2024-07-30 15:15:18
He is only in his fourth year, but he also has big ambitions. Brno’s pop and electronic music festival Pop Messe started in the unfortunate covid year, but this year it has grown a bit. He wants to bring a fresh wind of culture for young people and ecological sustainability to the Moravian metropolis. “We don’t want to grow to gigantic proportions. Then the festival can no longer be held responsibly,” says program director Tomáš Kelar.
It’s a hot early July evening, the approaching golden hour turns the faces of the people sitting on the old wooden grandstand yellow, and a two-piece band Post-music plays a little below them. Dominik Zezula, half of this duo, puts a rhetorical question into the microphone in the song 90’s Kids: What do you want from the children of the 90s of the last century when the world is on fire? The organizers introduced his performance by stating that it is a manifestation of the generational frustration of millennials. And it also represents what Pop Messe wants to be – an event for young people.
Its program director and also the drummer of the band Midi Lidi, Tomáš Kelar, confirms that one of the plans was to reach this audience. “The first two years beat us a bit that it was too young, so we are trying to adapt it a little more to older visitors as well,” he says.
In addition to Czech performers who have fans among younger listeners, such as the rapper Rohony or the band Dukla, the British electronic project Leftfield, popular mainly in the 90s, or Lenka Dusilová with her band also performed this year. According to Kelar, Leftfield’s music has become “the soundtrack to the lives of many of us,” as he put it. “However, the main intention is still that we have something to offer to a young audience,” he emphasizes.
Pop Messe program director Tomáš Kelar. | Photo: CTK
Pop Messe is a young event in fact. The festival was originally supposed to start in 2020, but due to the coronavirus pandemic, the organizers had to settle for an online version. The real premiere took place a year later at the old football stadium behind Lužánky Brno. Since then, the festival has been growing, not at a dizzying pace, but rather organically and naturally. According to preliminary estimates, it attracted 8,000 people this year, which would mark an all-time attendance record.
This year, the event was also for the first time three-day and in the new, larger premises of the velodrome adjacent to the BVV exhibition center. The Brno velodrome should be the oldest still functioning cycling track in Europe, perhaps even in the world. The load-bearing roof of the grandstand, which always provides at least some shade on hot days, and the concrete track surrounding the two main stages give the festival a pleasant genius loci. According to Kelar, there are not enough spaces in Brno that would meet their demands. “Definitely not so much that we could choose. But we were lucky in this respect. Both spaces, the football field and the velodrome, fit well into our concept,” he praises.
The organizers are satisfied with the fragmentation of the space, the expansive character of large halls or airport areas would not suit Pop Messe. In addition to the two main stages right on the velodrome and one inside in the Kabinet Múz club, which were open from the beginning, two more stages were added on the second day in the premises of the adjacent exhibition center, which are accessed via the stands. A pleasant relaxation zone was also created in the space between the velodrome and the exhibition center. The second two days saw a significant increase in visitors.
The festival was held for the first time at the velodrome and in its immediate vicinity. | Photo: CTK
Visit of the Prince of Darkness from Prešov
At Pop Messe mainly pop or alternative music, electronica and rap are played. One of its prominent representatives here this year is Slovakian Dušan Vlk, who performed on the last day at the Cabinet of Muses. More about him started to be heard about a year ago. His music is characterized by a sound that mixes rap with punk, while the lyrics emphasize mental health, inner demons and the political situation in Slovakia.
Vlk first became known as a musician with a double life – during the day he is a manager in a corporation, civil name Denis, in the evening and at night he is a ripped rapper Dušan. That changed at the beginning of this year. The musician from eastern Slovakia has been rapping since elementary school, but only recently was he able to quit his job and devote himself fully to music.
Those who last saw Vlk play last year may not even recognize him now. Within a week of quitting his job as a telephone operator branch manager, he had radically changed his image. He got both arms tattooed and dyed his hair blonde. In addition, they have grown out of his previously short hairstyle. “It’s getting worse and it’s not going to get any better,” he laughs in response to a question about the look.
He took advantage of the fact that he could be on paternity leave with his younger son for the first six months as a freelancer. It ends in August. “During the day I am with the children and at night I write and record, as I used to. It worked out for us that we were at home with my wife for half a year. I think that in a few years we will remember it as a beautiful time when we they were just together and with the kids and making music,” he praises himself. After all, he is one of the few rappers who speaks about his family life and raps about his family, which is what MC Gey is known for in the Czech-Slovak environment.
However, Vlk admits that his new life chapter is accompanied by concerns about whether he will be able to handle everything. “I’m a bit annoyed with my head. I can’t fully enjoy it and I know I’ll appreciate it later. I can be pretty mean to myself. I’m like: What are you doing? You want to pay the mortgage by playing music? You have no chance.” he says.
Rapper Dušan Vlk at Pop Messe. | Photo: Dag Markl
Internal melancholic, even depressive states are a prominent theme of the twenty-eight-year-old musician from Prešov. He called one of his biggest hits Hello Darkness. The Brno audience sings with him in the packed club space “hello darkness, you are my beast, we are still upstairs, the devil draws at night”. But some texts are even harsher. In the song East Sentinel, the rapper says that he is “east side, suicide”, or that he is thinking about suicide.
But as his popularity grows, he tries not to vent everything that is on his mind. He feels responsible for the fans who, in depressed states, could play his music and deepen their spleen. At the same time, thanks to the connection with the listeners, he perceives that he is not alone with psychological problems. “I can’t seek professional help because I’d have nothing to write about,” he exaggerates.
Vlka also enjoys the contrast between rap clichés like gold chains and teeth and the serious topic of mental health. “I don’t completely revolve around it, but I like to deal with deeper topics and the political situation and add gold teeth or cars to it. I find it funny and I get a childlike joy from it,” he smiles.
In his music, he also comments on the current political situation. Toward the end of the concert at Pop Messe, he sings in the song “I get lost in it sometimes, maybe even always” that “he would like to be behind the water like Kočner”, i.e. the Slovak businessman tried for the murder of journalist Ján Kuciak and his fiancee Martina Kušnírová.
Recently, however, Dušan Vlk is said to be trying not to follow politics too much, so as not to disturb him unnecessarily. He is said to be traumatized by the recent parliamentary and presidential elections in Slovakia. In his texts, he also often warns against fascism, which is why he was not pleased with the results of the European elections, in which the far right gained strength. “Above all, talk to each other, it’s very important,” he tells fans at the end of the performance.
“Hello darkness, you are my beast,” quotes the Prešov rapper Dušan Vlk in the song of the same name by the duo Simon & Garfunkel. | Video: Dušan Vlk
Responsibility in times of climate crisis
After Dušan Vlk’s concert, several more concerts of mostly electronic music continue in the area, such as the techno of a Brit who calls himself Blawan, or Swede Olof Dreijer. Those with the greatest stamina can have fun until four in the morning, because in the immediate vicinity of the festival there is only an empty fairground, a hotel where mostly Pop Messe guests sleep, a gas station and the city circuit.
In the meantime, tickets are already on sale for the next edition, which will take place again at the velodrome and will hopefully be a bit bigger. According to program director Tomáš Kelar, the event does not want to grow indefinitely. According to him, if it continues to increase in volume at a natural pace, the capacity could be filled in about six years. However, he does not want to go towards fifteen or twenty thousand visitors.
One reason is sustainability. The organizer explains that even though the festival doesn’t have a huge budget, it tries to reduce its carbon footprint. And that a large event cannot be done as responsibly as one would imagine without significant support from partners. At the same time, the largest share of emissions is produced by fans’ trips to and from the venue. “That’s why we communicate wherever possible so that people don’t travel to us by car, but by train and public transport,” says Kelar. The festival shared on social networks that the artist František Skála also traveled by train from Prague to Brno with his innovative brass band, which opened the event on Thursday.
The sprinkler truck pleased. However, more accessible drinking water would do a greater service. | Photo: CTK
It is unfortunate that despite the emphasis on ecology, one of the biggest weaknesses has become the availability of drinking water. It was hidden in some interior spaces, for example near the press center, where a regular festival visitor probably wandered by mistake, or in the toilets in the Kabinetu Muz club, where it was quite hot in itself. For example, the rapper Rohony introduced his concert there by saying that he would “definitely perform better outside because it’s hellishly hot here”.
This affected the festival mainly on Saturday, when temperatures in Brno reached 33 degrees. In the heat of the afternoon during the concert of the Dukla group, the audience mostly crowded into a narrow strip of shade directly under the stage. The advantage of the new location is that concerts on the two main stages can also be watched from the shaded grandstand. On a hot day, the organizers also added a cistern with service water, where people could cool off and soak their hats. The heated asphalt of the cycling track cooled the sprinkler truck. Both were pleasant, but there was still no drinking water in the main part of the area. The selection of soft drinks at the stands was also narrow. For example, only one offered non-alcoholic beer – and it happened already during the late afternoon on Saturday.
The events at Slovakia’s Pohoda festival, which was prematurely ended by a storm and the collapse of a large tent, sparked a debate about the preparedness of similar events for weather extremes related to climate change. Tomáš Kelar points out that there would be a need to deal with weather fluctuations much more at the airport or in the open countryside. “We are in an area that has a lot of escape exits. Everyone can see where to get either under the roof or completely outside,” he emphasizes the advantages of organizing the festival in existing spaces. He adds that an integrated rescue system is also quickly available at the city event.
Despite minor flaws, the young festival is doing well. According to Kelar, the city lacked such an event. “In Brno, but also in other places around the country, it is customary to hold such celebrations instead of festivals. People have gotten used to the fact that culture is free. Especially after covid, when cities are trying to renew interest in it in this way,” he says. “I dare to say that there has never been a similar festival in Brno,” he adds.
Video: My music even moves me. In my dream, a squinty dog is wearing it, says the Bert & Friends singer (18/06/2024)
The concert itself can even make me cry, Albert Romanutti, frontman of the Czech band Bert & Friends, said in the Spotlight program. | Video: Team Spotlight