PPU!
Yesterday I went to see a concert of The Plastic People of the Universe, definitely the best performance of a rock band I've ever seen.
They played the whole Passion Play (lyrics, based on the Holy Bible, by Vratislav Brabenec; music by Milan Hlavsa), which was a marvelous experience to hear, especially whith the back-up of the Agon Orchestra; it made for a spectacle that the jesuits would be proud of. Nothing to say of the pianist Filip Topol who was honoured to play a few pieces of his (he himself had been present at the premiere of said Passion Plays, 22.4. 1978). In additon, three other songs were played: Šel pro krev, Kanárek and Magické noci. I still can't comprehend fully the fact that I've seen the actuall Vratislav Brabenec play saxophon!
In the end, I was quite drunken with the music - and I now doubt whether the upcomming concert of Robert Plant will be satisfactory at all. My mum, with whom I went there, proclaimed the PPU to be the best band in the whole world and cursed the Communist Party that crushed cultural life in Czechoslovakia when Brabenec, Hlavsa and Co. were trying to express themselves.
They played the whole Passion Play (lyrics, based on the Holy Bible, by Vratislav Brabenec; music by Milan Hlavsa), which was a marvelous experience to hear, especially whith the back-up of the Agon Orchestra; it made for a spectacle that the jesuits would be proud of. Nothing to say of the pianist Filip Topol who was honoured to play a few pieces of his (he himself had been present at the premiere of said Passion Plays, 22.4. 1978). In additon, three other songs were played: Šel pro krev, Kanárek and Magické noci. I still can't comprehend fully the fact that I've seen the actuall Vratislav Brabenec play saxophon!
In the end, I was quite drunken with the music - and I now doubt whether the upcomming concert of Robert Plant will be satisfactory at all. My mum, with whom I went there, proclaimed the PPU to be the best band in the whole world and cursed the Communist Party that crushed cultural life in Czechoslovakia when Brabenec, Hlavsa and Co. were trying to express themselves.