Osijek Abducted

Event: Urban Fest Osijek - UFO (CRO)

Venue: Dvorište Vege - Tvrđa, Osijek, Croatia

Time: July 6-8, 2012 - 6.00 pm

Entrance fee: ~ 4500 HUF

UFO, or Urban Fest Osijek, has been happening for some years now with a even more success as the years went by. It started in 2004, as a project for promotion of young, yet unknown local and regional bands, but in the meantime it grew larger. Now it incorporats major bands' performances, as well. Even though, with the addition of bigger names to headlining positions, the price of the tickets went from nonexistent to quite some money, it was nice seeing so many people attending the gigs, even from early evening.

Go to the Gallery 01.

One of the most interesting parts of the pre-festival preparations is the UFO tram, that goes around the city pulling a platform behind, on which one of the bands that didn't make the cut for the fest itself performs.

As for the bands that made it into the line up of UFO, I'd like to point out a few names to pay attention to. On the first day, bands gave way to punk, reggae and ska music. Starting with Hold Your Horses and Zion Crew, who already really fired up the audience, not so big of a surprise was that the most people gathered in front of the stage to see Dubioza Kolektiv, one of the two headliners of the evening.

After a short break, the second round started. I was nicely surprised by the two female fronted bands, Itch and Kraj programa, whose singers charmed the whole audience. Ayahuasca, a song by Itch, was probably the most beautiful piece performed on this years edition of the festival.

As for the closing, Paddy and the Rats, a Hungarian folk rock band, started playing quite late, but as it was only the first evening, nobody was tired yet. They made a great show, and even though they do have music in Hungarian, the band focused on performing in English.

Go to the Gallery 02.

On the second day one could obviously see that the people were showing signs of tiredness, but nobody cared for that. The energy was present both in the audience and the bands. The first performing band was Pješčani Sat, which made a big difference when compared to the start of the previous evening. Their enthusiasm immediately put the people to dancing. Afterwards, we were dazed by the local Panic Light, which I'm glad to have had the chance of getting to know their music live (especially because of the violin). Noticing female fronted bands was really easy, since there were only a few of them there. Noisethrill was one of them, with their charizmatic singer and really inciting music.

Karma Guru followed, to which many people said that they should have been one of the headliners. Unfortunately, the famous Croatian band Pips Chips & Videoklips did not receive much praise, due to their quite slow and unmotivating music. Even though the band was good on stage, everybody was pretty much expecting the following performers. In place of the band Ruiz, who had to cancel their appearance, we had a chance to hear Achromatic Attic, who fit very well as an introduction to Eyesburn, Serbian hardcore punk reggae band.

Go to the Gallery 03.

Entering UFO on the last day, one could have easily noticed the major change in the audience. Osijek is a city where metal scene has been sneakily growing in the last years. Whenever there's a metal happening, all the metalheads come to support the bands, no matter which subgenre they play.

Some of the bands that caught my eye (or ear) were: Innergate, a redheaded female fronted band from Zagreb, and the two headlining bands: Exodus and Suicidal Angels (currently together on tour), who promised to wake up everybody in the city. During their performances, as if they were not initiating enough heat, there were girls with fire hoops all around. :)

To keep the event from being too serious, a local band, Bugarska Skupština, performed a full 8 minute show, during which they managed to offend everything and everyone, resulting in their banishment from the stage.

There are links to the concert galleries from each day just below the flyers.

Here are some of my personal favourites: