Diesel

It always fills people with excitement to find out that their favorite band, who they thought never would see perform, actually decide to come and hold a concert in their country. I was amazed as well, couldn’t believe my eyes at first; but it wasn’t an illusion, my mind did not play tricks with me. Girugamesh was coming to Budapest! Not that I would have left this gig out anyway, but now that I am reporting on rock clubs and such, I had one more reason to go, I will have a blog entry on Diesel club.

Without belittling the previously visited places, I must say that this was the best and greatest of the places I have visited so far. Situated in Népliget, I recommend using the M3 metro to get there; the metro station Népliget is the place one has to alight at. The address of the place is misleading, Népligeti út 2, it refers to the whole Népliget, and as you will see on the map the club is not quite there where it is shown. Diesel can be found on the right side of the Planetárium, there is a letter E with a restaurant symbol beside it; that is Diesel club.

The place used to be a theatre before it was bought and turned into a club in the 90’s, BME (Technician University of Budapest) bought the place, after it had to close down its E club at the Petőfi bridge, dubbing the former theatre the next E club. From that point on, right until 2007 it served as a disco club; but now, renamed to Diesel, the place provides opportunity for rockers to blow off steam here. The best thing about the place is that the owners are fully aware how much the craze for Japanese bands spreads all over the world, even here in Hungary. The club is the only place where bands like Mucc, Deathgaze, and Girugämesh perform.

As I already mentioned before, Diesel club is huge, it used to be a theatre before. It can house approximately 850(!) people, and considering that not even a needle could have been dropped down in the crowd, I assume that all of the tickets were sold for this concert. This was the first time I went to a concert after escaping from hospital so I had to take an insulin pen with me that night; the men at the cloak-room were considerate and readily give me my coat for a moment to give myself a shot around 10 p.m. Looking around myself I realized that there was something off. Save for me, everyone in the audience was either a teenager aged 13-18 and girl mostly, or a parent in his or her forties. No in-betweens. Than another thing occurred to me immediately: lots of guards were walking around; and all of a sudden the thorough check before entering the club has also become striking. I do not know whether this was due to the events of West Balkán or they simply wanted to protect the japs, but actually I was happy to see such protection at the club.

The band in question is one of my favorites among the Japanese ones I listen to. The name Girugämesh wants to be Gilgamesh actually, but Japanese are unable to pronounce the sound “l” and they do not use it while writing English words or names in katakana either, that is why the name of the great Sumer king is written this way. The genre the band fits into is hard to define as they mix almost everything, but if I had to choose an existing genre, maybe numetal would characterize them best. The concert was promoting their fifth album titled GO, which can either mean the English word “go” or five if we assume that it is written in romaji. Because of this, almost all of the tracks were unknown to me, but the concert achieved the desired effect: I am sure I will download Go as well. At the end of the concert, some of their previous songs were also played, what I liked the most was the song Evolution.

Watching the weeping, sobbing, teenage girls around me at the end of the concert made me slightly uncomfortable, although I was part of that same generation not long ago, I felt so distanced from them. I also felt that the concert was ground breaking, but it did not move me to the tears. Although it did not make me cry, the concert did impress me. Diesel club is a really good place: hundreds of people can go there and enjoy the night; multiple entrances, a thorough check before entering, and a number of patrolling security guys make it one of the safest clubs; prices are reasonable and staff is considerate about diabetics; and most importantly: great Japanese bands like Girugämesh appear on stage.