Festival Positive spent the third year in Lucavsala. It ended on Saturday, July 20, with a grand show by American singer, songwriter and dancer Jason Derulo, for which the artist had come to Riga with a team of fifty people, a large part of whom were also seen on stage as accompanying musicians and dancers. Lights, lasers and projections richly complemented what was visible to the eyes. The ambitious scenography merged with the projections of what was happening on the screen at the back of the stage with a slight – this time intentional – time delay. It was a dramatized concert performance down to the last detail, which truly deserves the word “show” in its best sense.
Transformation of feelings
This is the story of a breath-taking performance that one enjoys in person, and has little to do with specific songs from recordings that have been listened to countless times before. Enjoy it here and now, so that tomorrow you will already forget specific things you saw or heard melodies and, perhaps, you would not remember in detail the feelings that hit you on the evening of July 20, as they quickly transform into future life events, as it happens and develops in the modern age of technology much faster than we can comprehend what has happened to us.
Trained in theater arts, Jason Derulo knows what he’s doing, skillfully weaving together anything that could hold the attention of even a casual visitor to his show, evoking associations with anything that has happened (and probably yet to happen) in human history, able to tantalize one of the senses , not forgetting the natural instincts, from time to time weaving into the powerful sound path fragments of popular music hits of the past decades, which listeners of all generations with different musical experiences will hear and feel good after hearing. For example, Ben E. King’s 1961 hit Stand by Me incorporated into a new song Hands on Me, while in the final part of the concert, the opening riff from the song, which has become the anthem of sports events, was also played Seven Nation Armywhich has long lived without the presence of its author, Jack White, even in the minds of those who for his duet The White Stripes never heard.
He met at the entrance before the festival Positive the main electrician was able to say that this year’s generator was twice as powerful as last year’s, and this was evident as the massive line of bass speakers in front of the stage flashed. Before Jason Derulo on Lielvārde stages performed next to the big stage Other boyswho had also taken care of an impressive show, which perfectly warmed up the main artist of the festival.
So much for the set that Positive makes you feel like you’re at a mass event that was advertised as a world-class festival. This could not be said about the quantitative presence of the big and well-known stars, but the qualitative one – with the exception of the very boring Lithuanian artist Daddy Was a Milkmanall other performances of the big stage and not only the big stage justified their presence at the festival.
Although the concepts of show and music go hand in hand these days, it is necessary to blow all the air out of the lungs and take a breath of fresh air to start talking directly about listening to music at a festival, which can to some extent influence the choice of music “to use” after the festival.
Discoveries from Ukraine
The organizers of the festival expressed their support for Ukraine with the exhibition Ukraine in miniature, and two concerts of Ukrainian artists, which became the greatest musical experiences of foreign guests for the author of these lines. Rapper OTOY, performing as a duo with a drummer, on Friday, July 19, at the big LMT stage provided an adventure as powerful as Jason Derulo. Unfortunately, only a small group of people heard him, the rest at that time listened to local rappers whose names are known, but such OTOY does not say anything yet. I haven’t experienced such an organic interplay between a drummer and a rapper since the festival Opener Groups seen once in Poland Death Grips of the concert – I also expressed this appreciation to Vyacheslav Drof (OTOY’s real name) himself, having met him in the crowd after the concert.
The artist, who raps mostly in Ukrainian, has already gained international recognition – this summer he also performed at the huge Roskilde festival, and he still has a concert at the festival in August. Island in Budapest. In an interview before the concert in Lucavsala, Vyacheslav said to go to Hungary with the confidence that the majority of people there are not nearly as bad as the prime minister of this country, Viktor Orbáns, who is one of the few in Europe who is not favorable to Ukraine.
The performance of the Ukrainian rapper OTOY together with the drummer on the big stage of the festival was one of the Positive for the most pleasant musical surprises. Photo: Uldis Rudaks
Also the second concert of Ukrainian artists on the smallest – Pepsi Stage – On July 19, there were few visitors, because Positive is no longer a gathering place for many guitar lovers. However, many Ukrainian psychedelic indie rock trio present Love’n’Joy admitted at the concert that this group has become one of the biggest discoveries at the festival, along with rapper OTOY. This leads to the conclusion that in the coming years we can expect to hear many more great musical surprises from the musically little-known Ukraine: DakhaBrakha and in early August at the show Stupid life on the Daile Theater stage and in Cēsis together with Latvian actors and an English trio The Tiger Lillies forthcoming Dakh Daughters are far from the only representatives of Ukrainian music with international potential.
The biggest surprise
The lack of artists who did not come due to various reasons independent of the festival (Ski Mask the Slump God, Offset, Nothing But Thieves and Royel Otis) was not able to spoil the event in the slightest, but the organizers, reacting to these changes, allowed to attend the event on Saturday with first-day wristbands as well, to give an opportunity to understand that there is also other good music to listen to.
My biggest surprise at the festival was Angelica Garcia from Los Angeles with a performance full of pain, anger and sexual energy in a musical and choreographic transformation. She sang mostly in Spanish, which is what we would really like to see from the festival Positive and in the future – great artists of various nationalities, who do not sing in the English language that sounds so much and tired, but in their native language. Because the primary language that a person perceives at concerts is the language of music, for which, if necessary, if what is expressed in words is so important, it would not be so difficult to provide projections in the background of the stage with a translation in a language understandable to the majority of the audience – Latvian or English – as this At the beginning of the millennium, the legend of triphop was perfectly realized Massive Attack. OTOY, who raps in Ukrainian, also considered this suggestion as something to be taken into account in the future concert activity in a conversation with KDi.
A pleasant surprise – a brand new Manchester girl indie rock band Picture Parlour precisely because of the peculiar timbre of the soloist’s voice, in which some heard something of Janis Joplin at times, but rather the smoky singing of Macy Gray. Recently Palladium Riga already seen Arcade Fire branch – Will Butler and Sister Squares – again, of course, was great.
O-zee-o-el-es – joy!
Purple Negative, Detlef, Satellites LV, Kautkaili are our loved ones and the joy of their presence Positivebut I wish there were more of them here and that the very active and crazy masquerade guaranteeing the Latvian punk scene would not be ignored, otherwise the documentation of the most stylish visitors of the festival, which the reporters were looking for, turned out to be quite dull, because Positive the average visitor visually resembles an obedient and neatly combed young man who dreams of working in a bank or some other office.
Also great were the artists whose concerts don’t require comment, because the showering of predictable names of fame is like the rain that passes, and after a while you feel like you’re in the desert again. Typical examples of musical geniuses – Jacob Collier and Benjamin Clementine – pleased both old and new listeners, while hip-hop fans went wild with Nemzzz, Danny Towers and a number of locals from young talents (Wiesulis, galeniex, dirty300) to veteran Ozolas, who as the greatest gift became superstars on their forty-fifth anniversary Offset non-appearance – thanks to it, Ozols became the main artist in the first days of the festival. He fulfilled this duty to his credit and then on the second day of the festival he continued to celebrate with impromptu performances at the small stage Bourzma in the clothing sales area with their supporters, who did not feel disturbed at all, separated from the grand closing concert of the Derulo Festival, because they all knew that the 2024 festival Positive the main character’s name is Hangover, not Jason.
Source: www.diena.lv
