> _!t fa!ld - the Big Ear festival

[anna balint]

This time the 6th Big Ear festival failed 
due to police's injunction last week-end 
in Budapest.

The contemporary music festival did hardly 
start Friday afternoon on the open stage 
in the 9th district, when some 60-80 
residents of the neighborhhood started 
protesting and shouting, acheiving this 
way that the police stopped the concert.  
The international guests, the musiscians, 
the audience, the organizers, the 
embassies that sponsored the event 
expected in vain that the festival 
continues.

It is interesting that in the same time,
on the same street there was another
music event going on, that met the public 
taste, and even if that was three time 
louderthan the experimental music 
festival, this particular event did not  
provoke any protest.

Under the pressure of the police the Big 
Ear festival - and the musicians, among 
the internationally know expremiental 
sound poet Jaap Blonk - moved the next day 
to the MU theather in another district of 
the city.

The inhabitants of the 11th district of 
the city did not accept the festival not 
even in the close space of the theather,
so that the police interrupted the K.G.B.-
D.I.S.C.O. concert of the underground 
group from St. Petersburg N.O.M. 
(Nyeformalnaja Organizacja Molodezsi = 
Informal Youth Organisation)  by simply 
unplugging the electronic apparatus of the 
musicians.

Sunday everyone moved to the freshly 
renovated Piccolo Theather, where in the
end the direction stopped the event
because of the protest of the neighbours,
though it is said the the theather 
isolated the sound perfectly. 


The spokesman of the local governement
declared that the measures of the police
perhaps are disputable from a professional 
point of view, but they were completely 
legal.

The spokeperson of the Budapest Police 
complained about the atrocities the police
had to suffer from the part of the 
audience: people reacted with thrubs, 
whistles, and swears to the actions of the 
police.