Starting this review is almost impossible. Not impossible, obviously, because the words are appearing on this page here and here and here. But almost, for sure. Exit Festival is a behemoth of a thing. A four day event with as many as you want either side to try to take in everything former Yugoslavia has to offer. It has the exclusivity of location to make it exotic to most travellers, with the ease of transport and cost to make it worth the trip in every way.
Paul Morley recently travelled to Glastonbury for the first time, and wrote a piece full of intellectual language describing the wonderment and ecstasy of it as a sort of capitalist cum magic realist brouhaha, indebted mainly to the people that turn up every year and give themselves willingly to the fantasy. Exit’s not so much the same. It’s a hedonistic earthquake with the elevated elegance of Petrovaradin fortress as it’s epicentre, whose tremors resonate throughout the city wherever you stand.
In Serbia’s Novi Sad you’ll find the beating heart of a city slowly regenerating, rather than flourishing. Struck by it’s vibrancy, you’ll discover throughout a different sort of festival feeling. One that blow’s through the city air and down it’s beach. Over the vast, fast flowing Danube and the resident’s themselves, as eager to thrust a cheap beer eagerly in front of your eyes as they are to sit high amongst colourfully squared laundry lines, observing the international throngs that congest their home below. You’ll find it in the festival’s campsite, as well organised as anything around Europe or at home, as well as in the shuttered apartments whose availability’s plastered black on white paper around the city. You’ll find it, or, if not, it will simply find you.
It’s a feeling of foreign relaxation. Of deep enjoyment and unwavering happiness. Put simply, fun. Started in 2000 by three university students from Novi Sad itself, it lasted for a hundred days that year as a protest against the Milosevic regime. Residing in the heart of July when the temperatures sit around thirty five degrees and the night comes on slowly, now the politics are slowly rescinding and the corporatisation is slowly growing it seems to be settling into a steady regime of good music and great experience. Not that the music isn’t great, just that it seems to become secondary to the enjoyment of meeting, dancing, drinking, exploring and relinquishing yourself entirely to the experience.
To the Australian at a beach party where Gramaphonedzie twists electro who doesn’t seem to care the constant women he approaches don’t understand him at all. To the Hippy group’s stall on the long hill down from the campsite - nestled amongst the other vendor’s buckets full of ice and beers - who sell personified Coconut shells and trinkets you‘d never buy for a price they simply can‘t believe they‘d get. To the restaurant by the river where people dance and eat cheap, incredibly sumptuous river fish whilst the sun sets. To the event itself. That slowly coalescing throng of people and stages that thrusts itself upon you as the sky darkens and then dissolves back up the hill as the sun glows morning in punishing orange hues.
The festival itself. Walkways connect the multitude of stages, cafes, bars and outlets where anything can be found. Terraces stretch above the festival horizon to chill, and below ground wooden doors lead to clubs you’re sure few rarely discover. There’s Latino, Reggae, traditional Serbian music and a Silent Disco deafening the crowd with lounge versions of Radiohead and Nirvana. The Dance arena is a huge amphitheatre where you can hog the stage for volume or walk uphill (and even further up onto the football terrace like metal seating) and literally dance above the thousands of thrusting hands below; as if with each conquered stage the euphoria levels rise correspondingly. The main stage is a main stage, but the diversity of the acts that grace it allows people to come and go as they please, and always find something different taking place. There’s even Mika, for gods sake.
Not that we see him. Time moves quickly during the festival hours, and there’s lots to take in. LCD Soundsystem seize the chance at been Thursday’s first big pull - thus catching the crowd generally up for it - by churning out a best hits show. ‘Losing My Edge’ still sounds fresh, Murphy’s voice oozing cigarettes, booze and forlorn, whilst ‘Daft Punk’ and ‘Drunk Girls’ have the ground bouncing. Set closer ‘New York, I Love You But You’re Getting Me Down’ is the perfect ending, interspersed with Alicia Keys’ ‘Empire State Of Mind’ a fitting celebration and conclusion. To the city, to the band, and the good times they’ve given us.
It’s a far cry from Missy Elliot’s set two days later. Not that we see it all, just a few costume changes and some (albeit impressive) break dancing. Rarely any actual music. A friend informs us that bit never really happened, her playing time clocking in at under half an hour. On the same day, also, The Klaxons disappoint. For all the furore concerning discarded albums and reinvention, new material sounds alarmingly like the old. The old is merely that, and the more we hear it the less vigour it seems to hold.
The main stage seems intent on making or breaking reputations. Royksopp’s set - with Karin Derijer Anderson - is a surprisingly dense affair, whereas a clearly inebriated, orange jump suit clad Mike Patton does his best to quash the excitement of seeing a band back together who always admitted to hating each other thoroughly by slurring his way through their back catalogue. The Chemical Brothers on the final day should be a sure thing, but a few sound problems and the festivals biggest crowd to date means it’s a tug of war against the impossible getting anywhere near the front. Luckily they’re pretty much a sure thing, so as we crawl towards the back as ‘Block Rockin’ Beats’ closes things the crowd repay in equal measure, three days of hedonism forgotten.
The best dance is to be found in the main dance arena though. Or, for the more discerning punter, in it’s more acerbic counterpart the HappyNoviSad stage, squeezed just behind. Towards the end of Thursday night Boys Noize play a set we never tire of hearing, ‘Jeffer’, ‘Starter’, ‘&Down’ and ‘Kontact Me’ resplendent in maximalism. Apparat’s live guitar and Modeselektor’s nuance mean Moderat breathe life even into their murkiest numbers. Villalobos mixes deep, and Laidback Luke keeps it light, pathetic pop fallacy as the sun slowly twinkles through his upbeat electro. Joker's sets the weekend’s highlight, a bricked pedal acceleration of homegrown classics like ‘Digidesign’ and Benga’s ’Crunked Up’, as well as a forthcoming track from Ms. Dynamite’s album which sounds BIG with a capital BIG.
As Busy P , Sebastian and A-Trak close the Sunday, mixing ghetto house, electro and fidgety noise into the remnants of energy the few thousand or so left raving still have, the rising warmth illuminates the smiles that reside unconditionally around. The latter finishes things off, disappearing as the sun’s rise denotes the end of our experience, then reappearing to play Belafonte’s ‘Banana Boat Song (Day-O)’ and Van Helden’s mix of ‘Dance The Way I Feel’. As people do just that, there’s a calm in the air. A weary resignation that it all has to end and normal life resumes.
Now it has, if this review seems like a fervent arse lick of a thing, a tongue spoken delighted rant, that’s because that’s exactly what it is. Exit’s a behemoth of a thing. Imagine you’re standing in a maze. Now imagine that the maze is made up of hundred and thousands of different paths, and many times they each cross. Above is the sky, the sun streams steady light all around the vast network of interconnected avenues. Now imagine you float above the maze, pulling out further and further with each second you see the enormity of what lies below. Now imagine that each path is individual experience, and as you float further you see the maze is signposted: ‘EXIT Festival, Novi Sad’. Go next year. Start anywhere, and see what happens.
Alex Hibbert
