Off Stays On Target

The seventh edition of Poland’s Off Festival kept up its enviable record of steadily growing its crowd, pulling 14,000 per day to its parkland site in Katowice.

That’s more than the original festival in 2006 attracted over all three days, when band member turned festival promoter Artur Rojek started the event on the Slupna Park in Myslowice.

It’s also more than double the 5,000 per day that came in 2009, the only time the “alternative” event didn’t improve on the previous year’s crowd. That year had the bad luck of clashing with a U2 show.

Rojek, leader of Polish rock act Myslovitz, has always felt Off’s crowd isn’t as worried about the names of the bands as it is about the event presenting the right sort of music.

This year’s gathering Aug. 3-5 had its hiccups before the festival even started, as Das Racist and Purity Ring unexpectedly pulled out, although Chromatics and Daughn Gibson were swiftly drafted in to replace them.

The lineup included Iggy & The Stooges, Swans, Thurston Moore, Baxter Dury, Death In Vegas, and The House Of Love.