Island Breached! How twenty one pilots conquered Sziget 2026

While Tyler Joseph has space to swing his microphone around his head during The Contract, Sziget’s Main Stage is completely gridlocked. Generally, the beauty of Budapest’s Island Of Freedom is its breathing room; despite a never-ending spillover of districts to discover between the trees, the site never feels too congested or stuffy. But here’s the question of the day: are there more trees or twenty one pilots shirts on Óbuda Island? It's too close to call, with a staggeringly large crowd spilling over in every direction.

Having not stopped by Hungary since 2019, the vast turnout for this TØP set is unsurprising, coupled with the fact that their recent one-two punch of Clancy and Breach has firmly established the pair as one of the world’s biggest bands. With the purple patch expected to come to a halt soon as Tyler and Josh Dun allow themselves to put their feet up, this particular European festival run – which rolls into London in three weeks’ time – has the hallmarks of a victory lap before a note is played.

“Thank you so much for letting a couple of American guys play your show tonight,” remarks Tyler, now a comfortable, experienced graduate from frontman school. “This is it. Just me, Josh and you.” The blue, pink and yellow of Shy Away turns to green and purple for the ever-eerie Heathens, before Next Semester bulldozes through the front door, upstaging its predecessor’s ‘Watch it!’ chant as the field shrieks together: ‘Hey kid, get out of the road!’.

Our torchbearer Josh beckons in a fiery Jumpsuit, a telling reminder of how good twenty one pilots can be when they get heavy, while the flames keep on burning during a brief mashup with City Walls: ‘Move it up it’s a breach’. Although more than a third of tonight’s setlist is material from their latest LP, the show (to the envy of any headline band wanting to plug their new record) still feels career-spanning because of the magnitude of moments like Nico And The Niners, the thundering Heavydirtysoul and the euphoria of Tear In My Heart.

That said, their cover choices are hit-and-miss. Milky Chance’s Stolen Dance was a Number One single in Hungary and goes down an absolute storm, while Josh fiddles about on his drum machine. The usually reliable Seven Nation Army, however, falls flat when copy and pasted onto Tyler’s bass, and pretty much interrupts the show’s momentum. Then again, when you can whip out Stressed Out to fix that, there are worse problems to have.

“How did we do? Did we do okay?” questions Tyler, letting his guard down for a split second. Maybe ask security guard Ákos, who’s brought up on stage to perform Ride, or watch the mesmerising scenes as around 60,000 people leap to Trees, which evokes nostalgia of The Postal Service today. Truthfully, their escapist experience closer feels like the pinnacle of this festival so far. Although the mouth-watering prospect of Bring Me The Horizon awaits in 48 hours, this one will be hard to TØP.

Stay tuned for our full review of Bring Me The Horizon and Sziget festival.

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