God help the artist who has to follow Chappell Roan. The organisers of Sziget – the six-day pop music festival held on an island along Budapest’s river Danube – understood this at least. The smartest decision the festival made was to save Roan for the final night. She is the sort of luminous performer that fans would fly all the way to Hungary to see: many did, as it turns out.
By the time I arrive, Sziget has already hosted headline slots by Shawn Mendes, Kid Cudi and Charli XCX. Saturday’s bill is topped by American DJ Anima, who lays down a set of theatrical and playful electronic music. The day’s highlight comes a few hours earlier: British singer-songwriter FKA twigs. Pulling mostly from her recent iridescent record Eusexia, twigs is utterly beguiling onstage, a tour de force of slick, punchy choreography. She’s flanked by writhing, near-nude backing dancers and a stage structure that vaguely calls to mind “Cell Block Tango” from Chicago. The crowd is thin and a little anaemic at first; by the end, she has thoroughly won them over.
Sziget is a festival of huge, corporatised scale; walking around, you are barraged on all sides by a rebarbative wall of branding. Coca-Cola; Lipton; Peroni; Johnnie Walker: you name it, they’ve probably got a bespoke, brightly lit bar sponsored by it. Despite this, it’s a nice site, with plenty of open, grassy spaces, and enough colour and character in the margins to give the place an authentic festival feel. Camping is optional, and for those who don’t, there’s beauty and diversion to be found off-island around the historic Hungarian capital.
One of the big talking points of Sziget this year was who wasn’t performing: Irish rap trio Kneecap. The group’s outspoken solidarity with Palestine and the ongoing legal battle surrounding their alleged support of Hamas and Hezbollah – something Kneecap have denied – resulted in the group being banned from entering Hungary by the country’s right-wing government. It would have been curious to see just how their brand of subversive, political hip-hop would have gone down here. Other than twee British indie rockers The Last Dinner Party, who commendably direct fans to donate money to Palestinian aid during an undoubtedly well-received set on the main stage, there’s not an overtly political vibe to the event.
American country-rap juggernaut Post Malone headlines on Sunday. Watching the 30-year-old ping between country rock, pop-rap, and balladic R&B ought to be whiplash-inducing. But there is a strange unity to his set, a pervasive all-Americanness that marks every song – from the melodious “Circles” to the twangy, upbeat “I Had Some Help” – as distinctly his. Malone, real name Austin Richard Post, or “Posty” to his fans, is a lively and unserious showman; regardless what you think of his digestible, mass-marketable music, there’s something undeniable about his performance.
The same applies tenfold for Roan, who caps off Sziget’s final day with a set that’s pure, relentless brilliance. The crowd is packed to the back, and seems to know every word she sings. Most of the setlist borrows from Roan’s breakthrough 2023 debut album, The Rise and Fall of a Midwest Princess, a joyful, zingy and thoroughly queer pop record; it’s striking just how much depth there is on that one release. Every song feels like a hit, and Roan, a powerful singer and captivatingly dynamic presence on stage, has the rare aura of a major artist at the top of their game.
By the time she reaches the climax, a triumphant rendition of the escapist ballad “Pink Pony Club”, the audience – a glittery congregation of mostly girls and gays – are hoarse from singing along. It’s a set that would justify a six-day festival ticket in itself. Forget Budapest: if Roan announced she was booked to play Antarctica, it would still be a trip worth making.
