OFF Festival will take place this year on August 2-4 in Katowice. This year, the following artists will perform in the Three Ponds Valley: Grace Jones, Th Blaze, Sevdaliza, Future Islands, Clavish, Glass Beams, Hotline TNT, Edyta Bartosiewicz, Łona x Konieczny x Krupa, Tonfa, Otschodzi and Kaz Bałagane.
During a conversation with Piotr Witwicki, at one point, the host touched on organizational problems at the festival and the whims of artists. Artur Rojek returned to the history of 2016, when the OFF Festival had a series of unannounced events.
During that edition, they canceled their concerts Anhoni, The Kills, GZA and Wiley. He also had trouble getting to the party Thundercat, and there were many smaller problems. It is not without reason that the 2016 festival is called one of the most unlucky in the history of OFF.
Artur Rojek revealed the backstage of that exceptionally difficult weekend. – It started with him first canceling and canceling his GZA concert – he began to say.
– Then he deleted it The Kills just before the festival, and then during the festival it started… It's rare for things to go wrong like this. And it's not just about cancellations. We also had other team-type issues Mudhoney The equipment and guitars did not arrive. Someone else's costumes didn't arrive. Someone lost something along the way. Here again someone cancels something. Everything was falling apart, he recalled.
– After many cancellations on Saturday, I remember that I went on stage and wanted to somehow tell these people that listen, things are happening that are unforeseen and I am terribly sorry, but I hope that these replacements or these changes what we are doing, i.e. moving the band from stage to stage, will fill the gap – he said.
The big winner of that festival was the band Islam Chips, who played two concerts in one day, including the second one on the main stage. People received his show very well, which surprised Artur Rojek.
The events of that festival culminated in a canceled concert Anohni. As it turns out, the festival organizer fought until the very end for the artist to appear on stage. Unfortunately, to no avail.
– When it came to the last day, when Anohni was the headliner, I thought nothing would happen. On Saturday evening she gets a call from her agent, who is Italian, and says: listen, we're coming from London. Anohni has a slight hoarseness. We need a doctor, so I'm sending a doctor to the hotel in the evening. The doctor arrives and says, (Anohni) has a sore throat, a slight problem, but I think it will be ok. In the middle of the night this agent calls me and says: listen, you have to send another doctor, because Anohni claims that the one you sent is biased. Because it's festival. I say, but what doctor? And you have to send a specialist, Rojek said.
During the conversation, it turned out that the star requested a visit from a phoniatrician. – Although I am a vocalist myself, I have never heard of anyone who specializes in treating the throat for the vocal cords. So on Sunday morning I started looking for a phoniatrician, he said. Finally, to the organizers after a frantic search
– There is a very famous phoniatrist in Katowice, lady Doctor Leśniewska, which I sensed. I remember it was a struggle because I called various people… I called the head of NOSPR, my friend who is an actor at the Theater. Słowacki, well everywhere. Finally, someone gave me the name of Mrs. Leśniewska, whom I picked up from the weekend in Brenna, which she spent with her husband. She came to Katowice especially to examine Anohni, Rojek said.
– This is the lady about whom there is a legend that she was able to get back on her feet Ozzy Osbourne, when he played in Spodek. Well, after examining Anohnia's voice, it turned out that the problem was not what the doctor had told me before, but rather… Quite more complicated. A Polish artist goes on stage because he takes a steroid and simply sings. However, she was not in such a position and said that she would not take the steroid and canceled the concert while she was already in Katowice – Rojek confessed.
– It was such a total knockout. She canceled the entire tour, not only our concert. She spent two weeks in Katowice at the Angelo hotel, making friends with the doctor, he added.
When asked about the star's actual condition, the OFF director admitted that Anohni showed “extreme care for her voice.”
Piotr Witwicki and Artur Rojek talked not only about the OFF Festival. The musician revealed that he plans to release an EP
– Having been on the music market for so many years, I have a certain sentiment towards expressing myself in the form of albums, in the form of more than one song. And it definitely won't go away in me. I have a need to release a full album someday. On the other hand, I am also aware of how quickly and how many things are happening around us in the musical space. How many songs come out every day. How quickly human attention changes, how human attention shortens. (…) In response to this, I also try to adapt, on the one hand, to the needs of the other, and on the other hand, I am constantly doing what I like to do, which is writing songs, he said.
– So now is the time when I'm working on a shorter form – he concluded.