Report: Ray Vučinić
Photos: Jahvo Joža subsite.hr
Finally, the punk New Year! We arrived on Thursday, July 31st, on the first day of the festival. This is something we can’t miss at any cost – all of us agreed, while we were still driving in the car. Since it was only around 6 pm when we arrived, we had time to unload our stuff, put our tents out, settle in, greet and hug our dear friends and acquaintances who we see every year at the same place and date whilst meeting some new adventurers every time again in this ever occurring fairy tale which happens at the beginning of August. Inside of the courtyard was a huge stage that was waiting in front for us, this time with two recognizable flags. One was the black and red anarchist flag and the other was a symbol of solidarity, the flag of Palestine, a place on Earth where an unforgivable genocide is currently taking place, about which we are not silent and do not remain indifferent. By the way, the artwork of the festival this year together with the official poster had a clear anti-war message presenting a boy who is sobbing in fear and hugging his stuffed toy while at the same time, behind his back bombs were falling on the ground. Besides that, the organizes of the festival decided to donate 5 EUR to each sold daily ticket for the grassroots collective Gaza Soup Kitchen, who are providing aid to the people in need in the hellhole known as occupied Gaza. Be sure to check them online!
The local guys - Zlotvori from Umag (Cro), opened the festival, while I was working at the grill and feeding the guests who slowly arrived, I didn't manage to see much, but I’ve heard a lot good songs. Other bands which played that day were: Deriva from Italy, Plastika from Croatia, Lickspit from Czech Republic, Smierc from Sweden, Total Chaos from the USA and Plague Bomb from Italy. I would like to mention right away that this year’s sound was excellent, and among other bands I’ve listened to and sometimes watched their performance in front of the stage while there was no work, the band Plastika stood out in particular. For those of you who don’t know, they are an angry hardcore-punk band with a female vocalist whose performance was incredible from the very start while at the same time managing to sound better and better each time. Of course, I later bought a cassette of their last album and even asked for an autograph from Marta, the already mentioned singer. There was also the legendary band Total Chaos, a street punk band that has been gathering generations of young and old punks for many years. After the bands, we mostly hung out around the distro and the bar, and there was also a lot of punks around the courtyard of the building.
On the second day of the festival, we were greeted by a bad weather forecast, but the rain was only announced late at night, so everything went according to plan and a large number of new people joined the slightly hungover audience. Everything started with the Slovenian band Zbrucz, Dezinformacije from Croatia, Sputa from Italy, Public Serpents from the USA, Punter from far-away Australia, the legends Avskum from Sweden and Vipera from Croatia. Here I would like to highlight the performance of the Public Serpensts, a ska/hc punk band that has been on the scene for a long time and which especially made the audience dance and enjoy the band’s approach to the ska rhythms and melodies. There is no need to waste words about the band Avskum. They are an old school Swedish hardcore punk band, which did not disappoint, to say at least, yet the cloudburst that decided to appear right at the end of their set left only the bolder dancing attendees in front of the stage until the gig had to be stopped for technical reasons. Later, I saw that on their set list the last song they were supposed to play was Silence is violence, which is my personal favorite song from their latest album. It was also decided that the last band Vipera would play their set the next day, and we moved all together from the courtyard to the infamous staircases inside of the building, as well as in hallways and tunnels, and continued to hang out in dry places until late into the night.
We reached the final day, and it was decided that the program will be moved indoors in the Monteparadiso club, due to the possibility of a repeated performance that would end up in rainy showers. A considerable number of punks gathered inside, who were still standing firm after two days of partying and heavy rain. The band Starvation from Zagreb opened the last day of the festival with fierce and fast riffs rocking out the audience well and proper , they were followed by Parole 80 from Austria, Otvoreni Prelom from Serbia, who also made the audience go wild with a few sing-alongs, Ayucaba from Spain, who is still talked about after the festival as one of the festival's gems, Litovsk from France, Golpe and Astio from Italy, as well as Vipera, who had the honor of closing the festival's musical section as the last band. After each band, people rushed to the fresh air and the outdoor bar to quench their thirst. It was pretty hellish, but that also brought some charm to that last day. As the guys from Vipera dusted off their set in their own style, as they already know and can. An after party followed with hits by Madonna, Donna Summer, Abba and who knows what else, but one thing is for sure – everyone danced hard with rakija and good energy to the end of this year's edition of Monteparadiso.
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| Avskum |
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| Ayucaba |
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| Golpe |
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| Otvoreni Prelom |
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| Plastika |
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| Total Chaos |
