After long long long years Endzweck finally returned to Europe this August for nine shows in seven countries… including the one in Budapest, that I ended up attending. They were on tour with Sweden’s No Omega and for this gig they were joined by a pretty fine local hc band, Satelles and also, a very special guest, but more on that later. The show took place in a fairly new club called Robot, which is a small basement venue with an approx. 100-120 capacity and I am just guessing here, but I think we had around 60-70 people for Endzweck, which is fine for a Tuesday night, even though I actually expected more. And what I was really curios about, is if the audience will be mostly made up of old fans, who knew Endzweck from back in the days, when they were a household name worldwide or new ones, who were just curious to check out this legendary band… and it was mostly the latter, even though there a couple of people, who were obviously older, die hard fans, such as the guy who was also planning to go to their show in Prague the following day.

As they said in our interview, their guitarist, Hiro could not join this tour, so instead of him, they brought along their regular support member, Iron Stone from Pastafasta and VVORLD and also, as they said in the interview, they ended up playing a mixture of old and new material. They started off with a couple of tracks from their latest album, the awesome Tender Is The Night and also returned to that later, but they also dug up some gems from their massive discography, including some really, really old stuff, like Destination from 2002’s A Farewell To Arms! So, it was a perfect setlist for a tour, that was as much a release tour as a celebration of the band’s 20th anniversary.

And the special guest I mentioned above? It was the guy in charge of the gig, Jakab Zoli, who, besides being a very active local hc promoter, is also known as the former singer of Newborn and Bridge To Solace and this led to a very special, once-in-a-lifetime performance! Newborn became pretty famous internationally back in the days when they were around and this included Japan, where one of the most important local hc labels, Alliance Trax even released a compilation album from them. And Endzweck’s members were obviously amongst the fans as they reached out to him to ask if he would join them onstage for a cover of Newborn’s Difficulties of Crossing a Border. So, about halfway thru the show, he jumped on stage, while Endzweck singer Welsky joined the crowd to mosh and the club just exploded! It was a brilliant and truly historical moment! And also, this was the point where the show really got started. Up till that moment, most people were just standing around, probably because they weren’t that familiar with the band, but for the last couple of tracks things really got started with some serious pogo and moshpit action. So, I guess at the end all those people that came to the gig more out of curiosity left very satisfied and well… I just hope Endzweck will keep this flame burning and we won’t have to wait for long years again for another tour!

For the full gallery, including more photos of the opening acts click over here!

01.Before The World Ends
02.Apathetic Expression
03.Curse
04.Indebtedness
05.Flower Bouquet
06.Ask For Help
07.Take Back
08.Monument
09.Fourty Two
10.Destination