Cool - Gentleman

The world basically conisists of two kinds of people: half of it adores, the other half cannot stand or okay, let's say it: loathes reggae, with or without its positive message. Well, if we really want to convince our reggae-hater friend that reggae indeed is a cool thing, the best thing we can do is to make them listen to Otto Tillman who indeed is the perfect choice when it comes to contemporaries, since under name Gentleman, spiced up with his band Evolutions, he did not only do the most exciting gig of Friday 13th but also that of the entire Sziget reggae-ska celebration. Here is a man who turns into a Jamaican guy each time he enters the stage, women are mesmerized by his charisma, furthermore he is a great composer, instrumentalist and performer, with plenty of memorable first-class songs and a cleverly built-up program. His new studio album Diversity released this year happened to land on the top of German albumsales-charts, nevertheless he immediately made friends with the ones standing by the banister, plus he even joined his audience for a couple of songs, and later he got so crazily enthusiastic playing his songs that even his hat appeared to be full of sweat. Next time you should definitely drag your black matal-freak friend into the crowd, perhaps you get to see his hips moving to the sound of the rhythm.      

Grown-ups - Papa Roach

Acrimonious music-fans may think of Papa Roach as a second-class nu metal band whose target audience only buys a pair of Hello Kitty-compasses to hurt themselves. And even though this statement would have more or less been true ten years ago, the band has really grown up in the meanwhile. Based on this assumption, it should be obvious that Friday's thirty-something audience prefer their new songs... but no, most of these hits were honoured by a modest applause while songs like Between Angels And Insects, Broken Home, Last Resolt made people go literally crazy. With or without teenage depression, it's easy to conclude that the latter would have made pretty much anybody go crazy, even those who are convinced that military service is a must for healthy young men. Given there is war-time, we are sure that singer Jacoby Shaddix would make an ardent soldier, too: his performance as a frontman did not leave anything to be desired.     

The great entertainer - Mika

 Sure there are heaps of Sziget-bands returning for the nth time, but still, there are some artists who have come for the first time this year: a perfect example of that is Mika, who made up for his show cancelled three years ago on Friday. With his 2007 debut album, this British singer-composer has immediately won the appreciation of music-experts, so we are truly happy that after his two concert-DVDs, his famous show has finally reached us, too. The stage-decoration already gave us a hint of the perfect Mika-atmosphere, but after the first song Relax, Take it Easy nobody had any dobts about the quality of the show: professional arrangements and performance, great songs and fantastic stage-appearance – that's the best way to sum up these seventyfive minutes. Hits from last year's album The Boy Who Knew Too Much and songs of the debut-album have also been played, we got to hear Billy Brown supported by a huge Billy-flag, a disco-version of Rain, and in the end an encore with Love Today-We Are Golden-Grace Kelly, plus in the end, we also had a chance to hear the Eurythmics-cover Sweet Dreams, and Lollipop with an intro using trashbin-drums. Mika has greeted the audience in Hungarian numerous times, morever greeted 30 Seconds to Mars too, as they were the band playing after them. All in all, Mika's show was without the shadow of doubt one of the most entertaining gigs of this year's Sziget. 

This is War! - Thirty Seconds To Mars

Instead of weird martian figures carrying their over-sized brain in green tanks, the headliner of the evening was a blond cultmovie-hero playing his guitar in red leathergloves, whose beautiful eyes made everybody believe that conquering Mars would just take half a minute if everybody believed in the power of the honesty of emotional rock music. Luckily we were not disappointed in Jared Leto and co., this monstre concert making ten-thousands of people go crazy made us even forget about our anger over the baffled oracle of the Fantastic Chriswell, so for an hour and a half, we did not have to think of the fact that mankind has not conquered planet Mars by the 1970's. Thirty Seconds To Mars, bringing us true stars from the sky, started with a modest set, we had to wait nearly half an hour for the big bang when Leto and co. finally begin to play This Is War. While experts in the audience were discussing the important question whether what Thirty Seconds to Mars plays is progressive rock, post-grunge-dizziness or something more alternative than any other alternative music we had ever heard of, Jared Leto just went on playing his guitar. The cosmic solitude of Leto and the Mars did not last for long though, by the time they started their another hitsong The Kill, a dozen of fans were jumping on the stage (!) with the band. Their first Hungarian gig even saw them play Closer To The Edge, Search And Destroy and Night Of The Hunter, they finished their set on the Main Stage of Sziget shortly pefore eleven pm, with satisfactory grades, of course.