One Love Sound Festival 2011

By Andrew Thompson on Sunday, December 4, 2011 - Photos by Andrew Thompson - 1 comment

The festival took place in Worclaw, Poland on November 26th.

This was my first time visiting Poland, I didn’t see much of it but what I did see I liked, a lot!

We flew from London on Saturday morning to Worclaw, after spending far too long on buses taking us all over Worclaw and nowhere near the venue for One Love Sound Fest, it was getting dark and we finally arrived at the venue.

The venue was not open yet and there was a large crowd waiting at the entrance. When anybody appeared inside to even come close to the doors the crowd of excited fans began to cheer. The doors opened and we were in!

The venue for the festival was very impressive, there was a variety of food on offer, official merchandise for sale and other things for the excited punters to purchase.

One Love Sound Fest 2011

We headed for the main stage where they were still sound checking. The first few acts on the main stage were Mesajah and Star Guard Muffin although we could not understand the lyrics because these were Polish artists; the performance was great and really enjoyable. The fans that could understand the lyrics really loved it and were going crazy!

Next up were Dub Incorporation, a group I have wanted to see for several years now. They did not disappoint, an awesome performance! However, like we had trouble understanding the Polish artists it seemed the Polish fans had trouble understanding the English speaking French artists. When the crowd were asked to nod their heads they started clapping, when they were asked to bounce to the left they began waving, however it did not take long before the whole crowd were bouncing! Although it appeared frustrating for the artists at first, everyone was enjoying themselves. I have seen videos of ‘jump up again’ and I wasn’t sure how this would work with the language barriers between the artists and fans. However after a short while everyone got down low ready to jump up again and when they did, they really went for it and loved every moment of it! I have never seen so much energy from a crowd before!

The crowd may of had so much energy from being able to relax at times.. During the set changes between artists there would be around twenty minutes spare. People would sit on the floor and chill out, pop out for something to eat or drink. Which was a very different experience for me. Normally you get to the front row and you are there holding your ground for the next eight hours but not here, you could come and go freely and still get a front row position which was great!

Etana took to the stage next. After seeing Etana in London for The One Love Peace Festival in the summer I was looking forward to seeing her again. A great show once again, singing songs like Blessings, August Town and bob Marley classics like Is This Love although due to the language barriers again when the microphone was turned to the crowd to sing the chorus the crowd was very quiet which was disappointing.

After another set change on came Alborosie the highlight of the festival for myself, the artist I had most been looking forward to and wanting to see for a long time. Alborosie said how he had been told by somebody whilst he was playing at a gig in France how ‘the Polish like ska music and they love dancing’. This is true and they proved it! Alborosie gave some dancing tips to his fans and the crowd went wild for ‘Patricia / My boy lollipop’ mix. Alborosie smashed it! Whipping the crowd up in a frenzy to classics from his ‘Soul Pirate’ album: Waan The Herb, Police and Still Blazing along with songs from his new album ‘2 Times Revolution’ like Respect and La Revolucion. Unfortunately we couldn’t stay for the whole of his set due having to get back to the airport to catch the flight home to England!

The festival was situated just outside of the city centre, there was no curfew as far as we were aware with the last act scheduled to come on stage at two thirty in the morning. The line up for the festival was really impressive with artists from all around the world. We unfortunately missed many of these due to poorly timed flights, we missed out on seeing Pablo Moses from Jamaica, Jahdan Blakkamore from the USA, Pow Pow Movement from Germany which was a real shame! However we are checking dates now for when we can catch up and see these artists, hopefully it won’t be to long!

You really do get your monies worth with this festival. A real chilled out festival with long sets by lots of awesome artists in a really cool location!

With many major budget airlines offering cheap flights from a variety of airports in England going directly to Worclaw and hostels in the lively city centre, for only eight pounds per night, bus tickets for sixty pence per day, this is a festival which can be done on a tight budget and is well worth it!

I look forward to One Love Sound Festival 2012 and we will be booking hotels so we can stay for the whole festival next year and explore Worclaw more!