Newborn
In the late 90s i played guitar in a hardcore punk band called h-street, one day this guy named Zoli wants to book a show for us in Budapest. We were like wow Budapest we never heard of a hardcore scene from there (keep in mind there was no myspace and most of the known hardcore bands in europe came from western european coutries) and we thought man thats probably pretty far from here (and that in a time where we used to drive about 20 hours to germany, holland or belgium to see a good hc show at least once a month)
so the day came we got in the car and found out budapest is about a 2 hour drive from vienna, we went there with absolutely no expectations, we played the show together with our buddies highscore and enfold.
The show was really fun, alot of people there, a really good vibe. It was a hardcore scene still in their virginity as i would say, and when i say virginity im talking about a time that i hope every hardcore punk kid witnesses at least once in their lifetime, a pure scene id say, no trends no seperations bewteen metal, old school, new school and whatever type of kids, everybody knew each other and got along, no fashion dancing styles and people didnt all look the same.
And it was a time where life in the eastern european countries wasnt very easy, the majority of the kids there didnt have much money, and it wasnt as easy for them to buy hardcore shirts and records, also because when ordered stuff from mailorders about 90% of the packages would never arrive and get lost somwhere in the nirvana of hungarian post offices.
So we played the show and sold about 2 demotapes as far as i can remember. To our suprise a couple of months later we played another show there, which was absolutely the one of the most crazy shows we have ever played, everyone knew the lyrics and went apeshit, as we found out the 2 demotapes we sold where copied and passed on to everyone in the hungarian hc scene now thats fucking Unity, only in a really pure hardcorescene things lmiracles like these will happen, but thats another story.
So we became very good friends with Zoli, who had a hardcoreband called Newborn with another good friend
of ours, his name was Adam, Adam was the most dedicated hardcorekid i ever meet, when he talked about
hardcore bands he had this shining in his eyes, you know he loved it and that he based his whole life on it.
So years go by, and somehow we never managed to see newborn live, then they released a 7' called 'in these desperate days' (http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/527663.jpg) which was about to turn the entire european hardcore scene upside down. We were playing some hardcore show in hungary and zoli gave us a raw version of their just recorded record, and on our drive back to vienna we listened to it a million times and could not believe it, the 7' fucking blew us away, and until this day i still think it is one of the best releases of european hardcore to ever see the light of day.
One day finally i got to see newborn for the first time, i was so excited but i could not image that i was about to see the most passionate and intense hardcoreband i have ever seen live. If you ever seen newborn live then you know what i am talking about, those guys went on stage and played their hearts out, they played as if there was no tomorrow, when those five guys who where some of the best musicians i have ever seen in hadcore punk picked up their instruments they spread passion all over the fucking venue, no matter how many people attended the show, i have seen newborn in front of 80 up to 2000 people, and their vibe was more addictive then heroin. In my eyes they where the heart of hungarian hardcore punk.
Its October 2008, newborn is long gone, but yesterday the played a benefit reunion show for an old friend (a very well known face of the the hungarian hardcore scene) and one of the nicest guys ever. The benefit happend because the guy has some kind of uncurable cancer, and all the money that was made at the show went to him.
Nobody really knew what to expect, as most of us know, hardcore has changed in the last couple of years
and you never know about reunion shows, they can be either a success or totally lame cause nobody fucking
cares about it. Well yesterday was not only success, it blew everyone away, Newborn came on stage, and these guys turned back the hands of time at least 10 years, the place was packed (i guess about 500 to 600 people??) If you attended the Trial reunion show in 2005 then you know how crazy shows can be in budapest. Well in my eyes, the show yesterday was about 10 times as intense as the trial reunion show (i know thats hard to believe) but those guys started playing and hell broke loose, from the first tone to tha last you could hardly hear the band play cause people where singing their hearts out, a feeling of passion in the air that i havent felt for a long fucking time. The show ended with 'all roads lead to rome' i guess there where about 200 peopel on stage piliing up, giving everything they had, screaming ther lungs out, what a show. it felt so good to sing those words again to be part of a time travel back into the soundtrack of my youth, I love newborn, i love each and every member of this band the best hardcoreband of our times, they went on stage, cause they where young, and screamed just to feel alive!!!
Thank you for making me feel alive again. I love you guys! | |
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