Monday, 9 July 2007

Viva the festival! (Eng)

As we say, better later than never. Approximately 12-15 years later than it should happen I went to the big rock festival (though there wasn’t any of those 15 years ago in the country I lived). It’s completely different thing if you compare it to the rock festival you go to in your home city between the office and having dinner with friends. We travelled especially for this event to another country, wonderful Poland. And not only that: I’ve got visa especially for going to it (though conference in Warsaw in September was another big stimulator).

It was Heineken Open’er in Gdynia (part of three-city along with Gdansk and Sopot) on a beutiful Baltic seaside. It’s happening every June in the same place for the last couple of years. It is quite big event (around 40 thousand people) on the military airbase near the town. Big names were not only big names, but excellent performers. I went there for Bjork, who was crazy as always and absolutely fantastic. To the big surprise of my husband I liked most of the stuff, among which was Block Party, the Roots, Groove Armada, Beastie Boys, Laurent Garnier. But we’ve missed Muse and we feel really sorry. Though there were several good reasons for that, the biggest of which is that it was pouring for several hours and the quantity of mud was approaching the level comparable with the one in Glastonbury a week before that. And finally Duncan was able to answer his own question he’s been asking me for months of living in Britain: ‘Why do we need the wellies?’ There was no better reason to imagine for them to be present in Gdynia that weekend…

Though we were not proper festival beasts since we didn’t camp. It was first time I’ve seen such a huge camping site with people coming from all around the Europe (we’ve seen many Ukrainians, Russians, Lithuanians, Brits, Germans, etc.). But I should admit I would never change our nice apartment in the beautiful area of Gdansk to the wet and small tent in the camp even if it’s super-fun. Especially when the weather is classically British, read cold and wet. But our dearest friend did it and I am really impressed by his labour (though, admittedly, he spent a couple of nights in our not-so-cool apartment). Happy man!!!

So, I am full of positive impressions, absolute hatred to the Heineken beer and love to Poles. They made really great event, and the level of actual organization was amazing. Plus our wonderful friends made our stay really special and to be remembered for a long time. Thank you!

Well, now I am at the stage of being gradually seduced by the idea of going to Glasto next year with our own tent! I am seriously thinking about it.

No comments: