Although this year’s edition of the festival seemed uncertain until the very last moment, EXIT once again proved, as she concludes, why it remains essential: “At the end… You feel as confident about the Festival as you did in the early days.”
Already on the very first night, the Tesla Universe stage pulsed with the raw energy of the local scene. Atheist Rap, Kojić writes, “sounds like the Ramones, fresh and thunderous,” delivering clear messages that “hammer the truth straight to the head.”
The Boomtown Rats – Irish Vintage Revolution
Bob Geldof, with his legendary band The Boomtown Rats, brought the 1980s new wave to life and reminded everyone of the power of music and activism, even 40 years after Live Aid. Kojić offered readers a vivid portrait of Geldof, emphasizing that “The Boomtown Rats read a lesson to all generations and added fuel to the engine of relevant rock and roll as the crucial future of the world. It must be admitted that Geldof especially now fits EXIT as well as EXIT him,” she wrote.
The Prodigy – Exclusive Owners of Eccentric Perception
“They are almost no longer human beings – as if they inhabited the abode of deities a long time ago electropunk from where they only occasionally rush among us mortals, to shock us with a voltage of a billion volts and shake the stuck ruts of our lives.” That is how Kojić described the members of the iconic group The Prodigy, who headlined the Rebel Rave concept on the Main Stage. Their concert, also a tribute to late frontman Keith Flint, “raised everything you expected from them even in your wildest imaginations by a lightning-fast level.”
Mystic Marley – Original Vision of Female Empowerment
On a completely different end of the spectrum, yet equally authentic, Mystic Marley delivered a “spiritual medallion of kindness and grace” in her mini-concert. The granddaughter of Bob Marley, as Kojić writes, is not just an heir to a musical legacy but a voice for a new generation of women: “Being a dark-skinned woman in today’s world is just as, if not twice as, complicated as it has ever been in history, and will continue to be. That’s why the melodious voice of Mystique Marley on the Main Stage overcomes everyday vanity and greed.”
Hurts – Romantics of the Third Millennium
The warmth carried on during the sophisticated performance of the British band Hurts, whom the critic describes as “delicate continuers of the great English tradition of vocal interpreters.” Frontman Theo Hutchcraft “dances his perfect solitary dance in front of a well-coordinated band, like a kind of ideal soloist in an imaginary vaudeville.”
Sex Pistols – Experienced Breakers of Musical Rules
On the final night at the Tesla Universe stage, following a powerful set by Goblini, the Sex Pistols feat. Frank Carter triumphed with a noise that is “real, and their ideal is the highest possible.” The energetic frontman, brimming with contagious youthful eloquence, as Kojić describes, gives it his all – “his youthful eloquence is contagious, and the energy of his performance and the furious pace with which he ignites the exalted mass of devotees almost bring to life the lucid Zen paradox of the former Johnny Rotten.”
“Because the stripped-down songs of Sex Pistols are like the words spoken so many times in the prayers of revolutionaries. Like dear and well-known toponyms on the globe from childhood. Like the names of metropolises on an old radio. Carved in stone, they burn for all future generations. And after all, EXIT, who made it possible, with them. Long live rock and roll!”
Zorica Kojić’s complete review is available on the Vreme website.
