Day two, and the music has barely stopped: travel back in, or just open the front tent flap, and you're right back in it. Warming up with British rock again (yes, and Scottish) we get tour combo De'Wayne and Biffy Clyro, who've been on the road together all year. De'Wayne doesn't waste time getting to the point (“we just wanna play some rock n roll with y'all”), and he's earned the right to say it: he's been grinding for a while now, and songs like 'Super 8' already show the stage presence and attitude to match. Biffy pull in a mixed-nationality crowd across to the Main Stage, smaller than yesterday's but no less committed, and together the two acts wake the bones.
It's Natasha Bedingfield's pop extravaganza, though, that steals the afternoon: you wouldn't believe the 'Unwritten' singalong volume, and when it reaches the 'feel the rain on your skin' moment everyone's actually been waiting for, it goes off completely. Or maybe you would believe it; it's a classic, and this is her first-ever appearance in the country (“thanks for getting me out here,” she tells the crowd).
The rest of the set is a mixed bag (a run of covers that mostly blur together, bar a genuinely good take on The Cranberries' 'Zombie'), but a new single, with the line “there's still grit in me and I'm fucking proud,” suggests there's more to come than nostalgia.
Twenty One Pilots bring their own fanbase out in full force: even mid-afternoon you're clocking t-shirts and necks painted black in tribute to frontman Tyler Joseph's Blurryface character. Back in the early 2010s they captured every emo-leaning teenager's heart; now, eight albums deep, Tyler and drummer Josh Dun are working their way round Europe's festivals with a headline slot at each. They've earned their place, and prove it with the live theatrics: Josh climbing a tower to drum is rowdy in the best way.
Ashnikko has made a hell of an impression over the last five years, and it feels like they embody a societal shift in attitudes towards self-expression, the very freedom Sziget claims as its title. It's a perfect fit, then, and the tent goes wild for a four-piece stage performance as bold as it is open: blue hair, neon-drenched outfits, full-frontal energy from every angle. The singer makes no apologies, chanting “free bleeding in Budapest.” Why not. A thank-you then goes out to all the token boyfriends in the crowd for being there. Thanks for seeing us, Ashnikko.
Tom Rowlands and AURORA have both played Sziget before (the former a multiple-time headliner as one half of the Chemical Brothers), but their union as TOMORA is a genuinely new side to both of them, teaming up for something neither could pull off alone. It's a lower-key project on paper, but it's already working wonders live. They open on a tough ask, trading dual vocal lines back and forth, and pull it off. Tom's background position doesn't hide the potency of his production: his presence is felt even when he's the one manning the decks rather than the mic. AURORA is a relentlessly entertaining frontwoman, her usual stage presence duplicated and distorted into something new for the project, and she makes some occasionally overindulgent moments from the LP sound completely justified live.
'I Drink the Light' is a good example: indulgent on record, but out here it lands as an acidic break from the heavy beats around it, a warning shot before AURORA steps further into the foreground. 'Eve of Destruction' (a Chem Bros cut) is an obvious, immediate centrepoint, AURORA fully in command as Tom follows her lead, hopping on the decks wherever he's needed. Some of the most self-indulgent moments on the record end up feeling the best live, her instinct carrying them in a way the studio versions can't quite manage. This is genuinely one of those acts you have to see live to understand, and if you already rate Chemical Brothers and AURORA separately, you can just about imagine what the fusion sounds like. You still won't be fully ready for it. It's a hell of a closer.
