LGT Reunites for Rare Performance at Sziget

"I hate LGT."

 

"Well, I also hate you but still listen to you."

 

I heard this exchange between two punks on the afternoon of "zero" day at the Sziget Festival. They were a little unstable on their feet and clutching their beer glasses. If they continue at this pace, I thought, LGT's performance of the rock musical Imaginary Report about an American Pop Festival really will be imaginary to them. As for me, the LGT show was unforgettable.

 

Regardless of whether you looked at the music, the energy, the inventiveness or the spectacle, one got the feeling during this much-anticipated and well-rehearsed LGT show that everyone did their best. One cannot avoid getting emotional when recalling the big LGT show of 1992 at Budapest's western railway station. It was a good show but the poor sound quality left some bitter memories. At the time, everybody thought it was a farewell concert, and we waved goodbye with our handkerchiefs as if for a band marching away. But LGT frontman Gábor Presser said the group never intended to play a farewell gig. He says it's best to think of LGT as a band that occasionally - even infrequently - gets together for concerts.

The band made a new CD five years after the concert at the railway station, and five years after that they played together at Hajógyári Island. Now, five years on, they are playing the Sziget Festival, 15 years after its inception and 30 years after the formation of the band.

 

The performers in Imaginary Report about an American Pop Festival were excellent. But it was a rendition of Rock Yourself by András Lovasi, the frontman for the seminal Hungarian band Kispál és a borz, which made the performance really worth seeing. Another notable performance was offered by the pop star Roy. All of the performers in the rock musical part of the programme were outstanding singers, though I could not avoid noticing that Eszter Bíró and Linda Fekete came across as fake in their efforts to add drama to the show.

The dancers of the Momentán Group, formed by former members of the Margit Földessy Studio, gave a distinguished performance during the production, even though they were on stage for hardly more than two minutes.

 

The audience was made up of several generations, showing the band's lasting and broad appeal. And the crowd was big - 45,000-50,000, according to the estimate of festival organisers. As the show progressed, the audience pressed closer to the stage, and younger members climbed up onto whatever they could find, though nearby bungee jumpers may have had the best view of the stage.

 

LGT played all of their best songs: the ones to cry to after break-ups (Let me Free and I Won't Give Up); the guys' favourites (Blue Woman); and the slow songs we used to dance to at secondary-school parties (Girl with the Dreamy Face and Bless That Song). Many of the songs were accompanied by spectacles. Transvestite divas took to the stage during Primadonna; during Box, a boxing match was projected; and footage of a silent film appeared for On the Rails. At one point, the children of band members János Karácsony and Tamás Somló came onto stage to sing and dance - perhaps something we could have done without.

 

The band kept their momentum through the whole show, and Presser closed the show at the piano with The Radio's On, just after telling the audience, "This feels like a dream."

 

Indeed.