Fran Palermo // The Colibris
Fran Palermo was founded in late 2011 by singer-guitarist-frontman Henri Gonzo in Budapest. The band's style covers many different genres from indie to rock and roll to afropop, all spiced up with a Mediterranean vibe with percussion, winds and keyboards. Their unique, complex sound is perhaps due to the fact that the children of four nations - Hungarian, Spanish, Cuban, Greek - have brought their musical cultures with them and fused them together. The group has now grown into a major Budapest concert band with a loyal fan base.
Schedule
They released their first studio record, Arizona, at the end of 2011, which caught the attention of Zoltán Takács "Jappán". In 2013, the band's frontman Henri Gonzo moved to England, so the group took a year and a half break from the creative process. During this period, they only played occasional gigs, and in autumn 2014 they released their third single Sun in Splendour, alongside a resumption of continuous live performances. The tropical jungle-rock-influenced EP was a precursor to Fran Palermo's untitled debut album, which arrived in May 2015 and was performed to a sold-out crowd at the A38. Since then, the band has appeared at all the major festivals in the country, appeared in the finals of the Index song contest and received the highest jury vote in the Big Band Talent Guide. Fran Palermo was voted 'Discovery of the Year' at the 2016 Petőfi Music Awards, and a year later they were nominated in the 'Best Band' category.
In May 2016, barely a year after their debut album, they released Razzle Dazzle, an album with even more diverse and varied songs across genres, which was featured in almost all year-end album lists in the Hungarian media. But 2017 also had something new in store for fans, as the band's new release Bonerider was released in the autumn, featuring four English songs and an old classic - Holdvilágos, the band's long-awaited first Hungarian song. In 2020, they released their third album Crocodile Juice Bar, recorded partly in Henri's home studio and partly at London's legendary Toe Rag Studios with Grammy-winning producer Liam Watson, who has produced for artists such as Jack White, Tame Impala, Metronomy, Wolf Alice and Temples, and won a Fonogram Award for Indie/Alternative Recording of the Year.
Fran Palermo have been a staple of the Budapest club scene for years - Index has made a documentary about their singer-songwriter frontman Henri Gonzo, several renowned magazines (ELLE, Instlye) have written a multi-page portrait of them, and Forbes has included them in its "30 successful young people under 30" list, He was a big hit on the third season of Dalfutár, he was nominated for the Highlights of Hungary award for his two songs (Jeopardy, Coin in the Fountain) for the film FOMO and his video for Jeopardy won the Hungarian Clips competition.
They are regular guests at major festivals such as Sziget Festival and Volt Festival, but have also performed at Telekom Electronic Beats Festival, Budapest Showcase Hub (BUSH), Dutch Eurosonic Noorderslag showcase, MENT Ljubljana, Wavves Viennan and Zandari Fest in South Korea, and art centres such as MÜPA and Trafó.
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Kobuci kert
World music evenings, jazz stories, underground, folk music in all its forms and some very serious blues. All this at Kobuci, one of Budapest's best outdoor venues with a garden.