Wianki nad Wisła

Every year Wianki Festival is celebrated throughout Poland and last night’s celebrations for Midsummer’s Day proved to be as popular as always. Thousands of people congregated on the side of the River Wisła where a huge stage had been set up and last night’s performers were Maciek Maleńczuk, Mat Pokora and Reamonn. Unfortunately due to a 2-hour train delay returning from Katowice, we missed Maleńczuk, but caught the rest of the show. The weather was perfect and not in the least bit chilly.

Here’s Mat Pokora performing on stage. He’s a French musician with Polish ancestry and managed a ‘dziękuję’, which pleased all the screaming 16-year old female fans in the audience.

Reamonn played next. The Poles know him from a song called ‘Supergirl‘ which was played on Polish radio back in 2000. I’d never heard of them, but the music was lively and befitting a summer festival.

Following Reamonn, a drum-based orchestra accompanied the fireworks spectacular which was one of the best I’ve seen. Perhaps this was because we were high on the bank and had a perfect view. Here’s a couple of shots I took with my G9 (without a tripod, hence the slight blurring).

The orchestra is housed on scaffolding in the bottom left of the screen (where the green grid is in the above photo). Królewska were sponsoring the fireworks and considering the length of time and amount of fireworks set off, I would say that the beer industry is one that isn’t feeling the crisis!