blog

Place: Heineken Open'er Festival, Gdynia, Poland

06. July 2013.

 

Kings of Leon are amongst three of four of my favorite music artists. And every year i expect for them to come to my country, but such a thing never occured. So, when i find out that my favorite band is coming to Poland to play i was overjoyed.

I decided right away i am not going to miss that show and when my girlfriend agreed to join me for this 3 day adventure, everything become even better. Backpacks – checked; passports – checked; tent – checked; concert tickets – bought and we were heading to Warsaw by train. Five-hour wait before leaving to Gdynia didn’t disappointed us, because we used that time for sightseeing the Polish capital. After traveling through the whole night, we have reached our last stop at 7 am. Gdynia, here we are!

Due to high temperature of 30 degrees, as soon as we set up the tent, we immediately headed for the nearby beach. We spent the day swimming in the sea and enjoying the sun. After few hours, we were wearing Kings Of Leon T-shirts and ready to join festival crowd.

As we enter the really large festival area, we were delighted by its appearance. Main stage plus six other stages, silent disco, theatre plays, fashion stage, the Ferris Wheel and many more. Everything that one festivalgoer could wish was there. Not to mention cold Heineken beer.

One hour before the concert was already too crowded. People huddle, pushing to capture the best place. Incredible extrusion began 15 minutes before start. I couldn’t stand straight. We resisted as much as we could. After few minutes, we end up in front of main stage, almost in first row. Excitement inside me grew stronger. A really big scream from the audience indicated that guys from band are coming on stage. The first beats of the song ‘Crawl’ made me realize that is really happening. I am indeed at the concert of Kings of Leon. No pushing bothered me anymore. The whole crowd jumped in the rhythm of next song ‘Four Kicks’. Then they played several songs from their first two albums. It sounded amazing. I was singing and screaming and jumping. The audience was thrilled, which Caleb also felt and than said ‘this is the best crowd we've played to on the entire tour’. ‘Pyro’ and 'Be Somebody' followed before Caleb asked the crowd if they were ready for a new song. Then they played new song 'It Don't Matter' before a crowd-pleasing 'The Bucket'. The time has come for song 'On Call', when Caleb said: "I just wanna play all night with you people”. The band ended their main set with 'Knocked Up' and 'Use Somebody'.

The crowd demanded more, wanted more of Kings of Leon magic. After five minutes, they were back for an encore. The band opened the closing section of their headline show with 'Radioactive'.  My favorite song ‘Sex On Fire’ was next with huge crowd sing-a-long. Kings of Leon then finished with 'Black Thumbnail'. The end of the show was followed by a thunderous ovations.

Soon the crowd began to disperse as I stood motionless, eyes fixed to the stage, not believing what I had just experienced. If there was any slice of doubt that I will be disappointed by my favorite band’s live show, it was gone like in no time as they offered me the best concert in my life.

As we were returning home by train the next day, we summed up the impressions. We have revived memories of the previous night with the help of photographs that i managed to take in all that confusion. Thought that prevailed for both of us was ‘we can’t wait the next Kings of Leon European tour’!!!