Omega - Zerbrechlicher Schwung [1973 Heavy Prog Hungary / GDR ]

Album: Das Deutsche Album
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Here's a heavy hammond belter from an band that have appeared in the blog four times before, back in vols 2 (link), 22 (link). 41: Eastern Roc (link) and 87: Space Rock (link). Omega was the most successful rock band in Hungarian music history, and one of the longest-serving (if not THE longest-serving) rock band in the country. Musically, the group served a variety of music genres with beat music, symphonic rock, hard rock, progressive rock and influences from many other styles. The last line-up has been active since 1971 with no personnel changes, with the exception of guitarist Tamás Szekeres, who joined Omega in 1989, and Katy Zee (2012). Some of the band have been making music together since 1959, because Omega was formed in 1962 from musicians from the two groups Ciklon (János Kóbor, András Kovacsics, József Laux and István Varsányi) and Próféta (László Benkö and Tamás Künsztler). The young musicians had their first appearance under the name Omega on September 23, 1962 at the Technical University in Budapest. The idea for the band name did not come from one of the musicians, but from the organizer of this first concert, who spontaneously gave the musicians who were undecided about the band name, the name Omega.

Omega's first single was released in 1966. It features a cover of the Stones hit "Paint It Black" and another cover of "Bus Stop" (originally by The Hollies). More singles followed with more cover versions of international hits. With "Nem új a nap alatt semmi", their first original song appeared on single in 1967. In the late 1960s, Omega was discovered at a performance and gained a manager. This manager ensured in 1968 that the band could go on tour in England and got an international record deal with Decca. This made it possible for the musicians to record a complete album in London. There the band performed as Omega Red Star and released in the same year (1968) the "... from Hungary" album, sung entirely in English. In their native Hungary, the record was released in Hungarian in the same year under the name "Trombitás Fredi és a Rettenetes Emberek". The LP reached gold status in Hungary shortly after release. The English record, on the other hand, was not a commercial success at first, but reached gold status there a few years later.

In 1969, attention was first drawn to Omega in Germany. A complete album, "Omega Ensemble Budapest", was released in the GDR. In 1972 another album was released in East Germany, simply titled "Omega". This LP was a kind of coupling with tracks from the first three Omega LPs. During their guest performances in the GDR, where the band played well-attended concerts, the opportunity was taken to produce various Omega titles in German for radio. These productions resulted in titles such as "The Night Road", "Pearls in the Hair", "Unfaithful Friends", "She Calls Every Day" and "Magical White Stone". In the other part of Germany, back in the 70s, there was obviously not that much interest in the band's songs sung in German. Various Omega albums with lyrics sung in English were released here from 1973 onwards. The German producer Peter Hauke became aware of Omega in 1973 and got the band a record deal with the Bacillus Records/Bellaphon label. This was initially only signed for three years, but was extended in 1976 due to good sales figures. In the years that followed, Bacillus Records released the English-language versions of the Omega albums mentioned above. It wasn't just the original tracks with English lyrics, some of the older songs were completely re-recorded for the Western releases. The album "Time Robber" was released in 1977 even before the Hungarian version "Idorabló - Omega 7". Due to the success of their LPs, Omega played numerous concerts in their home country of Hungary and abroad in the '70s. So it was only logical that in 1979 the band's first real live album was released both in Hungary and in Germany under the name "Élo Omega - Kisstadion '79". A year later this record was also released in Japan.
For the 58th year of their existence, the band had finally set their sights on completing a long-awaited new studio album. The musicians used the cancellation of concerts and other performances due to the corona virus in the summer of that year to produce new songs in the studio. Before the album "Testamentum" was released in December 2020, the band had to accept two heavy blows of fate. Within a few days, keyboardist and founding member László Benkő died, followed by the bassist . Both had lost their battles with cancer. For the year 2022, the musicians had already worked hard to think about how to celebrate the band's 60th birthday. In the middle of the planning, Mecky fell ill with the corona virus, the cons........finish reading here: https://aftersabbath.blogspot.com/2023/06/tdats-149-ddr-gdr-rock-part-2.html