B EAST Magazine website

Text and Images by Toby Stone

The first weekend of July saw thousands of Brits descend on the Northern Serbian town of Novi Sad for the Exit Festival, a Glastonbury like music festival held there since 2000. The festival is fun and in many ways conventional, but its roots are very different to the other festivals of the season, and this is still reflected in what I found there this year.

The Festival began in 2000 as part of a student campaign against the dictatorship of Slobodan Milosovic. The 100 day festival ended on the day before the election that was to lead to his downfall, with a ‘get out and vote’ campaign. A large gathering of Serbs, with (legend has it) Croatian and Bosnian DJs sneaked over the border in the boots of cars, and with foreign musicians and a reformist agenda, was a strong political force at the tail end of an oppressive and nationalist dictatorship.

Exit has undoubtedly joined the ranks of Europe’s large, commercial music festivals. This year, a four-day ticket cost £90, and the festival attracted around 40,000 people per day. However, underlying the big name acts, the heaving crowds of young foreign people, Exit maintains its original purpose and identity.

Unlike Glastonbury, Exit is a night festival, sprawling over the Petrovaradin Fortress in Serbia’s northern city of Novi Sad, spotlights and lasers shooting up into the sky. Kicking off at around 8pm, but not really getting going until midnight, the last acts tend to fade out around 7am. During the day, attendees sit around the cafes and restaurants of Novi Sad’s pretty old town, or party some more at the ‘beach’ on the Danube.

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Text by Vijai
Photos by Nastya Moylova

French DJ legend rocked Kiev’s Buddha Bar this week, and yeah, was a pretty awesome party. What’s even kooler is that he took time off from spinning to pose for one of our Beasties. She was smoking in a little yellow dress and Medusa locks and guess Sinclair being French, couldn’t resist. So here you go.

And here’s the Beastie Grrrls that flashed Sinclair for these photos -)

Eastern Europe’s still has so many negative connotations—golddiggers, corrupt cops, decaying infrastructure—that most hipsters, especially in the East, are wary of using it. Yet, in Europe’s annual schmalz fest, Eurovision, East Europe translates for victory, with countries from the East having won it for five years in a row from 2004-09. Their hegemony was broken by Norway last year, but only because their entry featured an Eastern European émigré. Their Eastern European Trojan Horse inside the Western European voting bloc grabbed them the top prizie.
Lithuania’s jazzy, sexy, boyz band, Inculto, are smart enough to play with the elephant in the Eurovision room, and turn it to their advantage. Their Eastern European Funk track for Eurovision is a clever blend of their trademark latin rhythms, beat-boxing, and Gogol Bordelloesque Balkan fest vibes. It’s an arty Eastern European sound, eerily reminiscent of the direction, Gogol Bordello are going in, by bringing Brazilian live acts into their performance. It’s like Balkan vibes and Latin rhythms were just crying out to be mixed, and Jurgis, the band’s charismatic frontman and a Beastie himself, had the vision to ‘Eurovision’ it. Their video is genius in a way, the hot striped-pant boys heating it up with a variety of Eastern European characters straight out of central casting: the aproned salesgirls, fat cops, jovial bald biznismen, jolly babushkas—and, for sure, a few hot babes in skintight threads blowing kisses at the audience. With Ukraine fielding a hot chansonesque blond (oh, so 1980s!) and Germany, a sexy yet homey R’B babe, Lithuania’s diffferent enough to stand out from the rest. And, yeah, they sure are feeding candy to that Eastern European voting bloc the West loves to fume about. Especially with their lyrics – Get up and dance to a Eastern European kindof funk …We’ve have it tough, but that’s OK, we like it rough . A vote for Inculto is a vote for Beast. So let’s just wear some ridiculous getups, fire up the barbecue, and drink some shots for Inculto on May 29th.