eSzínház Online: ef.Zámbó Happy Dead Band

 

ef. Zámbó István’s cult band, which has existed since 1970, has not performed at all since 2022, so their first concert in a long time, in 2025 on the Open-Air Stage of the House of Music, will be a real rarity – and on top of that, it’s a free concert. The Happy Dead Band is an eclectic, distinctive, humorous, expressive alt‑rock party band, known more for its concerts than its releases. ef. Zámbó István founded HDB even before he became known as a self‑taught visual artist, and then, at the very end of the seventies, together with his friends – who were also visual artists – he launched the highly influential Hungarian new wave formation Bizottság. The eponymous “hobby band,” whose leader has an impressive body of work to his name, has sometimes been pursued with greater momentum – two albums were released around the turn of the eighties and nineties – and sometimes receded somewhat into the background next to the visual arts. But both the 1990 cassette Love – Life – Death and the 1991 Himalaya, which also appeared on LP, are significant in the history of Hungarian alternative music, with their songs forged from a variety of influences (rock & roll, rhythm’n’blues, dance music, swing, jazz, alternative rock), saxophone, female backing vocals, and surrealist, Dadaist, philosophical lyrics. And live, they always have an energizing, dance‑inducing presence. In 2014, a CD was released that complemented their work up to that point (1991 – Metastable – 2014), and since then they can be caught in concert sometimes more often, sometimes very rarely. Now is your chance!