This week in Budapest, crowds gathered for Rendszerbont Nagykoncert — loosely translated as the concert for tearing down the system — filling Heroes’ Square and nearby streets to protest Prime Minister Viktor Orbán ahead of nationwide elections on Sunday. Thousands of mostly 20-something Hungarians came to voice frustration with Orbán, who has been in power for 16 years, and to urge change.
Rob Schmitz, reporting from the event, said the concert blended music and political expression. “We’re not tearing down walls nor each other,” the emcee shouted, “we’re tearing down the system,” as performers and the crowd made clear their opposition to Orbán’s government.
One of the acts, Hungarian heavy metal band Imre Fia Imre, spoke with Schmitz in a preconcert interview. Frontman Imre Gyorgy explained the band’s name — Imre Fia Imre means Imre’s son Imre — a family name passed through generations. The group led a tour through a rehearsal complex before discussing their reasons for playing the concert.
Keyboardist Zsolt Tornai said the event is unprecedented in Hungary’s recent cultural life and exciting because its outcome is unknown. Drummer Gergo Barat framed the concert as a reaction to centralized control: “So everything is subjected to this kind of power factory that they have built in the past years,” he said, adding that the accumulation of power felt irreversible without action.
The band planned to perform “Fekete Volga” — “Black Volga” — a song referencing the Soviet-era car associated with secret police. Gyorgy described the Black Volga as part of Eastern European folklore and urban legend: a vehicle that took people to their deaths. Their song depicts a man abducted and killed by agents in a Black Volga who returns to find his life memorialized in a way he despises, a haunting critique of history and memory under authoritarian rule.
“Black Volga” and other anti-government songs at the event reflect a broader genre of protest music that musicians say channels cultural resistance similar to American protest music of the 1960s. Gyorgy likened the gathering to a Hungarian Woodstock, noting how pop culture has become a vehicle for political expression after years of censorship: “Pop music and pop culture is extremely important in Hungary now. I think Hungarians feel like Americans did in the 1960s,” he said.
Tens of thousands attended the concert. Among them was Virag Kiss, a factory worker from outside Budapest, who said she wanted a better future for young people and saw Orbán as offering no hope. She accused Orbán of destroying independent media and making life difficult for Hungarians. Kiss said she planned to vote for Orbán’s opponent, Péter Magyar, and added bluntly what she would do if Orbán wins again: “I’d leave Hungary,” she said, “and I’d live somewhere else, somewhere with a better system.”
The concert showcased a growing impatience with Orbán’s government and a cultural moment in which artists and young voters are using music and public gatherings to push for political change.
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