 2008
The actual festival started on the 13th, the 12th being "Day Zero" with the Iron Maiden concert, but we left on the night of the 10th. My friends decided to go by bus: we left from Milan around 10 PM (we were supposed to leave at 9 PM) and got to the festival area around 3 PM the next day, which means it took us 17 hours to get there. Meh. x_X
In Budapest we met up with my cousin and his girlfriend, who drove us to the girl's parents' flat, where we stayed, for free, for the whole week. It's good to connections all over the world, hehe. That night we went to the festival area for the welcome party in the Italian area, but no one was there, so we just wandered around the island, where I proceeded to share a bucket of Long Island ice tea with my friend's friend. And when I say "bucket", I mean it:
I'm just pretending to be drunk, I swear
We spent the next morning walking around the centre and doing touristy stuff, visiting the castle and enjoying the nice weather, and in the evening we saw the Iron Maiden concert. I'm not much of an Iron Maiden fan and only knew two of their songs, but it was a damn good show.
The 13th was the first real festival day, we got to the island around 2 PM (the flat was about 30 minutes on foot from there), ate something and went to see Antiflag, whom I really liked. We were pretty unimpressed by MGMT and listened to them while lying on a field near the stage, but got back to see Flogging Molly (oh, folk) and Alanis Morissette. The headliners of the night were The Kooks (WTF? Are they bigger than Alanis Morissette?), but after a few songs we just walked away and inspected other stages.
The 14th began with The President of the USA (man, Peaches is such an Ohrwurm), then it was Millencolin's turn, then some Hungarian band, Kaiser Chief and Jamiroquai. After the concerts we met some friends' friends and went to the dance area, which looked pretty much like I imagine Ibiza to be, with huge tents full of people and loud techno music. In one of the smallest tents there was an Asian guy dancing on a little stage, he was wearing only black and neon orange underwear and a spiked collar, he kept touching his crotch and flashing his nice, firm arse. It was quite a sight. XD
The 15th was the day of DIE ÄRZTE! At first I thought I wouldn't go to the front, I had got quite a nastysunburn the previous days and didn't want to spend hours in the sun, but when we arrived just after 1 PM, we saw that the area in front of the main stage was completely in the shades and only a few people were sitting there (the usual faces plus two French girls), so I decided to give it a go, while my friends wandered around and came back between gigs to check if I was still alive and to bring me something to drink. Aww. ^_^
The first act was Ziggi and the Renaissance Band, a reggae band from the Netherlands I quite enjoyed (yes, reggae is one of my guilty pleasures), then The Cribs played, then a weird folk-rock Hungarian band. During the various performance I spotted Rod (the German guy standing to my left pointed him out for me, aww, thank you), then Bela and then Farin, who was just standing there dressed in black, wearing his black cap and with a frigging book under his arm. He's so nerdy I just want to hug him and squee. >_< All the while the two French girls sitting/standing next to me kept ignoring the bands, one was reading a book and the other was playing sudoku and listening to her MP3 player! WTF? While standing in the first row? A group of Brits who came to see The Cribs noticed that and said "That's the ultimate insult!" and they were quite right. I mean, you don't have to pretend you're enjoying yourself, but really, reading? Playing sudoku? With earbuds? I thought those two were there for The Sex Pistols, and so did the group of Brits (their comment: "Bah, punks!" XD), but it turned out they were Ärzte fans, because they went away after the DÄ gig. Uhm.
Anyway, the concert was waaay too short, just 1 hour and 15 minutes, they didn't even play Zu Spät, but it was so good and intense. Some random memories:
- Looking at Farin and thinking "He must've bleached his hair recently, he's so blond and shiny..."
- Bela introducing the band as "The best fucking band in the world!"
- Bela walking up to Farin in the middle of a song, sucking on his index fingers veeery slowly and pretending to insert it into Farin's arse. You dirty old man, you. XD
- Bela introducing Farin's School of Dictatorship before a la-ola or something and saying "Farin's little, little machine gun is very dangerous." Double meanings, anyone?
- Farin explaining the concept of "Squatlaola": "It's almost like sitting, really. Come on, I'm 44 and I can do it, so can you."
- Part of the audience refusing to sit down during Unrockbar and Rod saying "Sit down, you Pfeifen!"
- Bela telling the crowd to go see Danko Jones, aka "Mr Rock'n'Roll himself".
I took some pictures, but they came out rather dark and blueish, they didn't use many lights on stage and there was something off with my camera settings. But here's my favourite one:
Oh, Bela. *sigh*
All in all, it was a great show. I originally intended to stay in the front to see The Sex Pistols too, but when I looked around I saw the DÄ people had gone and I was surrounded by tall punks and I got a bit afraid for my life, so I went back to were my friends were standing. There were barricades separating the audience into two parts, left and right, and we usually stood in the middle against the left barricade, quite a nice spot, you could see, get fresh air and not get squashed to death. I asked them what they thought of the concert and, even if neither of them speaks German and they didn't understand the lyrics, they liked the show. My drummer friend was very impressed by Bela playing standing ("He's very good! And he was standing OMG!") and said the whole crowd went crazy, he had never seen such an interaction between band and audience ("When they asked the audience to sit down, everyone did!" "Yeah, they always do that." "I thought they were KIDDING!" XD) He liked some songs very much, said a few sounded a bit cartoony, but all in all it was a very good show. At one point during the Sex Pistols concert they told me "Look over there!" I couldn't see what they meant, so we swapped places, I leaned over the barricade, looked back... And saw Rod standing there, looking at the concert with Nico. (Btw, what happened to T?) He looked so damn sexy wearing jeans and a striped long-sleeved shirt, with his hair slightly tousled and smoking a cigarette. Damn my cigarette fetish. He went away before the end of the show, so I could go back to looking at the stage without craning my neck back every five seconds. XD
After that we went to see the Danko Jones gig, which was a bit short, and when we walked out we saw a truck getting out of the main stage area, my friend told me "WTF, that driver is driving among all these people using just one hand and holding a cigarette in his other one, he must be crazy." I checked the registration number and said "Ehm, that's the Ärzte truck. And that," I pointed to the silver tourbus following it, "is their tourbus." He shook his head and said "Tsk, your friends are crazy." XD
The 16th was quite a relaxed day, I was hurting all over, my ribs in particular were killing me from being crushed against the barricade when a big bloke standing just behind me asked to be taken out. We listened to the opening act, a Hungarian ska band, while we were buying gifts for various friends - and OMG I bought a Bela Lugosi T-shirt! >_< - and went to the main stage to see Mademoiselle K, a French band that left us pretty unimpressed, Róisín Murphy, Serj Tankian (the audio really, really sucked) and finally R.E.M., who played a great show. And we even saw a lunar eclipse during their performance, it was brilliant. After the concert it was so cold we went and ate goulash. At midnight. That's rock'n'roll baby. XD
And then our last day. We dragged our bags to the island, luckily the security guys didn't ask us to open them, left them at the luggage deposit and wandered around. One of the band (Pendulum) had had an accident somewhere in Slovakia, so the schedule was rearranged a bit, with longer pauses between concerts. We saw The Wombats and a bit of Babyshambles (BAH, the only good thing about them is that their bass player looks like Joe Strummer's secret son. XD Mmh, mohawks...) Then Tankcsapda, a very good Hungarian metal band, I really liked the singer's voice, low and a bit rough. We even witnessed a courtship just before their gig, there were these two Hungarian teenagers, they must have been 15 or 16, she was totally emo, he looked rather plain, they were sitting really close and he kept touching her hair and at one point he just took her face in his hands and kissed her. Afterwards she was all embarrassed and giggling, she was trying to keep her cool and failing miserably. My friends and I had a big "AWW" moment when we realised that had probably been her first kiss. Oh, young love... ^_^
Headliners of the day were The Killers, who played a very good concert and had a very stylish stage setup, with lots of lights and flowers. After that we checked the other stages and wandered around for hours, as I had to take the train to Prague at 5:30 AM and my friends had their bus around 6:00 AM (my drummer friend's friend went back to Milan, while he went to Bari: 25 hours on a bus... x_X)
Anyway, after buying some fruit for the journey, I went to fetch my bag, took a taxi and went to the station. By the way in the end the taxi ride from the island to the station cost me more than the train ride from Budapest to Prague! The taxi was 3000 forints (about 12 euros), but I didn't have small notes, so I gave the driver a 2000 tip (5000 HUF = 21 EUR), while the train ticket was 4650 HUF, that is 19 EUROS! For a 7-hour train journey! :O I was a bit worried because I thought I would travel in a rickety train from the '50s, but as the final destination was Hamburg, it was a German one. It looked quite old, but it was still better than most Italian trains.
I got on board and promptly fell asleep, only to be woken up twice by the ticket inspectors, who didn't even ask me to show my ID. Nice.
And that's it. The part about Prague and how Stefano saved the last days of my holiday will have to wait. Man, I wrote WAY too much.
EDIT: I forgot to mention a really cute Hungarian bloke with incredible blue eyes telling me I was the most amazing girl of the whole festival just because I shared my chips with him. Too bad he was drunk out of his mind. :P
Budapest + Sziget Festival
Die Ärzte @ Sziget
Sziget Festival, Budapest, 10-18 August 2008
The actual festival started on the 13th, the 12th being "Day Zero" with the Iron Maiden concert, but we left on the night of the 10th. My friends decided to go by bus: we left from Milan around 10 PM (we were supposed to leave at 9 PM) and got to the festival area around 3 PM the next day, which means it took us 17 hours to get there. Meh. x_X
In Budapest we met up with my cousin and his girlfriend, who drove us to the girl's parents' flat, where we stayed, for free, for the whole week. It's good to connections all over the world, hehe. That night we went to the festival area for the welcome party in the Italian area, but no one was there, so we just wandered around the island, where I proceeded to share a bucket of Long Island ice tea with my friend's friend. And when I say "bucket", I mean it:
I'm just pretending to be drunk, I swear
We spent the next morning walking around the centre and doing touristy stuff, visiting the castle and enjoying the nice weather, and in the evening we saw the Iron Maiden concert. I'm not much of an Iron Maiden fan and only knew two of their songs, but it was a damn good show.
The 13th was the first real festival day, we got to the island around 2 PM (the flat was about 30 minutes on foot from there), ate something and went to see Antiflag, whom I really liked. We were pretty unimpressed by MGMT and listened to them while lying on a field near the stage, but got back to see Flogging Molly (oh, folk) and Alanis Morissette. The headliners of the night were The Kooks (WTF? Are they bigger than Alanis Morissette?), but after a few songs we just walked away and inspected other stages.
The 14th began with The President of the USA (man, Peaches is such an Ohrwurm), then it was Millencolin's turn, then some Hungarian band, Kaiser Chief and Jamiroquai. After the concerts we met some friends' friends and went to the dance area, which looked pretty much like I imagine Ibiza to be, with huge tents full of people and loud techno music. In one of the smallest tents there was an Asian guy dancing on a little stage, he was wearing only black and neon orange underwear and a spiked collar, he kept touching his crotch and flashing his nice, firm arse. It was quite a sight. XD
The 15th was the day of DIE ÄRZTE! At first I thought I wouldn't go to the front, I had got quite a nastysunburn the previous days and didn't want to spend hours in the sun, but when we arrived just after 1 PM, we saw that the area in front of the main stage was completely in the shades and only a few people were sitting there (the usual faces plus two French girls), so I decided to give it a go, while my friends wandered around and came back between gigs to check if I was still alive and to bring me something to drink. Aww. ^_^
The first act was Ziggi and the Renaissance Band, a reggae band from the Netherlands I quite enjoyed (yes, reggae is one of my guilty pleasures), then The Cribs played, then a weird folk-rock Hungarian band. During the various performance I spotted Rod (the German guy standing to my left pointed him out for me, aww, thank you), then Bela and then Farin, who was just standing there dressed in black, wearing his black cap and with a frigging book under his arm. He's so nerdy I just want to hug him and squee. >_< All the while the two French girls sitting/standing next to me kept ignoring the bands, one was reading a book and the other was playing sudoku and listening to her MP3 player! WTF? While standing in the first row? A group of Brits who came to see The Cribs noticed that and said "That's the ultimate insult!" and they were quite right. I mean, you don't have to pretend you're enjoying yourself, but really, reading? Playing sudoku? With earbuds? I thought those two were there for The Sex Pistols, and so did the group of Brits (their comment: "Bah, punks!" XD), but it turned out they were Ärzte fans, because they went away after the DÄ gig. Uhm.
Anyway, the concert was waaay too short, just 1 hour and 15 minutes, they didn't even play Zu Spät, but it was so good and intense. Some random memories:
- Looking at Farin and thinking "He must've bleached his hair recently, he's so blond and shiny..."
- Bela introducing the band as "The best fucking band in the world!"
- Bela walking up to Farin in the middle of a song, sucking on his index fingers veeery slowly and pretending to insert it into Farin's arse. You dirty old man, you. XD
- Bela introducing Farin's School of Dictatorship before a la-ola or something and saying "Farin's little, little machine gun is very dangerous." Double meanings, anyone?
- Farin explaining the concept of "Squatlaola": "It's almost like sitting, really. Come on, I'm 44 and I can do it, so can you."
- Part of the audience refusing to sit down during Unrockbar and Rod saying "Sit down, you Pfeifen!"
- Bela telling the crowd to go see Danko Jones, aka "Mr Rock'n'Roll himself".
I took some pictures, but they came out rather dark and blueish, they didn't use many lights on stage and there was something off with my camera settings. But here's my favourite one:
Oh, Bela. *sigh*
All in all, it was a great show. I originally intended to stay in the front to see The Sex Pistols too, but when I looked around I saw the DÄ people had gone and I was surrounded by tall punks and I got a bit afraid for my life, so I went back to were my friends were standing. There were barricades separating the audience into two parts, left and right, and we usually stood in the middle against the left barricade, quite a nice spot, you could see, get fresh air and not get squashed to death. I asked them what they thought of the concert and, even if neither of them speaks German and they didn't understand the lyrics, they liked the show. My drummer friend was very impressed by Bela playing standing ("He's very good! And he was standing OMG!") and said the whole crowd went crazy, he had never seen such an interaction between band and audience ("When they asked the audience to sit down, everyone did!" "Yeah, they always do that." "I thought they were KIDDING!" XD) He liked some songs very much, said a few sounded a bit cartoony, but all in all it was a very good show. At one point during the Sex Pistols concert they told me "Look over there!" I couldn't see what they meant, so we swapped places, I leaned over the barricade, looked back... And saw Rod standing there, looking at the concert with Nico. (Btw, what happened to T?) He looked so damn sexy wearing jeans and a striped long-sleeved shirt, with his hair slightly tousled and smoking a cigarette. Damn my cigarette fetish. He went away before the end of the show, so I could go back to looking at the stage without craning my neck back every five seconds. XD
After that we went to see the Danko Jones gig, which was a bit short, and when we walked out we saw a truck getting out of the main stage area, my friend told me "WTF, that driver is driving among all these people using just one hand and holding a cigarette in his other one, he must be crazy." I checked the registration number and said "Ehm, that's the Ärzte truck. And that," I pointed to the silver tourbus following it, "is their tourbus." He shook his head and said "Tsk, your friends are crazy." XD
The 16th was quite a relaxed day, I was hurting all over, my ribs in particular were killing me from being crushed against the barricade when a big bloke standing just behind me asked to be taken out. We listened to the opening act, a Hungarian ska band, while we were buying gifts for various friends - and OMG I bought a Bela Lugosi T-shirt! >_< - and went to the main stage to see Mademoiselle K, a French band that left us pretty unimpressed, Róisín Murphy, Serj Tankian (the audio really, really sucked) and finally R.E.M., who played a great show. And we even saw a lunar eclipse during their performance, it was brilliant. After the concert it was so cold we went and ate goulash. At midnight. That's rock'n'roll baby. XD
And then our last day. We dragged our bags to the island, luckily the security guys didn't ask us to open them, left them at the luggage deposit and wandered around. One of the band (Pendulum) had had an accident somewhere in Slovakia, so the schedule was rearranged a bit, with longer pauses between concerts. We saw The Wombats and a bit of Babyshambles (BAH, the only good thing about them is that their bass player looks like Joe Strummer's secret son. XD Mmh, mohawks...) Then Tankcsapda, a very good Hungarian metal band, I really liked the singer's voice, low and a bit rough. We even witnessed a courtship just before their gig, there were these two Hungarian teenagers, they must have been 15 or 16, she was totally emo, he looked rather plain, they were sitting really close and he kept touching her hair and at one point he just took her face in his hands and kissed her. Afterwards she was all embarrassed and giggling, she was trying to keep her cool and failing miserably. My friends and I had a big "AWW" moment when we realised that had probably been her first kiss. Oh, young love... ^_^
Headliners of the day were The Killers, who played a very good concert and had a very stylish stage setup, with lots of lights and flowers. After that we checked the other stages and wandered around for hours, as I had to take the train to Prague at 5:30 AM and my friends had their bus around 6:00 AM (my drummer friend's friend went back to Milan, while he went to Bari: 25 hours on a bus... x_X)
Anyway, after buying some fruit for the journey, I went to fetch my bag, took a taxi and went to the station. By the way in the end the taxi ride from the island to the station cost me more than the train ride from Budapest to Prague! The taxi was 3000 forints (about 12 euros), but I didn't have small notes, so I gave the driver a 2000 tip (5000 HUF = 21 EUR), while the train ticket was 4650 HUF, that is 19 EUROS! For a 7-hour train journey! :O I was a bit worried because I thought I would travel in a rickety train from the '50s, but as the final destination was Hamburg, it was a German one. It looked quite old, but it was still better than most Italian trains.
I got on board and promptly fell asleep, only to be woken up twice by the ticket inspectors, who didn't even ask me to show my ID. Nice.
And that's it. The part about Prague and how Stefano saved the last days of my holiday will have to wait. Man, I wrote WAY too much.
EDIT: I forgot to mention a really cute Hungarian bloke with incredible blue eyes telling me I was the most amazing girl of the whole festival just because I shared my chips with him. Too bad he was drunk out of his mind. :P
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2008-08-27 10:31 am (UTC)The Sziget-lineup sounds awesome, I'm sort of sorry I didn't go there - but I'm still sure I only want to go there to see the whole festival, not just one day of it, to do it justice. Everyone keeps telling me how awesome it is, so I guess I'll have to go there next year or the year after. ;)
And yeah, Bela looks way too good at the moment. *sighs*
I still sorta hope he'll show up at the Wayne Jackson concert, although on the other hand that might mean a whole lot of awkwardness and screaming DÄ-fans...
T is back in Panama, btw. I'm very glad indeed, since that also means Bö, Eike and one or two others I really hated aren't there anymore. For a while, Andi took over the job as boss-security, again, but now it seems to be Nico. Yay. Gotta love Nico, Thomas & Jan, they're funny and at least they don't touch you in inapropriate ways when you come crowdsurfing.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-27 10:45 am (UTC)Anyway, yes, the Sziget Festival is an awesome experience and I'm very happy I went for the whole week. Tsk, we even met people who were there pretty much only to camp and dance.
Me: "OMG did you see The Sex Pistols last night?"
Guy: "Huh? Oh, we passed by the main stage last night while someone was playing, was it them?"
Me: *dies*
I mean, when will you have another chance in your life to see them play live??? Oh well, to each his own, I guess.
Well, maybe Bela will just be backstage at Wayne's gig
waiting to snog him into oblivion.And I had seen somewhere on MySpace that T. was in Panama, so he comes from there? Nico seems quite nice indeed, chatting with fans after gigs and stuff.
PS I'm afraid to ask about that "inappropriate touching" during crowdsurfing... o_O
no subject
Date: 2008-08-27 10:53 am (UTC)It also led to grudges among the fans, because the securities involved liked privileging their "favorites", smuggling them into first row and stuff like that. Quite annoying, for everyone involved...
And yeah, T's from Panama. I think he has a girlfriend there or something, that's why he went back. Or maybe he just missed the climate. I don't blame him XD
Btw, I like that picture of you and the bucket. I wanna be able to raise my eyebrow, too *pouts*
no subject
Date: 2008-08-27 11:01 am (UTC)Haha, wiggling one's eyebrows is so damn fun. Too bad I can only lift one, I envy Farin for having complete control over both his eyebrows. XD
BTW what the fuck happened to my "eyebrow of DOOM" icon??? I hope it's just a glitch in the Matrix... o_O
no subject
Date: 2008-08-27 01:35 pm (UTC)I was looking at a plushie stand at the Sziget Festival and the woman standing there handed an animal each to my friends and me. And I got the anteater! It must be fate. XD
no subject
Date: 2008-08-27 03:39 pm (UTC)Really though they're called "ant bears"? God I love German, awwwwwwww but I lvoe your plushy more. XD
no subject
Date: 2008-08-27 03:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-27 04:18 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-27 04:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-27 04:35 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-27 08:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-27 03:41 pm (UTC)Bucket of long island ice tea would totally be the death of me though.
no subject
Date: 2008-08-27 03:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-27 04:20 pm (UTC)Bela, Farin, who're they?
no subject
Date: 2008-08-27 04:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-27 04:44 pm (UTC)Don't quote me, but I almost died when Bela smoked on stage in Losheim the other day, because he thought the song (Hell's Bells, if I remember correctly) demanded it. I hate kissing smokers, but I love watching them. Bela should start with chewing gum cigs, or something - then he won't have a coughing fit afterwards, either XD
no subject
Date: 2008-08-28 09:18 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-08-27 04:29 pm (UTC)Thanks for your report, very enjoyed reading. And it is not too long.
Hugs.
PS: You're heating up my crush on Rod...strongly!! He IS so damn sexy. XD
no subject
Date: 2008-08-27 04:36 pm (UTC)I see lots of Rod-fic coming up. Yes, please?
XD
no subject
Date: 2008-08-27 04:53 pm (UTC)Your wish is my comment.
Dat is abber auch n läcka Kerlchen!