Polish Punk Powerhouse Hańba! Returns to Pohoda 2025
Their performance at Pohoda 2016 was one of the highlights of the festival’s 20th anniversary. The unmissable Polish folk-punk band Hańba! is set to return to Pohoda, bringing the same energy and new songs.
11. January 2025
Polish band Hańba! originally began as a fictional street band in the working-class suburbs of Kraków in the 1930s and 1940s. According to them, punk was born right there and in those frenetic times—not some forty years later, as music textbooks claim. The result is an exciting, rebellious sound rooted in the rich culture of that chaotic era. The words of Polish poets, such as Julian Tuwim, are delivered boldly in the style of the Buzzcocks. They switched electric guitars for banjos and accordions, and the bass guitar for a pulsating tuba."
This concept still works for them even today. As they themselves say, it’s becoming harder to distinguish fiction, poetry, and historical costumes from the grim and ugly realities of the modern world. And so they continue to play and sing about corruption, the erosion of democratic values, and social inequality. For their contributions to Polish culture and their stance, the band received one of the most prestigious cultural awards in Poland, the Polityka Passport.
The band has performed on stages and at festivals across the United States, Canada, Australia, and Europe. However, their music feels most at home on the streets, as shown in a concert recorded by the famous American station KEXP in the working-class district of Nikiszowiec in Katowice during the OFF Festival in summer of 2015.
At our airport, we last experienced their punk power and energy, drawn from folk, klezmer, and indie-rock roots, at Pohoda 2016. Their performance was one of the highlights of the festival's 20th edition. In addition to their stage concert, they also added an acoustic 'encore' on the terrace as part of the Pohoda Acoustic Sessions.