SZIGET 2005
10. - 17. August 2005 |
Nothing else
but Sziget Festival! |
An international culture camp, the biggest multicultural event
in Eastern Europe, the best week of the year. Attributes, titles, names and
all this is Sziget. This year's festival is expecting its visitors every day
between August 10-17 with hundreds of programmes on 60 venues, lining up more
than a hundred international stars. Besides the numerous music spots, Sziget
promises strong programmes in other fields of culture, offering real treats
of the field of theatre, fine arts, literature and the art of dancing.
Another one week, the thirteenth already. This is a good omen
unquestionably: the best line-up ever is going to appear in the history of Sziget.
Mr. Károly Gerendai, Sziget Festival's main organizer commented: "In
the first 12 years, we expanded the venues of the programmes, we developed the
infrastructure and by today we've reached that Sziget has become one of the
largest and most varied event compared to international standards. By now, part
of the money from the budget that was invested earlier into the expanding project
can be spent on improving quality in the fields of providing services and programmes.
In the spirit of this, this year we spent twice as much money on the Main Stage
than we did last year. We enlarged expenditures on the stars of the World Music
Stage by fifty percent, but the Hammerworld Stage and WAN2 Stage also received
more from the budget. Moreover, we pushed the date a week later in order to
get closer in time to other big end-of-summer festivals, hoping that the international
stars will have more free time and be more available, so we can spend the enlarged
budget on them."
It seems that our estimations will come true. This year, there'll
be such stars following each other on the Main Stage who are usually headliners
at festivals that take themselves seriously. These performers are inevitably
the stars of the past and present with numerous international music awards.
They're constantly on the hit charts in Europe and across the ocean, and played
by music tv and radio channels continuously.
At Main Stage, within the late night star-cavalcade, we welcome
one of the most notable artists of 90s electronic & dance music, Underworld.
Franz Ferdinand, the band, which won all the most prestigious
awards available (e.g. MTV Music Awards, British Awards), has recently accepted
the invitation and are going to attract huge crowds in front of Main Stage.
Probably the most influential American rock band of the second half of the 90’s,
Korn, is also going to perform at this venue. The story of
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, another crowd-pleaser at Main
Stage, is one of the most well-known ones in previous decades of rock history;
Mr. Cave has managed to stay on top ever since. Brand New Heavies,
who belong amongst the most basic formations of acid jazz, will return to Sziget
after six years of absence. The searching, pleasantly shaded but still energetic
tone of Natalia Imbruglia’s popsongs will mark a special
tint on the palette of Main Stage. The Game, who is one of
the freshest talents of the American hiphop ’game’ will also pay
his visit to the Main Stage for a little rabbiting. American, Good Charlotte,
which started out as just another one of those popular teenage-punk bands, is
a fairly interesting phenomenon; their latest album shows that they may prove
to be more than just a simple, one-dimensional, noisy punkband as all their
songs can bring about new, different nuances. In the summer heat, Jamaican Sean
Paul, one of the biggest names in the dancehall business, is sure to
make most of the Main Stage massive to move their bodies to his seductive rhythms.
Swedish pop’s most talented band, The Hives
has also confirmed to perform. With a new singer and introducing a brand-new
album, which will be released in May, Morcheeba will be on
Sziget’s outstanding guest list as well. Ska-P, the most
popular group of Spanish ska is already on board, too, for this year’s
festival. The early afternoon lineup includes Beatsteaks, who
belong among Germany’s most demanded ”pop goods”. Juliette
Lewis, who has made herself a name as actress in Hollywood blockbuster,
Natural Born Killers before all, visits Sziget with her band, The Licks,
founded in 2003, and they promise some good, convincing, in-your-face rock music.
The Toy Dolls, one of the most famous punkbands after the classical
punk epoch will perform at Main Stage too; actually they are the classics of
the new punk era.
Representatives of the notoriously rich Swedish rock-scene,
Mando Diao will play some of their true, massive tunes to the
gathering in front of Main Stage. Roots Manuva performs at
this venue too, who are becoming one of the most emblematic groups of the more
and more carismatic British hiphop scene. The Wailers, most
famous band of the reggae movement, is also coming to Sziget 2005, the name
of whom remains always unseparable from the messiah of Jamaican music, singer-guitarist
- song & lyrics - writer Bob Marley.
One of the most famous and most skilled modern followers of
The Wailers, T.O.K., who are reputed among the greatest entertainers
of the Jamaican dancehall-reggae community, will follow in the footsteps of
their illustrious icons alongside the sexy Jamaican singer, Cecile, upon the
Main Stage of Sziget.
World Music Main Stage.
If we take world stars, the African lineup is notably strong: with his band
Super Etoile de Dakar, creator the Senegalese mbalax style,
Youssou N'Dour will perform for the first time at Sziget. He
received a Grammy award for his album, Egypt, this year. Another Senegalese,
Baaba Maal will return to Sziget after seven years; Mory
Kante from Guinea does the same, who has totally reorganized his band
since his 2002 concert at Sziget. This time he will arrive with an absolutely
different, purely acoustic programme. The touareg blues of Tinariwen
from Mali can well become the most noteworthy production of the last years and
Zap Mama's afropop, which operates with lots of hiphop elements,
is the most probable candidate for the title "The Comeback of the Year".
Fans of Algerian rai music can listen to the greatest rai female singer of all
time on the first day, the 81-year-old Cheikha Rimitti and
Khaled on the last, the "rai king", who released
a new album last year. The New York Klezmatics, who is considered
the world's best klezmer group will come with an utterly new performance: they
will play gospel with Joshua Nelson and Kathryn Farmer.
Within the Cuban Buena Vista Social Club series, this time the protagonist is
going to be the trumpet player, Manuel Guajiro Mirabal.
Among the newest names we can mention the English Oi
Va Voi, who mix Eastern European folk music with techno sounds. They
had a huge success last year and they confirmed to return to Sziget this year
as well. Other names feature Enzo Avitabile from Naples with
his dozen drummers or Woven Hand from Denver, which is the
band of David Eugene Edwards, the charismatic ex-singer of 16 Horsepower that
has broken up recently. Another American band, the Radio Mundial
will arrive with some Latin dance music interwoven with reggae and rock sounds.
The amazingly multicoloured world music life of France will be represented by
three bands: Watcha Clan, whose techno dance music is mixed
with dub and gypsy elements, as well as some North African influence. Tarace
Boulba varies reggae and funky with the tradition of New Orleans brass
bands, while Les Hurlements D'Leo squirts vehement punk music
into the high spirits of poetry and chanson. Belgian DAAU –
who are said to have training in classical music - perform in a sort of chamber-orchestra-style;
they play something very special that could be likened to a mixture of Eastern
European folk, classical, jazz and rock music, but actually it is more than
a hybrid, it is more like a unique experience.
Eastern Europe is on the one hand represented by one of the
world's best clarinet player, Bulgarian Ivo Papasov, who plays
the kind of frenetic ethno jazz that has roots in the "wedding music"
tradition. Mahala Rai Banda - who has become popular recently
- unites the Romanian string and brass groups' tradition. Polish Tolhaje
and Czech Neocekávany Dychánek bring some transfusion
into world music: the former plays Polish folk with jazzy sounds, the other
operates with sets of Balkan and klezmer music.
Dance Arena, the greatest tent of Sziget (2700m2) expects
fans of electronic and dance music with loads of world famous artists. One of
the craziest, most spontaneous and most bizarre character of this venue is DJ
Rush; it is quite hard to find such an entertainer DJ nowadays. ’Leader
of the trance nation’, called one of the illustrious British periodists
Paul van Dyk. His outstanding custom mixing-technique and his
extravagant looks guarantee full house shows all over the world. For 15 years
by now, the name of Luke Slater has been the synonyme of quality
electonic music. Slater, the alchemist of techno always had the tendency of
turning towards the extreme, mixing completely different effects and styles
in a peculiar energetic concord. Timo Maas has always been
a perfectionist when it is about music. No wonder, his endeavour spurs him to
overcome expectations every time, regardless of what he does at the moment:
an own track, remixing, a DJ set or managing new talents (at his own label,
Four: Twenty Recordings). The Advent, a prominent and active
participant of the house&techno scene, hosts explosive, body-moving shows
worldwide, showing fine skills with live acts as well as turntableism. Legendary
figure of the montreal rave and elektro scene, Tiga appears
in the Arena too, who created his reputation with his innovative shows accompanied
by special visual performances. This venue welcomes LTJ Bukem,
who is known for being the creative spirit of the post-acid house era and his
pioneering work in the genre of D&B. Xpress 2 can be seen
here too, who gained international club fame with their track ’Muzik Express’
in which they use typewriter-like sounding drums, crazy alarming horns as well
as dancefloor pyrotechnics. They are working on their new studio album at the
moment.
Jochem Paap, a.k.a. Speedy J, is a troublemaker type. He likes
to tear down barriers and transform all norms of music known to man. This frantic
Rotterdam producer has been manufacturing hard-hitting electronical tunes for
more than a decade.
Wan2 stage offers large variegation of different
genres, as usual. Among its international artists this year, is Fishbone.
The L.A. band founded in 1979 is unerasable from among the groups that play
’hybrid’ music; moreover, they are a cult-band composed of great
musicians playing with a magical influence. Another representative of the really
strong Scandinavian post-punk garage-rock, is International Noise Conspiracy
who can be said to be sort of relatives of The Hives, also performing artists
this year. Finnish Giant Robot is one of the most exciting
performers of Wan2. They are listed among hiphop formations, nevertheless, their
music comprises electronic and acoustic elements as well. Resin Dogs
add a unique flavour to the tasty Sziget menu mingling the tribal rhythms of
modern electronic dancemusic with turntable hiphop and a funky scoring. Maniac
folk-rock players, Louise Attack are no doubt the Number One
in France nowadays. Münich band, Sportfreunde Stiller
plays a sort of giutar-pop-indie-rock, their music could be likened to Stern
or Tocotronic and as good Müncheners, they are great fans of 1860 and Bayern,
of course. With the number of Wickeda, Sziget welcomes probably
the most famous Bulgarian rock band; their rock-etno-funk-reggae-ska is usually
equally sympathetic to Manu Chao and Biohazard fans. French Matmatah
borrowed their name from a small Tunesian village where one of the members,
Stan spent his childhood. In spite of the Arabic-sounding name, they play guitar-based
rock and they consciously stand out for their Breton musical roots. One of the
most important characters of French mainstream is Tetes Raides,
which was founded twenty years ago. A comeback guest to Sziget is British Dreadzone,
who almost dropped their teeth seeing what a success they were in previous years
and promised to come back again. They kept their word and return this year.
HidaJimbo is a unique Japanese music project linking the past,
the present and the future.
The international guests of Hammerworld Stage
promise real turbulent rampage. First of, living death metal legends, Obituary
are to appear here, who just released their ’best-of’ entitled ’Anthology’,
which summarizes the essence of their music. The column of German heavy metal,
Brainstorm are on tour with their new release, Liquid Monster,
and Saxon; they both pull over at Sziget to provide fans with
some impulsive metal music. Fathers of new wave British heavy metal, Saxon,
called off their performance last year in the last minute, now they make up
for the absence. Accept was formed in the late seventies with
the conduct of lead singer Udo Dirkschneider and by the beginnings of the 80’s,
they managed to create their genuine sound, which became the synonym of German
heavy metal. Finnish-Hungarian friendship is enstrenghtened this time by Sentenced
on the metal venue of Sziget, whose performance is obligatory for Hammerworld
fans, as their latest release, Funeral Album, foreshadows that this time can
well be their last concert at Sziget. Swedish Opeth, who also
represent the massive Scandinavian metal scene comes with their mixture of death-,
instrumental-, progressive-, and experimental metal to please headbangers. Probably,
the most known Hungarian punk-HC singer is Zoli Téglás, who already
toured the world with his band, Ignite.
On top of all the above, further music programs, thematic music
tents - from folk and blues to classical concerts - guarantee versatile entertainment
to our visitors for the whole week, 24 hours a day.
Nearly two-dozen party venues with different styles are available
for late night fun. Numerous exhibitions, performances, an out-door museum,
a puppet theatre and a cabaret can be enjoyed at other locations. In the evenings,
movies are shown outdoors. Kids are entertained at children programmes but if
parents decide not to take the children along to a program they can be left
at the day-care under the attention of qualified personnel.
The sport events of Sziget Festival provide various and active
recreation from different extreme sports to beach volleyball and soccer. Over
100 civil organizations are present and provide services during Sziget Festival.
Kornel Szabo - Press Coordinator
Sziget Kulturális Szervezőiroda
Sziget Cultural Management
Budapest, 1117 Orlay utca 5-7.- Hungary
Tel.: +36 1 372 0671, Fax: +36 1 372 0685
e-mail: szabo.kornel@sziget.hu
www.sziget.hu/festival_english
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