Wild Gypsy Concert
This past Saturday Agi and I went to a very fun Gypsy Music concert on Margaret Island in Budapest. We bought the tickets online months ago so our seats were excellent and could see all the action up-close. There are lots of Roma or gypsies throughout central Europe and they're revered for being excellent musicians. There's also a fair amount of racism and stereotypes against them which is not good. (By the way, my friend Barry L who was my roommate back in 1999/2000 in Budapest let me borrow an excellent book called "Bury Me Standing" about the modern condition of gypsies in Europe. The title is taken from a moving statement one of the gypsies made to the author: "When I die, bury me standing because my whole life I've been on my knees.")
The concert was in a beautiful outdoor theater with a lovely green forest as the backdrop behind the stage. One of the main reasons the whole production turned out to be so entertaining was how disorganized it was. (Though excellent musicians, this group of people was seriously lacking in the organizational department.) There were a number of different bands who performed and each one of them said "We're supposed to leave now... BUT! we're just going to do one more song..." (And then they'd play two more songs).
The highlight of the night, however, was when a young male gypsy pop star--a good looking guy in his late twenties with buffed and tanned body, all-white, full-body leather outfit and slicked hair--started doing all kinds of gyrating "pop" moves that most of girls in the audience loved. They loved him and his performance so much in fact that literally about 100 girls aged 6-25 all rushed the front of the stage and then they all actually climbed up ON the stage and started dancing with the pop star. It was complete pandemonium but the girls were having a lot of fun. The parents of the girls then rushed to the front themselves to take pictures of their daughters up on the stage with the star.
The final thing that was so interesting, startling & eye-opening for Agi and I was how all the little pre-teen girls knew all kinds of "sexy MTV moves" and they went at them like this was their last and greatest chance to pull these moves for all the world to see. It was funny how they went at it with such abandon but sad at the same time.
All in all, a very wild gypsy music concert.