Thank you for the fantastic atmosphere at the Slovak pub festival concerts
We originally hoped that at least a few pubs and a few bands would join the cause. Finally, as for the number of performances, Slovenská krčma (The Slovak Pub Festival) became an event comparable to Pohoda. Over the past two weeks, 150 bands delivered almost 200 performances within 114 events in 100 pubs across Slovakia. You could also enjoy the atmosphere of the concerts on Friday through a unique live broadcast from all the pubs that was joined by Aktuality.sk, Týždeň, Denník N, NOIZZ, Artforum, Hudba.sk and ZOMRI as well. It was on Friday when the President of the Slovak Republic Zuzana Čaputová visited one of the pubs. However, most importantly, all the pubs, artists, bands involved, and especially the concert attenders showed that most of the pub frequenters in Slovakia are not racists and do not identify with fascist views.
17. February 2020
The Slovak Pub Festival is over, but its legacy remains. We do not agree with dividing citizens into a café and pub society. We frequent both, and we meet great people both in pubs and in cafes. Everyone who joined, played a show or came sent a message to the former Prime Minister and the ex-MP saying what they thought of their views of the world. There are different ways in which we can reject spreading of hate and racism. We reacted as we could – we organized concerts. Although, in this case we had actually simply arranged them and they were organized by the pubs and artists themselves in the end. That’s why everyone deserves a big thank you. Gradually we will be adding more articles, photos and videos from concerts to the Facebook event.
Michal Kaščák, the author of the idea to organize The Slovak Pub Festival, saw eight concerts as an attender and a musician (VBPS, Bez ladu a skladu), and summarized his impressions as follows: “I respect everyone who joined us in any way. So much enthusiasm and mutual help are rarely seen. I especially appreciate pubs – we musicians come for one evening, but pubs remain in place. I’m glad that there are so many courageous people in Slovakia. I liked the fact that we had both old and young bands, ranging from classical music to heavy metal, there were musicians from all over the country, I admire the courage of solo musicians who stand up in a pub and perform. We experienced many powerful moments, let me mention collecting money into a cap in Námestovo, where 200 € was collected among the Orava punks to repair the destroyed Jewish cemetery. Thank you all, I believe that we will not allow racists and fascists to rule our country – and, of course, nor its cafes and pubs.”
