The whole thing began when we decided to have ourselves invited to Szombathely :) We had never been to a rehearsal and, anyway, it had been ages since we last saw the band. We talked about our plan with András, who assured us that, of course, we could go. However, he also admitted that he could not guarantee our entertainment since this would be their first rehearsal with the new guitarist. (For those of you who have not kept up with the recent changes in the band's line-up: András Nagy and Zoltán Schönberger are the only remaining members from the 1998 line-up. Guitarist András Horváth joined the band a few months ago. He brought along a friend of his (guitarist István Neubrandt) to the rehearsal we visited. (István Neubrandt has since been confirmed as the second guitarist in Sear Bliss.)

When the new members (András H. and István) arrived at the culture centre near the railway station, it was evident at first sight that as far as their appearance is concerned they fit into the band perfectly. See for yourself, in the photos below. Regarding the important aspect, their musical talent, there is no problem with that either. Since this was their first rehearsal together, I expected the musicians to stop every minute exclaiming things like "Hey, let's take a look at this once more," but fortunately, it was nothing like that. The guitarists must have practised the songs a lot, for, when the band managed to tune and set the various pieces of equipment, the rehearsal went about smoothly. This is not to say that the band reproduced the sound we got used to listening to their albums, but this can be attributed to the quality of the equipment as well as the lack of time spent together. Perhaps the best way to describe the sound is to say that what we heard was like a concert both music-wise and atmosphere-wise. It seems that András and Sömi, after having tested so many unprepared applicants, finally found the musicians they could work with. We were really impressed by what we heard :) By the way, the trumpet is played by Róbert Pintér at the moment. And the reason why you cannot see him in any of the pictures is because, since he is a guest musician, he did not want to be there. Nevertheless, as he couldn't cover his back, he still managed to get into one of the photos :)

If you wonder what the atmosphere of the rehearsal was like, well, our mood was defined by the fact that we could hear our favourite songs live. As for the musicians, you could see that they were happy that things were going smoothly. In a nutshell, we enjoyed ourselves tremendously. We even had a good laugh once in a while. One such instance was when Sömi grabbed a synthetiser and, moving his body to and fro, pretended to impersonate Gábor Berkes (a Hungarian pop musician from the 1980s) :) It was nice to chat in the breaks and at the lunch in the nearby restaurant, where I also had some beer so, forgive me, but the end of the rehearsal remains blurred :)