Tuborg Green Rock Castle Fest

VILNIUS - On Aug. 13, at 18:00, the Grand Duke Vytautas-built castle in the town of Trakai will start to vibrate from the music of Finnish bands Apocalyptica and The Rasmus as well as Lithuanian bands ZAS and BIX – they will give a five hour-long concert in that medieval castle situated on an island in the lake. The atmosphere will be quite psychedelic and therefore the fest organizer, Medusa Concert, advises not to come to the fest with children under 10 years old.
Tickets can be bought via www.bilietupasaulis.lt or www.tiketa.lt and it is better to do so as soon as possible because the space in the castle’s yard is more limited than in some stadium or a park. There are standing room tickets as well as seats on the castle’s balconies for sale.

Apocalyptica is a Finnish band of classical cellists’ playing metal. Now they have three cellists with a classical cello education and a drummer, though at the beginning of their career they had four cellos only. They started in 1993 playing covers of Metallica. Their debut album of Metallica covers, issued in 1996 and named Plays Metallica by Four Cellos, was an international sensation conquering the hearts of fans of heavy metal as well as admirers of classical music. Their second album, Inquisition Symphony, was also dominated by covers of famous heavy metal bands. In their third album, Cult, their own original music, not covers, prevails. Later, the band issued albums with numerous guest musicians. Apocalyptica has visited some 50 countries giving concerts, playing music from thrash metal to Beethoven.

The Rasmus is one of the most successful Finnish bands of alternative rock. Their first album, Peep, in 1994 moved the four sixteen-year-old members of The Rasmus to the status of celebrities – Peep became a gold album in Finland. After their second album, Playboys, which also turned gold, they got an Emma (Finnish Grammy) and had joint concerts with such bands as Red Hot Chili Peppers - since their second album, The Rasmus guys are considered living classics in Finland.
ZAS is a Lithuanian band which started as a gangsta rap group and later moved more to pop style music. Now the band consists of three rappers, Marius Berenis (aka Tru), Linas Zareckas (aka Choras) and Gidonas Sapiro (aka Bilas).

Bilas has almost no voice at all, but the other two guys like this fat Jewish guy from the town of Telsiai and keep him on stage as talisman. Bilas is also famous for his TV cuisine show, where he creates dishes of the cuisines of various countries. The band’s most colorful figure used to be Linas Karalius (aka Ezopas), but a couple of years ago he became fascinated with Hinduism and Buddhism, left the band, created a massage parlor business and started giving his sobriety lectures at schools urging kids not to drink alcohol. Now Karalius is a Christian Party MP and he is famous for his scandalous one-month-long trip to Thailand, instead of working in the parliament.   

BIX is a post punk band which was established in the town of Siauliai in 1987. When the anti-Soviet singing revolution started in the Baltics in the late 1980s and early 1990s, BIX met with some popularity in the West, though the band was created because of the love of music only, and without any commercial intentions. BIX had tours in West Europe and the United States. Then their video clips were shown on the world’s most popular TV music channels, though they are singing in Lithuanian only. Now BIX gives only occasional concerts, and the Green Rock Castle Fest is a rare opportunity to watch them live.