Homo Festivus in Poland

Ukraine is still on the fringes of the world festival movement, primarily because of financial reasons. Few young people can afford to pay even the entrance fee for large-scale international festivals, let alone afford travel and accommodation expenses. Still, our country hosts quite a few small local festivals. These popular music fests are usually held in western Ukraine. As a rule, the vast majority of them focus on a specific musical trend, mostly folk or rock.

Meanwhile, high-profile foreign festivals project the entire spectrum of musical styles and trends, which is what Open’er Festival 2007 did in Gdynia, Poland. Every organizational setback was quickly forgotten as soon as the festival locked the spectators in a tight, sleepless embrace, captivating them with the sounds of Bjork’s frantic electronic chords.

It is a thankless job to describe festivals, especially high-quality ones. The impressions they create belong to the emotional rather than rational sphere. Everybody has their own view of the same festival. Perhaps one should recount such events in a poetic style or at least in blank verse. I can’t say that Gdynia’s Open’er Festival 2007 was ideal. The organizers made a few errors, and the inhospitable Baltic Sea climate could not ensure festival-friendly weather. But in the long run, this was the last thing that music fans from Poland and the rest of Europe were thinking about when they attended this event. Above all, they craved the sounds of the best international music that is out there. Open’er was made possible thanks to the efforts of the festival organizers and those who had to cross many borders.

MUSIC

Open’er is the most high-profile musical event in Poland. This reputation is confirmed by a quick glance at the roster of musicians who have performed here since 2002: Franz Ferdinand, Massive Attack, Snoop Dogg, Lauryn Hill, The White Stripes, to name just a few. This time the festival featured such heavyweights as Bjork, Sonic Youth, Beastie Boys, Muse, The Roots, Laurent Garnier, Groove Armada, Bloc Party, and LCD Soundsystem. Altogether, 10 foreign and 30 Polish groups performed at this year’s festival. Press coverage is also ample proof of the festival’s prestige. Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland’s best-known newspaper, devoted several issues to Open’er Festival 2007.

One of the festival headliners was the British cult group Sonic Youth, often referred to as the pioneers of indie music. They have been in the charts since the 1980s, when they first came to the attention of music fans. These 20th-century idols were astonishingly energetic on stage. The last performer of the first day of the festival was French electronic-music star Laurent Garnier, who played to the accompaniment of fantastic visual effects.

The Beastie Boys (US) and the British group Muse were the stars of the second day at the festival. The Beastie Boys are the first white Americans to become gurus of the traditionally black hip-hop genre. They totally deserve the devotion of young people of all races and nations. Muse is the winner of an MTV prize for best live group. Frontman Matthew Bellamy (vocals, guitar, and keyboard), Chris Wostenholme (bass guitar), and Dominic Howard (drum, percussion) came out on stage after 1:00 a.m. and finished at 2:30, just as day was breaking. Muse put on the most striking light show and whipped up some of the deepest emotions.

Festival headliner Bjork performed on the last day of the festival.

She was backed by a small choir, wind instruments, drums, and a wonderfully sensory DJ sampler. Her performance sparked mixed impressions. For some, her performance was the highlight of the festival, while others said that her music sounds much more powerful on a CD player.

Actually, everybody had his own favorite headliner at Open’er. At such festivals any quality music, even if it’s not your cup of tea, deserves attention. But it’s not just about music. As a wise and experienced music critic once said, “A festival is something absolutely special. A concert is just a routine show of musical groups, while a festival has an added something.”

ATMOSPHERE

You could feel the vibes of Open’er Festival 2007 around the clock. The musicians performed on four stages until about 2:00 a.m. Since a three-day festival is too short, most of the music fans tried to sleep as little as possible in order to see, hear, and feel as much as possible. During the day the festival was a little calmer, because the festival grounds were closed from the early morning hours until 3:00 in the afternoon.

Open’er 2007 took place at a former military airfield, Babie Doly, located on the outskirts of Gdynia. A free shuttle bus ferried people to the festival grounds from downtown. There were Open’er information desks near the central railway station, where you could purchase festival tickets or exchange them for special bracelets that allowed you to enter the concert grounds. You could also buy tickets at a box-office near the main festival entrance. Music fans hoping to crash the gates were deterred by the tall barbed-wired fence surrounded the festival grounds.

On the first day, crowds of people, mostly music fans from Ukraine, started lining up at the ticket office at 8:00 a.m. Although most of them were prepared to camp out in tents, the organizers announced that all the tickets for camping accommodation had been sold out. Another problem was that all the toilets and showers were located on the campsite. The organizers explained that they could not provide accommodations for everyone at the campsite because of the unexpectedly big influx of people. In most cases, the camping problem was solved on the unofficial level.

We were very discouraged by the huge lineups for admission bracelets on the first day. Snaking columns of people had to stand for at least an hour under a scorching sun. But we didn’t have to suffer from the heat for very long. The next day the Baltic coast showed its true colors, and the concert grounds and campsite were awash in mud.

HOMO FESTIVUS

The most optimistic music fans found joy even in this, taking running jumps into the mud puddles to the weird sounds of Bjork and LCD Soundsystem. Festival goers are a distinct breed, the product of a specific evolution of consciousness based on music, journeys, and the eternal principle “live fast and die young.” No matter what the members of the homo festivus clan do in real life, these friendly people are ready to socialize and offer a helping hand. Your social status, nationality, and religion do not matter one bit. Freedom rules supreme here.

The entrance fee to the Open’er Festival 2007 cost 65 euros. This price, which is reasonable for young people from Europe, Australia, Japan, and China, is hardly affordable for Ukrainians. Despite the high entry fee, there were quite a few of our compatriots there. Vova Vashchenko, the lead singer of the Kyiv-based group XBK, commented on the festival. “So far it is impossible to hold events like this in Ukraine. Why? It’s probably a question of money and the inertia of our listeners. But the rising new generation — those who are now 15 and 16 — is more Westernized, more open and integrated with modern worldwide musical trends than the previous generations. Ten years from now there may be festivals like this in Ukraine. But for now, I think, it’s impossible.

“Open’er mostly made a positive impression on me, despite the weather. I knew what groups I was going to see. I was going to see the Beastie Boys; I’ve been listening to them for about 15 or 20 years. I was eager to see them, and they just killed me. There were some organizational problems. I personally lacked information. It was also difficult for people who weren’t staying at the campsite to find accommodations in Gdynia. I don’t think the city was prepared for such a large influx of visitors. But the music outweighed everything else. I was lucky two times because a few days after the festival I managed to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers in concert in Poland — two hours in an overcrowded stadium. They were even better than the Beastie Boys.”