A PERFORMANCE OF JOY AND DESPAIR

The band Kontrol Csoport got its start in Hungary in 1980. They played rock and punk through the last decade of Soviet rule, in basements, out of earshot of the bugs and anxious state listeners. Their bass, guitar, drums and saxophones backed a dark-haired siren who belted lyrics like "I don't know who will come to fetch you/I don't know what they'll ask from you/please don't know anything about me".

I saw Kontrol Csoport in New York recently at Le Poisson Rouge, a Bleecker street club that features a bold lineup of rock and classical performers in its blood-red-hued underground ballroom. To celebrate the 20th anniversary of the wall’s collapse, Kontrol Csoport performed with similar groups from Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania and the Czech Republic over two nights in a concert called Rebel Waltz: Underground Music From Behind the Iron Curtain. The programme was part of the Extremely Hungary Festival, running in New York and Washington, DC, until March.

The band may have grayed and wrinkled slightly since the 1980s, but they played with sweat and vitality for the fist-pumping crowd. They sang in Hungarian and many in the audience mouthed the words. Halfway through the show, two polar-bear-sized inebriates embraced me, and then proceeded to slam into one another with incredible force. The men created a small mosh pit for themselves until they were asked to leave.

During one of Kontrol's best songs, the backup vocalist stepped into the spotlight and began a sustained and uncanny loop of hysterical laughter over the climax of the melody. “Ha-ha’s” erupted from the top of his lungs, one awful arc of wailing after another, as the music built. If not for his crazed smile, the laughs could have been sobs. At the last cymbal crash, he almost collapsed, clutching the microphone.

Kontrol Csoport delivered a performance of joy and despair. Of all the memorials to and celebrations of the fall of European communism, their time onstage was perfect.

Extremely Hungary is a yearlong festival showcasing contemporary Hungarian visual, performing and literary arts in New York and Washington, DC, until March 2010

~ COLIN BAKER

Picture credit: Colin Baker