Best of Budapest & Hungary

Sziámi Isolated — the band founded by Péter Müller in tribute to Joy Division — will bring the legendary group’s magical repertoire back to life for one night only on March 6th at Dürer Kert.

    Joy Division formerly known as Warsaw, were a Salford (Manchester) – based rock band active from 1976 until the death of singer-songwriter Ian Curtis in 1980. In that short time, they became one of the most influential post-punk bands of all time. Their songs were unmatched: poetic, brutal, often quite gothic — such as Love Will Tear Us Apart, Isolation, She’s Lost Control and They Walked in Line. Their first studio album, Unknown Pleasures, was released in 1979, and their second and final record in July 1980, two months after Curtis’s suicide. Struggling with epilepsy and depression, the singer hanged himself on the eve of their first American tour. His legacy remains indelible.

    During their brief career, the band received the NME Award in the “God-like Genius” category and were later nominated at the BRIT Awards for “Best Single of the Last 25 Years.”

    The group consisted of Ian Curtis, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris. Sziámi and Péter Müller have a fateful, personal connection to Curtis and the band:

    “In the early ’80s I fell ill with a catastrophic flu. I couldn’t eat, and I felt like I was going to die. My friend János Vető came to visit and handed me a German music magazine praising our first band, URH — the journalist noted that the singer’s voice was eerily similar to Ian Curtis… The next morning I woke up to see Ian standing at the foot of my bed. He shook his head, and without words expressed how terribly he regretted what he had done. It would be good, he said, if someone sang his songs. The whole hallucination (?) felt completely natural and obvious.” — recalls Müller.

    “Later, with Sziámi in the lineup featuring János Gasner, and afterwards with Isolated — featuring Béla Szakcsi Lakatos, Péter Kirschner, László Duka, Péter Magyar, Zoltán Ujj and Duel aka Attila Szabó — we brought a full-length Joy Division programme to life, playing it with joy and success. Thousands of people went wild for us at Sziget, and we received serious interest from international producers. Nothing characterizes the metaphysics of it better than this: while preparing at home and listening to the original recordings, my daughter said, ‘Wow, Dad, I didn’t know you could sing in English…’”

    Now, for one night only, Sziámi Isolated once again summons the magical repertoire of Joy Division at the request of Live Nation. The séance participants —the musicians of the band — are Péter Müller Sziámi (vocals), Péter Kirschner (guitars), Zita Bakos (keyboards), Csaba Kónya (bass), and Márton Tóth (drums). Special guests include János Másik and violinist László Duka.