ROB SCHMITZ, HOST:
This week in the Hungarian capital of Budapest, crowds gathered for a concert.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing in non-English language).
SCHMITZ: But this is no ordinary concert. The event is called Rendszerbont Nagykoncert - loosely translated, the concert for tearing down the system. And there are thousands of people here in Heroes' Square in Central Budapest, all here to say no to Viktor Orbán, who's been in power for 16 straight years. They hope to see him lose power in nationwide elections on Sunday.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED MUSICAL ARTIST: (Singing in non-English language).
UNIDENTIFIED EMCEE: (Non-English language spoken).
SCHMITZ: "We're not tearing down walls nor each other," the concert's emcee shouts. "We're tearing down the system."
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
UNIDENTIFIED EMCEE: (Non-English language spoken).
SCHMITZ: A few days ago, I got the chance to interview one of the acts ahead of the concert, a Hungarian heavy metal band called Imre Fia Imre.
IMRE GYORGY: Nice to meet you.
SCHMITZ: I'm Rob.
GYORGY: Imre.
SCHMITZ: Nice to meet you. Imre.
GYORGY: Imre.
SCHMITZ: Yeah.
GYORGY: Hi.
(LAUGHTER)
SCHMITZ: On a windy evening, I meet the band's frontman, Imre Gyorgy, outside a World War I era factory building. He leads us into a freight elevator with no door...
GYORGY: And please stay here. This is the safe line. OK.
SCHMITZ: OK. We don't want any hands cut off or anything like that.
...And up to the top floor.
GYORGY: It's a large rehearse room complex.
SCHMITZ: OK.
...And into a studio filled with guitars, pedals, amps and drumkits where we find the other four members of the band. And that's where Gyorgy explained the name of his band.
GYORGY: Imre Fia Imre is Imre's son Imre because my father is Imre, too, and my grandfather was Imre, too.
SCHMITZ: Imre, do you have a son?
GYORGY: Not yet.
(LAUGHTER)
GYORGY: But he...
SCHMITZ: I have to ask, are you going to name him Imre?
GYORGY: But he is going to be Imre.
SCHMITZ: I also asked them why they thought it was important to play in this concert. Keyboardist Zsolt Tornai answers.
ZSOLT TORNAI: What's new is, this kind of concert or this kind of cultural event has never happened in the country before, so we don't know what to expect either. So this is very exciting.
SCHMITZ: Drummer Gergo Barat digs down even deeper into why this concert marks a cultural turning point for Hungary and why the country has lost patience with the government of Viktor Orbán.
GERGO BARAT: So everything is subjected to this kind of power factory that they have built in the past years.
SCHMITZ: And power factory means the goal of power is more power, right?
BARAT: Exactly. Yeah. This is something that everyone can sense that it's not going to change by its own.
SCHMITZ: I asked Gyorgy what song they'll be playing at the tear down the system concert.
GYORGY: Our song is called "Fekete Volga," "Black Volga" in English.
SCHMITZ: "Black Volga," the Volga River.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: No, the car.
GYORGY: No, no, it's - it was a car.
SCHMITZ: Oh, the Soviet era car.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: Yes, that's right.
GYORGY: Yes. During the Socialist years, the Black Volga was the official car of the secret police in Hungary.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
GYORGY: And there is folklore and an urban legend in the Eastern European countries about Black Volga, what is take you into death. Yes.
SCHMITZ: Right. Like, if you see a Black Volga...
GYORGY: Yes.
(LAUGHTER)
SCHMITZ: You're going to have some problems.
The song is a dystopian journey through Hungary's Soviet past, about a man picked up by agents in a Black Volga and murdered, who then returns to the present and sees that his life has been memorialized in a way he despises. Inside a church, he sees a clock ticking backwards.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC)
IMRE FIA IMRE: (Singing in non-English language).
SCHMITZ: "Black Volga" and several other anti-government songs will make up the tear down the system concert. Gyorgy says all of these songs have made up a genre that hearkens back to a similar time that inspired American protest music.
GYORGY: Pop music and pop culture is extremely important in Hungary now. I think Hungarians feel like Americans did in the 1960s. You know, we had pop music and beat music in the '60s, but there was a strong censorship in Hungary. And you couldn't express yourself as free as you wanted.
This is going to be our Woodstock.
(CHEERING)
IMRE FIA IMRE: (Singing in non-English language).
SCHMITZ: Well, it's not quite Woodstock, but it's as close to Woodstock as Budapest might get. Tens of thousands of mostly 20-something Hungarians filling Heroes' square and the streets that branch off of it. Virag Kiss, a factory worker from a town outside of Budapest, is among them.
VIRAG KISS: (Non-English language spoken).
SCHMITZ: She says she came here today because she wants the future for young people in Hungary to be better. And she says, Orbán isn't offering any kind of hope. He's destroyed the media and has made life miserable for Hungarians, she says, and that's why she's voting for Orbán's opponent, Peter Magyar. I asked her what she'd do if Orbán wins this election. She does not stop to think.
KISS: (Non-English language spoken).
SCHMITZ: "I'd leave Hungary," she says, "and I'd live somewhere else, somewhere with a better system." Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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