Charisma. Jurgis Didziulis live in Vilnius, Monday 17 June 2024

Photo: Wout de Natris

An event called The Baltic Domain Days threw a party for itself and the conference next door I was at, in an open tent on a strand of grass beside the venue. It turned out to hold a huge musical surprise.

After my last session of the day I had walked back to the hotel to change and on return saw a man with a guitar sitting on the other side of the street opposite of the gate to the venue. He was not young but obviously absorbed in playing his instrument softly, as if trying out an idea that had come to him. A street musician? A neighbour sitting on a curb strumming his guitar? He felt somewhat out of place in that particular spot.

Not much later I went to the cellar, descending the stairs past the remains of the 16th century city wall, now a part of the cellar of the former university building. I was stopped by some ladies of the organisation. Behind them was the same musician, now obviously waiting to be let into the hall. I noticed that he must have some standing, as many Lithuanian ladies were circling him. I had no clue who the man is and (at time of writing) still do not. What did become very clear, is the charisma of the man. He just stepped in, descended the stairs toward the stage, playing his guitar, singing and talking.

Later it turned out, this was just the prelude, closing the opening of EuroDIG, the European Dialogue on Internet Governance. At the party, after we all had enjoyed some drinks, the local Kölsch beer is excellent by the way, and food, the singer came back. Now amplified, with a mysterious acoustic, electric guitar with all sorts of buttons but no body. On the floor was an electric bass drum. An unobtrusive assistent moved the device around and with a pad of some sort monitored and managed the musical output. I had never seen a guitar like it before. It had an amazing sound. There must have been some sort of separate amplification for the bass strings for example.

The singer moved in an out of the audience and made an intense form of eye contact. He bored his straight into yours, demanding to participate. Participation could be singing along to songs I had never heard before, to clap or to dance, whatever you liked. Running away was the only option left. Not many did. He created a big party, with more and more youth participants around him. If he'd had a flute, they would all have followed him outside of town of Vilnius to vanish forever, like in the tale of the rat catcher of Hamelin or the Pied Piper in English.

This is not all. In between he held short monologues on the internet and the kind of phrases coming with internet governance and all in perfect English. Before we knew it he was back at the chorus which could be no more than la-la-la disguised as an intricate melody. There we were singing again.

This man really knows what he is doing and how to get a maximum effect out of his audience. Most likely this approach only works up to a certain amount of people present. For this tent the absolute maximum was achieved that evening. As soon as I've found out his name, I will add it. Here it is, just in time, Jurgis Didziulis

Wout de Natris