HUNTING 14

“I’m only a beater. Don’t shoot!”

Hunters, beaters and prey, lovers, heroes and losers, gentlemen, politicians and servants, Robin Hood, Briar Rose and the singing rabbit – “creatures begotten in an infinite circle growling in our Consciousness”. And many a great author conjured up, from Shakespeare to Pilinszky, Attila József to Allen Ginsberg, by Hobo’s lyrics, to music by Egon Póka and Tibor Tátrai... Brought to you by Hobo Blues Band’s fourth album, titled Hunting, published in October 1984. It is the most momentous concept album in the history of Hungarian rock music.

“For Hobo, hunting meant not only ritual predation, conspicuous slaughtering or unbridled merry-making. Using a range of associations/interpretations linked to the notion of hunting, he presented a broad social tableau, an overarching and detailed portrait of society in space and time against that backdrop. He placed the act of hunting in new dimensions to share his views about the world, about people, power, hierarchies, the state of play in Central and Eastern Europe, the Past and the Present”, explains rock historian János Sebők in his paper On Hunting as a Reflection of Power Play.

“Accompanying my father, I studied the passion for hunting till I was 12 or so, since he’s a passionate hunter (...) Part of the truth is that my father was hunted as much as he was hunting for others. (...) Only psychoanalysts (shrinks) could make sense of why I chose Hunting as a means of ’expressing myself’ ”, says Hobo about his father, László Földes sr., in Hobo Sapiens.

“For me, Hunting is more of a stage show or film than an album”, said Hobo in 2002, when he and his band performed in the play-concert production created by Attila Vidnyánszky and the Beregszász Company. In 2009, the Hobo-Vidnyánszky duo presented a new theatrical version titled Fool Hunting at Debrecen’s Csokonai Theatre, featuring new songs about the regime change. The two creators are working together again on a production based on the iconic concept album, to be presented as a special event at the 2021 International Hunting Exhibition.