This weekend Up To Date Festival took place in the city of Białystok for the eight time. Two days full of music and dancing is my idea of a perfect start to autumn. Every year it takes place at the start of September and is a perfect ending to the festival season. Several stages, dozens of different artists and many different music genres. Techno, Ambient, Hip Hop. Something for everyone. Well, maybe not for everyone, but definitely for us!
For me it wasmy first experience with Up To Date Festival and the first ever visit to Białystok, which I’ve already described here. Fortunately I had a group of specialised and experienced guides with me, who know everything about the festival plus have some great pizza spots to recommend in the city. Perfect company! Meet Maciej who is my friend, my ex-roommate and a co-writer of this blog post.
Maciej Maćkowski. Famous for making alternative music which my mother described as ‘sounds of something falling down from the roof’. Expert in internet memes, knows all the GIFs and has visited the end of the internet (it exists!). Loves pizza, sounds of birds and the polish bulinary icon – Robert Makłowicz. This has been his sixth time at the Up To Date Festival so he knows what he’s talking about. Kind person, keeps on sending everyone positive regards (it’s an inside joke, untranslatable to english). Maciej’s part of the blog post will be written in bold.
Journey to the East
The East?I’ve heard that Asia starts from Lublin to the East. Well, then Białystok is definitely part of Asia. But it keeps warming up it’s image by continuously inviting music lovers to the festival organised by people with passion. Carefully prepared stages, well thought-out line up, really good soundsystem and positive people. Is it enough? Enough for me. But if you need a bit of a thrill there are art instalations, old cars and decorative elements prepared by Przetwórnia Meblowa Białystok and they will definitely brighten your mood. Everyone is friendly and positive. you can feel it in the air.
This year’s Up To Date was not the first edition I took part in. So I knew that I can count on a good festival. Another year, another line up, another time I was not dissapoionted. The people who organise Up To Date are full of passion for music and good design. And they keep the quality on a great level by paying attention to the smallest detail possible. How about the most important part – the music? It’s diverse and performed on a few different stages at the same time. There’s deep techno and electro on one stage, rap and drum’n’bass’ on the other. Plus there’s a whole another stage dedicated to ambient, in another location and a few smaller stageswhere you can find various DJ sets. You can walk around and listen to your favourite artists or just let the festival surprise you and find something completely new and unexpected.
How was it musically? In short: excellent! There was amazing atmosphere at PROBL3M’s performance. The audience enjoyed themselves and joined forces in collective recitation of lyrics. The energy was so great that I had fun even though I’m not the biggest hip-hop fan, and I only new two songs. I enjoyed Lapalux’s performance as well, even though I was only there was a second. It was way more chilled out than some other concerts and was a great opportunity to catch a breath. Right after Lapalux it was back to dancing and jumping around with jet another drum’n’bass set by Logistics. I’ve not danced that much in years! Let me know if you have any idea where to go for good drum’n’bass parties in Warsaw. I want more!
Maciej’s thoughts about 1st day of concerts:
During Prurient’s performance in Opera there were already 1988 and Piernikowski playing at the Stadium. This time not as the group Syny but with their solo projects. Half an hour after Prurient finished his set I was already at the Stadium listening to PRO8B3M on Electronic Beats stage where the public was going absolutely mad. I don’t think I ever had an opportunity to see two performances so different and so emotionally charged one after the other. Than I spent the rest of the night rotating between performances of nthng, Lapalux, followed by really good Detroit in Effect, Ancient Methods performing with Vatican Shadow (and the person responsible for this project is Dominick Fernow to whom I was listening just a few hous earlier, under a pseudonym Prurient). At the stage promoting a popular energy drink there were turntablists performing from 8 p.m. till 3 a.m. The atmosphere there was completely different than at the shows in the underground parking lot. That’s what happened on friday.
Even though there were several stages, I spent most of my friday night at the Electronic Beats stage with short breakes for wild dancing at the stages next to the bar in the ‘gastro zone’, which was really well organised, by the way. There were plenty of seating areas and enough stands to avoid the situation when you spend more time waiting in line to the bar than at the actual concerts.
I have to admit that the second day was more about drinking and partying than music. Party hard, bitches! We danced so much than the entire next day our bodies were sore. It was more intense than any fitness class I’ve ever taken. Fortunately Maciej was a bit more ambitious about the concerts on Saturday so he told us all about the shows we missed.
While I was at the Opera listening to ambient selection of the day, there was already FOQL playing at the Stadium. You have to check out this artist, seriously! Right after FOQL there was a show of Jacek Sienkiewicz and at the same time Hewra was playing at the Electronic Beats stage. Than it was awaited Clams Casino, Uganan Methods, excellent Abdulla Rashim, Marco Shuttle and Amnesia Scanner. So basically lots of walking around between the stages. The day ended with Technosoul’s DJ set at the stage of the same name.
Send a postcard to your grandma
Up To Date festival is famous not only for the outside of the mainstream music selection, but the creative way they promote the event as well. Their promo spots are well acclaimed every year and have won a bunch of different prizes awarded by the marketing and movie industry. The spots are popular one YouTube and shared by thousands of people across all social media platforms. Well done! And what’s important, they do all this with a limited budget which shows that creativity overtakes money every time. Respect!
This year the spot was about grandmas and sending them postcards from the festival. And there actually was a station at the festival where you could write and send a postcard for free. And right next to it were the mums of the people who organize the festival slicing their homemade cakes which you could try for free as well. I always appreciate anyone who gives me cake!
In conclusion
As Frank Zappa used to say: writing about music is like dancing about architecture. You should check out Up To Date for yourselves and see if it’s something for you. We’ll definitely be coming back year, after year, after year. It’s one of our favourite festivals due to the atmosphere and the people. We don’t really care who’ll be playing next year, we’re sure we’ll enjoy it anyway. Let us know if you’re coming to the next edition, who knows, maybe we’ll meet at the bar 😉
