Sabat Fest!

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Last weekend, Jenny and myself were invited to attend Deloraine's very own festival, Sabat Fest, in Czechia, as their personal guests. Of course we couldn't refuse our dear friends Masha and Deri (they are such lovely people and we connect in many ways), so we turned our old OMNIA van back into a temporary camper, found a catsitter for the Demon, and drove down off our forested mountain to Czechia ... not knowing what to expect.

We found rare festival gold!

Echoes of a long lost sense of community... of belonging to a shared culture, rejoicing in our common history of ancient legends and the traditional melody lines and songs, the shared brother and sisterhood of our Celtic Ancestors and the soul of the forest made alive again in this perfectly sized gem of a festival.

The atmosphere reminded me of the time when we helped to start up tiny little festivals back in the day with just ourselves an army of OMNIA volunteers and the conviction of doing something good for our world and to really CELEBRATE together with our community.

This is what Deloraine has achieved.

There were only happy faces, only friendly smiles, no fights, no political aggression, no peer pressure, just peace, love and a "tribal" feeling to be shared by all!

I hardly saw a smartphone in sight!

We ate Good Slavic food, drank fine local beer and mead, we swam naked in the lake.

There were honest hardworking artisans selling handmade crafts (no commercial crap at all!),

and it was all affordable and payable simply in CASH.

We listened to many bands, all of whom happened to be personal friends of ours, playing back to back on the (single!) mainstage and interchanging and sharing musicians (just like we always used to do with OMNIA), 'our' Daphyd the Crow joining every single band!

There was the smiling flower of nature called Zniwa. The virtuose mayhem of the TroubleNotes, the old warrior Kelvin Kalvus and his angelic daughter and many more great artists.

When darkness fell, on the highlight of Sabat Fest night... the performance of the mythical, fantasy, folklore trip that is Deloraine rocked!... (we danced for joy, we laughed like children, we felt Alive!)

I was even enticed to accept a mic and walk onto the stage... (because who can resist Masha!?)

but we did not play music... we said we wouldn't ... welll... at least... not this time.

Our lovable Czech barbarian bar-buddies "BarBarBards" played Fee Ra Huri live!..Daphyd joined!...while Jenny, me and Masha danced to it like Satyrs and Nymphoi! That was such a "surreal" moment! haha! And then the "everyone can join" drumsession went on 'till dawn.

What a magickal night! What a trip! What a beautifull gathering of Wytches, Warriors and Weirdo's!

There was even a giant group ritual involving the whole audience!

a Pure incantation of Sound and Movement, Words of love and joy flowed over extatic dancers spinning in magical circles ... a rejoicing of souls and bodies bound by the rythm of the Drum!

Sabat Fest... we love you!

We'll be there next year, how about you?

Steve Sic and Jenny

(If you're lucky you will get hold of a ticket as soon as they are available for 2027, because this is rare, this is cool, this is luxury, this is what is meant by the word...exclusive!

Photo by Krzysztof