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A Prague performance
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The concierge at Prague’s Hotel Bila Labut, my base of operations for the week I spent in the old capital of the young Czech Republic, appeared ready with an answer to my enquiry about obtaining three tickets to that evening’s performance by Britpop star Robbie Williams almost before I was done asking. There were no tickets left to the sold-out show. However, she assured me that by 3 or 4 p.m., she’d be able to procure tickets for me, my brother, and my father. Apparently, though some tickets had been bought by native Czechs, that’s not why a show by a former boy-band prodigy from the group Take That had sold out months ago. No, wily Czech travel agencies aware of Williams’s massive popularity in Germany had purchased huge blocks of tickets and sold tourist packages with the Williams performance as its centerpiece. And since a few of those tourists would be denied visas, by late afternoon fresh tickets would begin to surface. Capitalism may be relatively new to the Czechs, but they’ve taken to it with a vengeance. More important, the Czechs and their East German counterparts were so starved for Western pop under Communism that a rock concert — any rock concert — was an occasion for celebration, not just among young kids but for young adults up through their mid 30s. So, without three tickets in hand, we headed off to a hockey rink that was never meant to accommodate an amped-up rock audience: with only one small entrance to the main gate open, there was a chaotic crush to reach the inner sanctum. But we did get our tickets. Once inside, it was a comfortable free-for-all, with regular folks smoking cigs and drinking lots of beer as they awaited the opening act, former Skunk Anansie frontwoman Skin, who already has a solo album out in Europe. The blasé attitude toward opening acts that dominates the US is unheard of in Prague. The highly charged atmosphere that pervaded the arena is something I’ve experienced only at one-of-a-kind events in the US, like a U2 or Rolling Stones stadium tour. And I now know why American bands love Europe so much: the crowd was ecstatic. Everyone sang and clapped and danced along with an infectious fervor — to the opening act. In the end, Skin, who’s added more hooks and melody to her act, was the better of the two artists. Williams was all style and very little substance — the style included four hot dancers, a horn section, and an elaborate stage set adorned in every nook and cranny with the RW trademark. He ran around the stage as he half sang/half screamed. "Let me entertain you," and when he did catch his breath, he shouted, "You love my ass!" Whether it was his ass they loved or just the mix of beer and freedom is hard to say; every song elicited an explosion of applause, and Williams didn’t even seem to be working all that hard. The strange looks the guards gave us as we opted for an early exit said it all. Crazy Americans.
BY MATT ASHARE
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