The Sziget Festival crowd are starting to look tired after several days here, but by tonight the adrenalin rush will have them partying again.
On the Main stage today are Hadouken!, Kate Nash and the Kaiser Chiefs (we won’t worry about the non-British bands). While tomorrow we look forward to white Lies and some traditional Welsh sounds from Manic Street Preachers.
But it’s not just on the Main Stage that we can enjoy well-known (and less well-known) British acts. On the Rock Metal stage we’ve seen golden oldies Motorhead, Lostprophets and Judas Priest And on other stages there’ve been performances from Hurts, Scratcha DVA, Shtetl Superstars, Bomb the Base, Hudson Mohawke, DJ Scratchy, Ollywood, Oi Va Voi, Kode9, Digital MystikzSka Cubano, Above and Beyond and Marina & The Diamonds.
Off-piste you can catch street theatre from The Sneekers, the Flying Butresses and The 2 Men. And I’m sure I’ve missed some others. But I guess you could say British excellence is pretty well represented here at Sziget.
As I write, Kate Nash is telling the crowd that the rioting that scarred London and some other parts of Britain last week is over and that the UK community is pulling together to put things straight again. Here at Sziget, so far as I can tell before the final statistics come in, British fans have suffered very little crime this year – and there is some anecdotal evidence (from our bobbies) that many of them are reading the Foreign Office’s advice before travelling.