Auróra

Aurora

Unfortunately for the world, it was not the Russian Aurora that sank, but the Titanic. Aurora was founded in 1983 by bassist Galacs, drummer Polyák and guitarist Vigi. At the height of the Hungarian punk boom. It was a time when punk concerts were quite feverish. At the time, the authorities in Hungary did not look kindly on punk bands: the members of Aurora were soon given their comeuppance: Dayer received a suspended prison sentence, the others a police warning. After that, our heroes could only perform under a pseudonym for a while, but their line-up soon stabilised, as they found a permanent singer in Kriszta. They performed with her at the turning point in the group's life, the Balatonszemes rock camp in 1984, where they were a huge success and the whole country got to know their name. The songs they performed were copied from cassette to cassette, happy-go-lucky. The band also caught the attention of Gábor Bódy, who, in his film about the Hungarian new wave, also cast the Győrians in a role alongside VHK, the Commission and the Nurses. The film was never made due to Bódy's tragic death.

Around this time, the well-known trio Aurora was formed, with Vigi taking on the vocal duties as well as playing guitar. "I never wanted to sing, but we couldn't find anyone, so it was left to me."

Luck still wasn't on Vigi's side, as it was by chance that they came into contact with the residents of the famous Occupied House in Vienna and became the house's permanent band.

Later, with the help of their German friends, they went into producer Hardy Heilin's studio to record half a dozen songs that would not have been possible in Hungary at the time in the state-controlled recording studio. The material was released on a single in Germany under the EMPTY Records label, and on cassette in Hungary under the title Aurora '88. In Hungary, several rock magazines ranked the Aurora '88 cassette among the productions of the year, highlighting the great lyrics, which were and still are written by Zoltán Pusztai.

Aurora's breakthrough came not with a single, but with their debut album, 1989's Goodbye Ivan. Unbelievably, 20 000 copies of this independently released album, which was slightly slower-paced than the previous one, were sold at the time. True: the timing was perfect, as the Russians were leaving our country after 40 years of occupation. After the goodbye Iván, there was a longer break: it took almost 3 years before the new Aurora album, entitled "Whores, Gangsters", was released. Gangsters is a much more mature, stronger album than Goodbye Ivan, with 11 gorgeous, mature power-punk songs, and excellent instrumentation and musical arrangements. The album has also been released abroad under licence by German label Hulk Records.

Resurrection was released in 1993, followed in 1994 by All Punk to Death, recorded with their German sister band Wizo. Later that year, they performed at the MagyaRock festival in front of nearly 100 000 people.

In 1995 came out the bitter sugar Cselák with lyrics, sometimes with metallic motifs - from then on Blinker, who replaced Polyák behind the drums, was behind the drums. One of the most pleasant surprises of 1996 was Aurora's new album, No Christmas, which made the band realise that the rock music trend had been a mistake and return to their punk roots. The hard, melodic sound of the songs was indeed reminiscent of Aurora's best years, but this was further enhanced by Qka's trumpet playing, which was given an even bigger role on the 1997 album Illegal Ball.

In 1998, the New Wave Rock Festival in Abda was self-organised, providing an opportunity for many underground punk and hardcore bands from home and abroad to perform. Due to its great success, they would like to organise this event annually.

The band has been touring in many European countries (e.g. Austria, Switzerland, Germany, Denmark, Netherlands, Serbia, Slovenia, Croatia, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Romania) for 16 years.