The turnaround in biblical sense is an existing term when it comes to underground bands, too. We can only make wild guessess when it comes to figuring out how and why – to what weird head injury – the members of Mariachi El Bronx switched from harcore/punk to Mexican mariachi music. However, we can make sure we would find more punk elements in the music of old Hungarian band Apostol than that of Mariachi El Bronx. What the band plays now has more to do with Christian-rock, with several outbreaks of excessive optimism, making even a Disney-character ashamed. (Not to mention the fact that the word „Jesus” was also often heard during the gig).Nevertheless the band seemed to be very familiar with the genre, all the country-like songs had a great atmosphere, and had they played with a bit more evil image, even Robert Rodriguez would have congratulated the band.     

 
Gogol Bordello playing in Hungary is not a rarity but rather a usual fact of life, but it is perfectly understandable: Eugene Hütz and his band is everybody's favourite gypsy-punk act. Crazy, wild, nonstop dance, a great atmosphere and carelessness, making people forget about the hot weather, the dust and the fatigue of the last day. Gogol Bordello did not stop for a second, and they even pleyed fifteen minutes more than they were supposed to – besides stuff off last year's Trans-Continental-album, they played their usual hits, what is more, Mónika Mitsoura was a guest singer in one of their songs. How they get the energy to do such adrenaline-bomb gigs? This is still a mystery to us, so all wecan do is collect our strength for the next Gogol Bordello-gig. Frontman Eugene, who now looks a bit like Waszlavik Gazember László, ran to catch Manic Street Preachers  in the front row – you can probably bump into him anytime, even in the Boathouse or near World Music Stage, or perhaps at a hot dog-vendor... having a casual conversation with random Sziget-visitors.

There are bands which are not quite compatible with sunshine, and this is quite true about the next band of the Main Stage. Brooklyn-based The National still managed to create such a special atmosphere even with the first sounds that the feeling of the afternoon vanished and gave place to a gloomy-sad-liberated-goose bumpy feeling.The more than ten-year old band, with their five studio-albums mesmerized the audience with two additional world-musicians on stage. Following the opening song Start A War, they moved on to their greatest hits, while frontman Matt Berninger was slipping his red wine on the stage. One of the best American indie-bands offered a special screening and had their guitarists moving in sync with each other, which reminded us of the fact that it is a shame we have to wait a year to see such great shows. We could even see some bra-throwing, microphone stand-breaking, and of course the usual singing in the crowd. All in all, it didn't matter whether it was dark or not, The National proved their greatness without the shadow of doubt.

Paint it red!

Two years ago, the whole festival got dressed in red ornaments when Manic Street Preachers left the Main Stage of Sziget while playing If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next. James Dean Bradfield and co. did not mess up the program a bit as compared to 2009, and closed the gig with one of the most outstanding anti-fascist anthems of all times, again.But do not fastforward things that much: they began with You Love Us, and before they got to their above-mentioned closing song, they played most of their hits, too, with several memorable moments at this Hungarian Manic Street Preachers world-summit. The band was playing in front of a purple curtain, surrounded by silver sculptures, and after You Love Us, they moved on to Your Love Alone is Not Enough, then the frontman complimented our beauty voice and smell, and (It's Not a War) Just the End Of Love exploded like a bomb. Soon afterwards, Manic played for the single-hordes in front of the stage, who grabbed their earrings and put it in their necks to dance to Ocean Spray. This was the first time indestructible guitarist Nicky Wire said hello to us, who this time, did not address the song Faster to Puskás and his father, but to Richey Edwards, who according to Wire would have adored Sziget, had he got the chance to play here with his band. We could also hear songs off the recently released album Postcards from a Young Man, but we also found old songs like the first Manic Street Preachers-anthem Suicide Is Painless, and at the peak of the show James played us Everlasting with an acoustic guitar, illustrating the fact that some things in life will never change as long as the world is the world and Sziget is at Hajógyári – which is a great thing. Some truths will indeed never change: the Capital consists of three volumes, the Soviet Union is a non-existing country now and the gig of Manic Street Preachers was again – just like two years ago – one of the most important and most memorable  rock-actions of the year. 

Closing Time

Two years ago, at their first show at Sziget, so many people wanted to see them that you could not move in the tent where they played. It was already obvious that the band has written one of the greatest hits of the 2000's To Lose My Life which has been an integral part of every single gig ever since, but then they still managed to surpass this status and now they were the closing band of the Main Stage (and with that, that of the festival, too). If you have not yet found out, we are talking about the incredible success-story of London-based White Lies. The normally three-piece band expands to five members while on tour, in order to provide a fuller sound. The gig started with the first album's Farewell to the Fairground, and then right after Stranger they pleased the audience with To Lose My Life. Then the fun continued, good feelings peaked as the voice of Harry McVeigh enchanted every festival-guests. The first single of the album Ritual, Bigger Than Us was the closing song, and people began to leave the area in front of the Main Stage... but we have to wait less than a year now to see thousands of people there, again. See you!