Spirit of Burgas 2008's second day lured us into the festival night early. After the wonderful thoughts and passions of the first night, it was already Saturday - the most suitable day for festival activities and experience. As seen with a naked eye, the crowds of party people were twice as many compared to the previous day. It could be felt in front of each stage, too.

At 19:10, the Jack Daniel's rock truck was conquered by Soul Stage - the winners in D_2's school contest back in the spring. After half an hour of Korn-styled neo-metal, Soul Stage left the audience with a good impression. It was obvious they needed more practice, but anyway, what else could they do in Kurdjali town? Music is a drug, music is salvation... music is the way...

Shortly afterwards, we were already drinking toasts of Jack and beer in front of the stage to the first Bulgarian champion in that Olympics, Rumiana Neykova. Then the bottles made a second round, because we had suddenly realized how much she resembled our friend Branko from JJ Murphy's. Re-belotte. And then, Adibas were already playing on stage. It was cheery! In fact, very cheery! 40 minutes later they finished with their biggest hit, "You're an Asshole." The people in the audience were happy, shoving each other with elbows, because they knew Cherno Feredje were next on schedule.

Meanwhile, Jack Daniel's girls with tempting smiles were giving away flyers for the D_2 gig that was to come a bit later. Ole!

The sun set and swiftly on stage climbed Cherno Feredje. Sure enough, we couldn't call them "the naughty kids on the Bulgarian scene," simply because they had grown up long time ago. And thanks God! Because, to fire urban obscenities in musical accompaniment and thus to achieve outstanding impression, you have to be quite mature. Cherno Feredje is a phenomenon and this is, as it seems, clear to everyone. Great mood, music for and from drinking and the joy of life...

Laughs and jokes. That was about to change. To come on stage were D_2! They were supposed to end a little before ADF start jumping on the Main Stage. In the thick audience in front of the truck, lots of faces could be seen from the campings south of Burgas. Intellectuals! The impressive number of photographers and cameramen suddenly doubled!

Kurnev and company threw themselves under the spotlight at 21:45 and for the next 50 minutes showed D_2 in a completely different light for the average TV-viewer. The most commercial Bulgarian band since the beginning of the century didn't play even one of its old hits. Only energetic songs from its last album. More like Queens of the Stone Age than, urrrr, Madonna. That's how it should be! Yavor banged the drums like he was playing in Slayer and the new frontman, Dido, already knew how to behave on stage! Self-confident, with "stage presence" and most of all, good singing. No need of further analysis of individual members because it's obvious they are a real team which works well and with perfect synchronicity on all levels. To illustrate this, band members pass to each other a bottle of Jack which quickly dried out. Ensemble performance with a bottle! 10 scores from the jury! Meanwhile we had the opportunity to hear a brand new track from D_2 with yet unfinished lyrics, and for final - a very convincing "Manic Depression" cover of Jimi Hendrix. By the way, have you already bought the book from Moni Panchev's publishing house, hm?

The audience withdrew slowly towards the Main Stage for Asian Dub Foundation, and Mental Architects jumped on the rock stage. They are the winners in Jack Daniel's Battle of the Bands competition this year. Very, very good!

Already in the media zone with Katincharov from MM TV and Irina Kostadinova from bTV, we were grinning secretly at Chandrasonic's new belly. He kindly shared with us details of his meeting with Iggy Pop at an airport in Croatia and some more about ADF's new album. Then he explained nothing could be done against illegal music download, but admitted that it probably attracted more people to ADF concerts.В В 

The same situation on the beach in Burgas. A thick mass of people transformed from crowd into audience with hands up in the air. The band and its crew had traveled for quite some time from Sofia's airport to here and instead of full soundcheck did something like a quick linecheck. The sound engineer fought bravely with the sound balance for the first 5 songs and finally gained control of the situation. Crazy dances! The large screens on both sides of the stage exalted additionally the audience, showing it back views of how it looked from the top, from the crane. It was completely real, like at the biggest festivals. It was a pity that the Sisters of Mercy hadn't allowed the usage of screens the night before, but better not to look back.

Back on the Jack Daniel's stage. Hypercube were just wonderful. We had the feeling that they liked the festival, too.

We let ourselves one more walk for digestion of the Jack Daniel's - Tuborg tandem. On the Music Space Stage, Wickeda were doing their show. Erol was a real frontman! He played jokes on Rosen. The people were dancing. Kojak is a Bulgarian!

On Jack's truck Leepra DeLuxe coincided with Wickeda. Leepra are giants! It's clear that all the time, not only that night, from the stage, but during its existence that band laughed at us, their faithful audience. And that's why we like them, because we deserve it. But they laugh at themselves, too. C'est la vie, motherfucker, We Are Leepra DeLuxe. Instead of bows, we welcomed them with hugs: "Hey, let's get drunk now!" Meanwhile, one of the singers in Urban Grey's history had made a foray on the stage and for a moment Leepra DeLuxe sounded and looked very aggressive. Peace! It was time for Sposob!

There they were, Sposob - another finalist from Jack Daniel's Battle of the Bands. No vocals, only guitar, bass and drums. That's what we needed then. It was Saturday night, or more precisely, 3:00 o'clock on Sunday morning.

The intellectual process in my head slowed down, but the flow of Jack speeded up a bit. We were already arguing with the colleagues whether all the population near the Sliven mineral baths had already downloaded the new Snoop Dogg or just parts of it. Obviously it was time to go. Later on the same day a metal storm was expected on that territory, so we had to be prepared.

Report:В Vassil VarbanovВ & Danail Tsonkov

Photos:В Danail TsonkovВ