The first time I went to the EXIT festival was back in 2009. I was pretty excited since I was going to see the Arctic Monkeys, an indie rock band from England, live for the first time in my life. They were my favorite band back then, so you can imagine how hyped I was. The festival was 4 days long and I got a ticket for just the one night. This was a mistake – and a very big one. Somehow, the minute you get off the bus in Novi Sad, you leave everything rational and sane inside your bus, train, or plane seat, and when you step on the ground, you are a different person – totally carefree, totally irrational, totally fun! When the Monkeys finished their gig, I had a few hours to spare before I had to go back to the bus station – to catch a ride back home and, during these two, two and a half hours, I had the liberty of exploring the Petrovaradin fortress, where the festival was (and still is) held and I stopped by several stages. On each one, I had only about 10 minutes’ time to stay, but I desperately wanted to listen to more and more music, but alas, I was unable. I had to go home.
From this moment on, I vouched that I will never miss a day of this marvelous happening, and up until now, I did not break that promise to myself.
Day one – The revolution begins… so to say…
The best thing about extremely large festivals is the fact that two random people, although they both went to one and the same thing, had diametrically different experiences. I had my fear share of “wild” times on Exit, and now I am one of those people who go to a festival to listen to some quality music, and not one of those who goes to a festival not to remember it, if you know what I’m saying.
Now, there are some things that are the same each and every year: the festival is 4 days long, you have a hell of a time and the sound is amazing. 2013 was different in one aspect. Exit was 5 days long and the full name of it was: Exit 2013 – The Revolution Begins. I thought that the “revolution” part was in direct correlation with the “5 days” part, but it turned out that I was a bit uninformed. This year, they celebrated Nikola Tesla, probably the most famous Serb ever, but I will get to that.
On account of my not being informed, I was a bit disappointed, since this day one was held only on the Main Stage – non other, and, as you may know, Exit is proud to have loads of stages. But day one had its surprises. When I went in, Marcelo and Iskaz, two famous Serbian rappers with a live band behind them were having a hell of a concert. Their performance reminded me of a Limp Bizkit concert I’ve seen on YouTube (although the crowd wasn’t so excited). It was a surprise. Next in line were Viva Vox, a choir that counts numerous people. They covered and performed numerous hits, from Smells Like Teen Spirit from Nirvana and Killing in the Name from Rage Against the Machine to Always Look on the Bright Side of Life, from the famous Monty Python movie. In combination with the light rain that was falling at that time, their show was, in a word, magical. After they finished, the grand opening of the festival commenced, the stage turned into a big screen, and I noticed a real life Tesla coil (a huge thingamajig that produces visible electricity) right behind me. When it started shooting lightning bulbs all around, I was amazed. It really, really looked cool. A day or two after, a man dressed in a special suit got on that Tesla coil and electricity somehow went through him and he looked like a superhero of sorts – really, really amazing. The whole opening ceremony finished with a great big fireworks display (which, naturally, everyone enjoyed, and after that, Chic feat. Nile Rodgers came on stage. This man played some of his songs that only a few people knew were actually his. One of them was Madonna’s Like a Virgin – imagine that. However his performance was, let’s say, too “dance” for me, so my girlfriend and I decided to go back to the place we stayed at. It was enough for the night.
Day two – The gangsta day
Most people considered this day to be the real day one. On day two, the whole fortress was crawling with enthusiastic people, each and every stage was up and running and you could feel the excitement in the air – finally. When I entered the fortress, the Main Stage, or the Main Tesla Stage was filled with people enjoying the music of a Serbian experimental-reggae band called KKN (Kanda Kodza i Nebojsha – do not try to pronounce this one). I am not a big fan of their music, but the girlfriend is… you know how it goes. The thing I wanted to see this day was the performance of Snoop Dogg aka Snoop Lion. I have never listened to his music that much, but I certainly respect everything that he has done, and everything that he is doing. So, in order to keep our place somewhere close to the stage, we, the group of people I was with, decided to stay on the Main Stage the entire time. KKN’s performance was followed by Alice Russell’s performance. She is totally RnB-ish, which was cool for my taste – I like RnB, but the old, forgotten RnB of the 60s’. As an introduction to Snoop’s performance, a Serbian rap ensemble called Bad Copy had a minor gig. They surprised me with their energy and charisma. And, after them, Snoop finally came out. The minute you see him, you instantly realize that he hadn’t had a single worry for at least two decades. His performance was one of the sexiest parties I have ever been on. Each and every person on the Main Stage was moving their body, and a group of people even started a mosh pit – imagine that, a mosh pit on Snoop’s concert – precious. After his performance, we moved to the Fusion Stage, a stage that always has something cool on. There, Rambo Amadeus, a man people like to call the Serbian Frank Zappa – he combines various music genres into an incredible mixture of sounds and it is all excellent and a tad comical, just like Frank Zappa – entertained us, until our eyes started closing. We said good bye to the fortress after his concert and we called it a day.
Day three – the warriors did dance
Day three is always the toughest. It is the day when you start to feel the first signs of tiredness – Exit is not easy – no festival is. However, this year, this day was certainly the most dynamic of them all. This day was reserved for the Warriors Dance – a trend The Prodigy, the legendary rave ensemble, established. The first gig was Eyesburn. Although this band is from Serbia, their music is something that should be checked out no matter where you are from – their lyrics are in English. They play a kind of aggressive reggae, something like Skindred, but better – at least in my opinion. My little sister and her friend bought a ticket only for this day since they are both Prodigy fans. Before Prodigy, South Central, two DJs, had a performance. The crowd was overly-exited before the start of the main event. When the guys from The Prodigy came on stage, the crowd really started acting like warriors. There was a mosh pit here, a mosh pit there – a mosh pit everywhere. In these cases, I like to jump on someone’s back and let the crowd take me somewhere. However, I had a girlfriend and a sister to take care of so we spent the next 45 minutes trying to find a safe spot, but such a thing did not exist. We ended up desperately trying to find a way out of the crowd and although it seemed like “mission impossible”, somehow we made it out. During our “journey” I saw loads of interesting and somewhat disturbing things. I understand the fuss when you are close to the stage, but people were ecstatic even far, far away from the stage, where you simply cannot hear the music that much. Most of them were not feeling very well, if you catch my drift. Nevertheless, after fighting our way out, loosing each other and reuniting again several times, we went guess where – to the Fusion stage. There we encountered Ana Popovic, a Serbian funk/jazz musician – she had a group of skilled African American musicians by her side – and here gig really did calm me down. Don’t get me wrong though, all of us had fun while trying to get out of the Prodigy crowd – the adrenaline was everywhere – but I have to say that there were moments when I thought to myself – “this is the end” (I am exaggerating, of course). When I say “calmed me down”, I mean “stabilized me”. After her concert, we left the fortress.
Day four – Flea
I am a very big fan of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, and thus, a very big fan of Flea – the bassist. Day four was all about Atoms for Peace – a band where Flea plays base and where Thom Yorke from Radiohead plays guitar and sings. Sound amazing, right? Well, in order to see Flea, I vouched not to move from my spot on the Main Tesla Stage, so I attended the gig performed by a Serbian band called Darkwood Dub, the band that played before Atoms for Peace. This is yet another band that I do not like that much, but my dearest does, so… When Atoms for Peace started I was so happy to see Flea up front. When they were playing, the scenery behind them was so great: the light effects, the transitions, everything was so beautiful. When it comes to their music, in my opinion, I cannot quite understand what they were trying to achieve. Honestly, I expected more. An interesting fact about their gig is that their encore lasted longer than their initial performance. How many times did that happen? Unfortunately, my girlfriend got a fever before they started and she went home early. Unaware that the encore would last that long, I left the festival after the first time they exited the stage, and I went to check up on my girlfriend. You see, I am a caring boyfriend (a little joke). So, day four was, all in all, short and nothing special – at least for me. But it all doesn’t matter, because I got to see my man Flea.
Day five – it is always hard to say goodbye
The final day was actually the day I was looking forward to the most. This was the day that I got to see Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – I admire their work a whole lot. When we got in the fortress that day, Bloc Party, a British indie rock band had a concert before Nick Cave. Their performance had the best lighting effects I have ever seen, with differently colored lights and those green lasers that shoot a beam of light that you can see – just like on a Muse concert. Nevertheless, I still prefer the Arctic Monkeys over Bloc Party. Afterwards, much to my surprise, there was yet another fireworks display, but this one was even bigger than the one on the opening – a real sight for sore eyes. And then it began. Nick Cave came out with his band and they owned the stage. The concert was amazing. I heard everything I wanted to hear and I even got goosebumps a number of times. It was the perfect ending to my experience of Exit 2013 – EPIC! The minute the concert finished, I had to rush to pack and then to catch the bus home.
While I was preparing myself for some uncomfortable shuteye in the bus, I was recapitulating everything that had happened. It’s true that “bigger” names appeared at the fortress in the past years and, to be frank, I wasn’t expecting much, but now I can say with confidence that no matter who is coming to play, Exit is an amazing experience… something you should definitely try out.
