Selected Notes: Lost Music Festival 2022
© Gianluca Dallargine
Featuring the likes of Caterina Barbieri, object blue, TSVI, and Oklou, Lost Music Festival is the perfect retreat for the wistful revellers.
Friday, June 17
When I first enter the site, under an unrelenting surge of sunlight and a rustic campsite consisting of a few wooden installations along with long wooden tables and benches, I’m convinced I’m about to be a human sacrifice. The disorienting labyrinth shrouded by tall bamboo doesn’t help.
While wandering around the largest labyrinth in Europe, I keep seeing people intermittently that look eerily familiar. I soon realise that these triggering faces are reminding me of friends I had made during my time in Lisbon last year.
Trying to ascertain where each stage is, it becomes apparent that they have adopted a railroad-apartment blueprint. Were this not in the largest labyrinth in Europe, one could simply stroll through a corridor to each.
That night, Eartheater performs on the main stage situated directly in the middle of the labyrinth. Bubbles are floating in the air of this courtyard space. Sandy beige walls border the audience and ascend behind me to form a pyramid.
She walks out in an orange dress onto a stage illuminated by an orange back-light. Her shoulders come up and fall down like torn wings. The back of her dress is held aloft as she walks onto the stage.
She saunters through a solemn and personable acoustic set. "Time is so malleable,” she tells the crowd, “so we've rushed through our set."
During Juliana Huxtable’s set inside a cubist installation, I wander out to a nearby field and get talking to a Lithuanian girl.
“Have you been to Italy before?” she asks.
”It's my first time in Italy," I say.
"Do you like it?"
"I've only been here 24 hours?"
"What's your first impression of the people?”
"I've met Italian people before and they were some of the nicest people I’ve met."
While speaking with this girl, I see Bianca sitting down for a cigarette with friends. I'm not certain it is her. Yet I am. It’s my first time seeing her since last year, when we were both living in Lisbon.
"This is crazy,” she says. “I have to believe in something after this."
I feel the same.
Saturday, July 18
I wake up almost suffocating on the warm trapped air inside my tent, before unzipping the door and seeing a makeshift wooden shower unit composing of six shower heads. It’s in full view of this small campsite. I contemplate going for a shower and the hesitation only heightens with every passing moment. Why is the most natural thing the most exposing? It’s the Irish prudery in me, however, I can’t blame Catholic guilt in Italy. I see others stripping without thought, so I join.
While concurrently drying in the sun and keeping in the shade provided by a teepee in the middle of the campsite, I overhear a couple having a conversation about the night before. "I badly regret," the man begins. Can you happily regret something? Maybe.
TSVI marauds through his set deep within the labyrinth in the early evening, the sun peaking through the enveloping bamboo trees. Leaves fall around the compact and vivacious crowd as a cloud of smoke forms.
I am standing at the Pyramide stage as Oklou succulently glides through her set and I have reason to believe that her footsteps sound melodic. The staging presents a dystopic environment with trees on fire, ensuring that it is her vocal that is the most otherworldly aspect of this performance.
If I was to act on all my intrusive thoughts then I wouldn’t be around to bear the brunt of any of them. Oh, the backdrop behind Caterina Barbieri is now overlooking the earth through a hazy lens in the stratosphere. I’d probably be somewhere up there. She tilts her head back and looks directly up to the night sky. I hope she can’t see me.
Sunday, June 19
I bump into Luca in the morning, a young man living in Milan and gleefully shaking off the remnants of an acid trip the night before. I tell him of my plan to stay in Milan for the start of next week.
“How are you getting to Milan?” he asks.
“I’m not sure,” I say.
“I’ll give you a ride. I have the van.”
“I’d really appreciate that.”
“And where are you staying?”
“I’m not sure.”
“You can stay with me,” he says, clasping my hand.
After a day of placid sets in the labyrinth, I rest my weary legs and look up at the stars through a crown of bamboo. For the first time in my life, I spot a shooting star.
“Make a wish,” I think.
My mind goes blank.