Budapest, Hungary – 08/08 – 08/09

(TJ) The main reason that we stayed in Budapest so long is that we wanted to go to the Sziget festival. Since we were going to Sziget, we stayed at the “Sziget hostel” which is close to the island of the festival but in all reality not close at all unless you have access to a boat. Anyway this “hostel” was basically a soviet era college dorm and from the looks of it no one had stayed in it in quite some time. If they did have to stay there for some time there is a good chance they may have broken a mirror and slit their wrist, it was that bad. I think that they were overcharging a bit for not having doors on toilet stalls or showers and no toilet paper or seats for that matter, my fraternity house was probably cleaner.

Actually Michelle really wanted to see Manu Chao play live again, we had saw them last year at Lalapalooza in Chicago. If you do not know who Manu Chao, the best way I can describe them is to get a guitar play the same chords over and over again as a beat and then repeat the same words in French/Spanish over and over again and then you use a referees whistle with some drums once in a while during the songs and also throw in a police siren to break things up and repeat. Do these things and you are a European super band. Before Manu came on we saw a Japanese band play with only percussion instruments, pretty cool show. We also walked around the grounds which are sprawling, most people camp so the camp grounds are separated by country which I guess is smart if you have a 7 day festival with all of Europe there, there is any type of food you want and it is amazingly cheap.

So we of course saw Manu Chao and were almost crushed in the process since we got there early to get “close”. Little did we know that we were now entering the Eastern Europe where there is no such thing as first come first serve. Needless to say we made it out safely after some sharp elbows and shoving, peace love and hippyness.

(Michelle) I somehow managed to get by with only having to take one shower at the Sziget hostel, thank God. This was by far the most depressing (and somewhat sketchy) place we have stayed so far on this trip, but we had some good laughs about it.

TJ just doesn’t understand Manu Chao. Mandy – I thought of you when he played “King of the Bongo” as one of the encore songs. I also thought of you because the force of the crowd for this concert almost rivaled what we experienced when you and I got too close for Red Hot Chili Peppers at Lola 92 (RHCP was slightly worse). So, I don't think the crowd pushiness is just an Eastern European concept. I think TJ and I were a little unprepared because we saw Manu last year in Chicago where nobody knows him and there wasn’t that many people pushing to the front. He is very much loved here.

Because it is such a long festival, they provide many more outlets of amusement than I have seen at any other festival in addition to the main concerts. There is karaoke, foosball, big bubble showers, obstacle courses, sumo wrestling, arts and crafts and many other things. We even saw people bring their own instruments to play along with the bands. We only had time to go to one day of the festival, but we joked later on when we were two countries later… “I can’t believe it, but Sziget festival is still going on”.

(TJ) There is good reason why people do not know Manu Chao in the states (note from Michelle - probably 1/3 of his songs are in English, TJ just chooses not to listen), if we want music that we can’t understand and just repeats the same beats over and over again all we have to do is listen to rap music. See Lalapalooza in Chicago last year Kanye West vs. Manu Chao, it was a TKO for West.