In partnership with Sziget Festival
Words: Jordan Bassett, Rhian Daly
Going to Sziget Festival is like entering another world, where time moves differently and everything you pass is brighter, bolder and more colourful. At first it feels mind-boggling, but by day three of the Budapest bash, you’ve acclimatised and settled into a new, more vibrant life than your standard 9-to-5 that the boring old real world offers.
It’s also by this point that you’re questioning whether you’ll ever want to go back to normal. And why would you, when the Island of Freedom also offers a spectacular bill of entertainment? The third day of the festival served up plenty of opportunities to dance, from Fcukers’ party-starting set to a joyous jump-along to Florence + The Machine, plus late-night antics from Manchester’s Antony Szmierek. Perhaps we just live here now, and we’re OK with that. (RD)
Florence made us scream
For those of us who’ve always wondered what it might look like if Ari Aster directed a concert, Florence + the Machine’s jaw-dropping headline set more than delivered. The show was by turns epic, awe-inspiring and ludicrously good fun.
Noting that we’ve passed midsummer, Florence purred: “At the height of summer, we often make… offerings for the solstice. Would anyone like to make an… offering?” After fans raised their hands or jumped up on each other’s shoulders to signal their readiness for ritual sacrifice, she began to count the ‘offerings’: “Seven! Eight!” It was utterly bonkers and utterly fabulous.
Florence + The Machine. Credit: Joseph Okpako/WireImage
Such schlock might not land quite as well if the tunes and stagecraft weren’t so shimmeringly spectacular – but this was elevated horror, not some junky B-movie. Florence opened with ‘Everybody Scream’, the title track from her darkly opulent, Mercury Prize-nominated 2025 album. It was inspired by the ectopic pregnancy that nearly cost her life, and it is remarkable that she’s taken such a nightmarish experience and turned it into something so life-affirming and empowering.
As her backing singers and dancers – clad in gothic gowns like they’d wandered in from a production of The Crucible – huddled together, Florence twirled around the stage, her blood-dress flailing dramatically. It’s a good job she didn’t play during the previous night’s solar eclipse, because we almost certainly would have all been turned into frogs. Dancing out to her own stage at the end of a runway, Florence was the grand master and high priestess of proceedings, in absolute control and with tens of thousands of bewitched punters under her spell.
At one point, even she looked overwhelmed by the majesty of what she’d created, taking it all in for a moment and blowing a kiss to the crowd. And then she delved back into the cauldron for more. (JB)
Fcukers. Credit: Matt Jelonek/Getty Images
Fcukers invited everyone to their party
Fcukers know how to party. That’s been key to their speedy rise from underground word-of-mouth sensation to mainstream-bothering must-see act. They feed that knowledge into their live sets, deftly hyping up the crowd in ways that are effective but not overbearing, and strive to make things feel inclusive, even when they’re on a festival stage, further removed from the crowd than at smaller gigs. “It’s not like, ‘Oh, you’re watching us perform’ – it’s a party that everyone’s included in,” singer Shanny Wise told NME when the group appeared on The Cover back in 2024.
Yesterday (August 13), the New Yorkers opened up the invite to the Revolut Stage crowd. “We’re very happy to be here tonight,” Wise told the ever-expanding crowd after ‘Butterflies’. “It’s our first time in Budapest. I was wondering if you guys like to party?” The answer, at least with Fcukers in front of them, was a resounding yes, with the tent transformed into a strobe-lit club, with bodies moving and hands waving in the air to the beat of ‘If You Wanna Party, Come Over To My House’.
The space between stage and crowd at festivals often becomes a sort of no-man’s land where only security treads, but the band repurposed theirs into another dancefloor. Towards the end of the groove-filled set, Wise headed offstage and reappeared on the gangway running down the middle of the tent, and from there she stirred up more energetic dancing from fans eager to get involved and form some connection.
Fcukers’ inclusivity, though, doesn’t just stretch to making everybody feel free to dance. Before an electric ‘Homie Don’t Shake’, bassist Jackson Walker Lewis made it clear that their set was a safe space for anyone struggling against an increasingly authoritarian, dystopian world. “Fuck Donald Trump, fuck our government, fuck billionaires,” he declared. “No more wars; no more data centres. Let’s build a world that works for all of us.” (RD)
The best of the rest
Ahead of Lewis Capaldi’s main stage set, a man wandered through the audience in a T-shirt that bellowed, “NO SCOTLAND NO PARTY.” The 29-year-old Glaswegian singer might have bashfully dismissed his own act as “an hour of some pretty depressing music”, but the mood was decidedly joyful.
As ever, this was largely down to Capaldi’s personality – his gigs tend to be part-concert, part-stand-up show. He wisely opened with a salvo of upbeat bangers: the glistening pop-rock of ‘Hollywood’, the thumping ‘Grace’, the lovestruck ‘Heavenly Kind of State of Mind’. “From now on,” he joked, “it’s just depression and pain.” Who else could deliver that line and receive a roar of excitement from a stadium-sized audience?
Capaldi poked fun at the bungee jumpers leaping from a platform opposite the main stage, encouraging the crowd to goadingly cheer “Woooahhhhh….” before they took the plunge. He gave himself the giggles and, despite the heartfelt nature of his music, it proved to be infectious. (JB)
Sziget 2026. Credit: Mohos Márton
It takes a special act to keep a crowd going in the small hours of a festival when feet are beginning to ache, and the prospect of bed is becoming more enticing by the minute. Luckily, Antony Szmierek is one such artist, and his 1:30am set on the Revolut Stage quickly blasted away any hint of late-night weariness. “We’re so glad you’re here with us at this hour,” he told the audience as the set kicked off, adding that he’d swapped sets with Fcukers, who were on at a much less nocturnal hour.
But Szmierek’s set proved to be perfect for the time slot, his wry spoken word narratives cushioned by garage beats that refused to let you stand still. He brought a sense of unity to those who’d stayed out for the performance, too, joining them in the crowd at points and instructing us to celebrate New Year’s Eve before ‘The Words To Auld Lang Syne’.
“This is what it’s all about – this is living,” he said later, sharing compelling previews of his new album ‘Decoding Birdsong’, including ‘The First Five Minutes Of Magnolia’ and ‘Bookie’s Favourite’. He’s not wrong. (RD)
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