Today the last day of 7 days (plus moving in) of mind blowing, brain stretching, heart wrenching eye opening, soul enlightening discussion, music, art, history.. (I could keep going) Sziget festival. If you haven’t already go check out days 0 to 6. We made friends, we melted in the heat, rocked out slept, ate and partied in the most unique mind blowing experience I have had in Europe to date. Yes day 7 had finally come and we were gearing up for a long camp out to see the main event. The one. The only. Foo fighters!
We started a thankfully much cooler day (only mid 20’s not mid 30’s) at the Aldi pop up store, for a super healthy *cough* breakfast of croissants and fresh fruit. We also stoke piled our camp snacks for the afternoon, then headed over to the H&M pop up stalls and Instagram photo booths to make a t-shirt courtesy of H&M. We got our artistic hats on and Royce made a very cute little t-shirt to send to his eldest niece Sienna. I on the other hand decided that a bit of blog advertising would be the go and made the very first prototype for “The travelling shepherds” merchandise range. (Let us know what you think!)
From there we had a bite of lunch and acquired some deck chairs from the camp recycling pile. (Sziget had a system where any camp gear you no longer wanted at the end of your stay could be handed in to be recycled and re-purposed rather then it going in the bin.) We figured nobody would miss a couple. At this point (around 3 pm) the sky was threatening rain and the loud speakers rather than having heat warnings had wind and rain warnings blaring instead. Rugged up, we settled down in an almost exact spot we stayed for Ed Shearan and once again made friends with our neighbouring festival goers waiting out the hours till the main acts came on.
The first act of the day at 3.30 pm was Frank Carter and the Rattle Snakes a UK rock band. Frank the lead singer was super high energy lead singer bouncing all around the stage getting the crowd going. The music was good and the atmosphere he created even more so. Everyone was pumping and jumping by the end of the set. Next came Johnny Marr another UK singer, though a fair bit more aged then the previous. His music was much more relaxed and the crowd chilled out quite a bit, until of course it got closer to 7 pm
The 3rd act of the night was Twenty One Pilots a USA duo and an AMAZING performance. I was pleasantly surprised how many songs I could sing along to and these boys were incredible. It started with a beat up old car being wheeled onto stage and being set on fire. The lead singer Tyler sang his heart out as he acrobaticked across the stage. From piano, to stage, forward flips and Josh Dun on the drums with a mobile drum kit, smashing out the beats while crowd surfing with his drums! It was an hour of amazing music with a finale of Tyler Joseph leaping off the stage and running up the centre barrier to climb the scaffolding of the centre pillar all the way to the crow’s nest. You could see the terror in the security guards faces.
After Twenty One Pilots spectacular performance came the wait for Foo Fighters a few people cleared out, a lot more people came in and the sky darkened, a few smatterings of rain beginning to fall. Thankfully nothing heavy, just a few spits that stopped as the music blared into life with the opening song All my life. So much music! So many instrumental solos!! And so much Dave Grohl and Taylor Hawkins! 2 and a half hours of INSANE music. A Queen solo from Drummer Taylor Hawkins. A drum solo from Dave, piano solos, base solos… You get the picture.
It didn’t stop at the music either, there was bubble girl who was blowing bubbles while Mother Nature lit up the night sky with a spectacular lightning display. The Foo’s rocked on and the guy in the wheelchair crowd surfed through the whole concert. Big ups to his mates keeping him in the air so long. Dave’s daughter violet singing with the backup vocalists on one on their latest album songs. Bubble girl and wheelchair guy even got on stage for the encore! There was stories about past adventures in Budapest and SO MUCH ROCK! My throat hurt for singing and my ears rung with electric guitar. There is a reason Foo fighters is one of the most popular rock bands of all time! If you ever get the chance go see them. These guys are so amazing! And what a way to end a festival!
The final encore ended and we were still pumping with festival fever, there was only one way to cure that on our last night.. Tequila sunrise bucket aaaand then the rain started, and by started I mean the end of the Foo Fighters was Mother Nature’s cue to open up the skies. We topped up with tequila and found the reggae stage as the water came down. The reggae stage was playing some Latin American tunes and there was a group dancing salsa as we all became competitors of a wet t-shirt competition. Royce and I were learning salsa dancing before we left New Zealand and in our tipsy sate, (there was definitely more tequila in that cocktail than sunrise!) We decided dancing was in order. We opted for the side-lines as we stepped and spun and laughed under the dark rainy night’s sky.
At some point we made it to bed exhausted and elated our 7 day festival complete. We were at this point grateful for our cabin as dust turned to mud, and earplugs went in for the last time on Sziget Island. The following morning dawned and we were awoken by the camp wardens telling us to pack up and move out. The rain was still falling and we got our things and went to say goodbye to our new Irish friends over a coffee before we said goodbye to a soggy island in the heart of Buda and Pest.
I’m so grateful for being able to experience such an amazing festival, to all the people we met and things we got to do. We will undoubtedly be back in the future to see more of Sziget festival. To all of those who have kept up with our Sziget diaries, thank you for joining our adventure and we hope you stick around for more. Don’t forget to like, leave us a comment and join the flock for more adventures on what else we saw in Budapest. Check out Instagram and stay tuned as we embark on a nearly 800 kilometres (500 miles) walk across Spain from Saint Jean de Paul in France on foot all the way to Santiago. El Camino! I can’t wait to share that adventure. Hasta pronto y bueno caminas!
The Travelling Shepherds 