Location: Tolmin
Concert date: 08.08.2014
The past few days of packed gigs, raging and all-round partying have left some pretty obvious marks on the faces of the crowd. Slowly but surely the sleepless nights caught up even with the ones who count as veterans of the festival circuit. Morning coffees and vegan sandwiches were nowhere near enough to help the wrecks, for whom the festival organizers had set up special medical tents. Plenty of people couldn’t manage to treat themselves to food and drink; festival prices went down a lot easier with the foreigners than with the locals, bag returns (for which visitors had paid a deposit) often ended with no compensation, and for showering the foreigners preferred the nearby Soča. To help the dehydrated, the sponsor’s staff paraded around the campsite handing out Monster drinks to anyone who needed one, one way or another. And for the smokers, the tobacco companies were giving away free tobacco refills in exchange for pouches from the competition.
Over the course of the day the (uncleaned) portable toilets added their own aroma to the grounds, and especially nasty smells piled up in the beach stage, which already showed signs of a whole week of sweating, spitting and puking. Most stages drew smaller crowds, partly because people were resting up and getting ready for the final night, partly because of those who couldn’t handle the pace anymore and left. The gap was visible in front of the stage, but Talco, despite the thinned-out crowd, didn’t back down. The Tolmin crowd gave the Italian ska-punk with just a touch of melancholy a warm welcome. The emphasis on a danceable vibe worked well both for those going nuts in front of the stage and for those hiding in their tents. A great visual effect on stage came from the flags draped over the guitar amps, which gave the gear geeks’ imagination free rein. Talco kept the PRH crowd on its feet until the very end of their set, no breaks and no letting up. A Wilhelm Scream also pulled off a performance worth mentioning, joining a handful of excellent acts of this year’s edition of the festival with their superb technical delivery. Unlike the previous days, Friday’s action also came with a fairly clear sound, with most of the volume emphasis falling on the guitars. The racing solos were kept steadily in line by the foundation underneath, and every now and then stood on their own as full-on solos. Despite constantly jumping and running around, Robinson reeled off riffs lightning-fast from under his nimble fingers, while Angelini effortlessly gave the whole band perfect entries and exits. The melodic hardcore punk from Massachusetts was enriched with vocal and frontman skills by Pereira, who, despite terrible back pain, carried the show through with nonstop jumping.
Compared to Ignite, A Wilhelm Scream ruled Friday’s stage: “Lots of bands get big and forget that this (points at the crowd) has to be earned, and we should never take respect for granted!” Téglás took the opposite road, asking the fans in the front rows after the first song to rather just dance and leave the stagediving to the stage. His reason was terrible back pain, and he preferred to hop lightly around the stage. The energy levels between A Wilhelm Scream and Ignite were notably different; the energy A Wilhelm Scream dished out like it was nothing dropped off with Ignite. Apart from the truly die-hard fans, the back rows scattered to the kitchens and the schnapps stalls and waited out the final punk karaoke with Pigs Parlament on the beach stage there.
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