Budapest Rock

Budapest has been a really interesting city to check out over the past 2 days. There are reminders everywhere of the fact that this city has been host to not one, but two dicatorial regimes (the Nazis during WW2 and the Soviets from 1946 onward to the breakup of the Eastern Bloc). Some buildings still have metal slugs studding their walls, patching up bullet holes. It's a wonder the city managed to retain as much of its amazing architecture as it did.

Aside from grizzly political history, one other thing Budapest seems to have in abundance is concerts. There seems to be an unwritten rule, though. You can only play in Budapest if you had a huge musical career in the 80's. Here, as proof, I give you a list of the acts playing Budapest in the next month:

-Eric Clapton
-Sting
-Pet Shop Boys
-Billy Idol
-Joe Satriani
-Dweezil Zappa (ok, so Frank was famous during the 80's... close enough)
-Whitesnake

In addition, Budapest is also host to this year's worldwide Klezmer music festival, which promises to offer all the best in Klezmer and post-Klezmer music. Unfortunately, it starts on Wednesday, and we'll be gone by then. We're gonna miss Whitesnake too...

Alas...