We are drumming out… This year’s Open Air Festival Trutnov will be again on “Na Bojišti (The Battlefield)”.
We also believe that we will be able to hold our meeting
on the traditional place next year, too.

To please you we are bringing the names of the first Czech bands.
The Underground tent will be renamed and given a facelift.

In the months of cold, snow and hunger; January – February 2012

Even though our wigwams are still surrounded by sorrow, the mountains are crying and the valleys are filled with tears cried after the departure of our Chief Václav and the father of underground Ivan Martin “Magor” Jirous and despite the fact that the mountains are covered with plethora of white snow and our tee-pees are surrounded by frost, we are drumming out the first news earlier than usual: The Open Air Festival “Trutnov 1987-2012” will be held traditionally in the month of grain and ripening grasses in the term of  16.-19.8. 2012. Our foothill camp will experience a few changes.

The piping on the festival meadows has been laid down and the mains for the future development are ready. However, we still believe in our traditional meeting in the same place next year again. Funnily enough, the apparent crisis might actually help us.

In the month of falling leaves and disappearing sun, the local representatives gave a go ahead to the building of engineering mains on the neighbouring fields, which are now ready for future development. However, this year’s meeting will be held in the traditional place again, and we hope that it will be so next year, too. It is a paradox that the apparent economical crisis might actually help us. We believe that with the end of construction and development boom, there will not be any development activity on the fields. The town hall has prepared everything for the construction, but the rest depends on the building lobby, intentions of the owners, hungry diggers and arrival of a suitable investor with a wallet full of coloured papers.

Fauna and flora is needed for life as well as for the festival…

As you know, the festival meeting can only happen if the neighbouring fields are available. We use them to accommodate two stages, to build tee-pees, there are holy fires and the grounds also serve you – several thousands of fellow warriors and your tents and cars. No other fields in the area can substitute them. The reasons wary. The roads leading to them are either too complicated or they are going to be built up, too. For example there will be a new road with a roundabout. As it is well know, the town hall decided that the land next to the festival grounds will be built up and this decision was re-confirmed not long ago. The new festival place on the outskirts of Trutnov, which we found, was sold to developers to be used for commercial purposes. The Mayor has said that festival, which was in the past held under the patronage of the Ministry of Culture and the president and our Chief Václav Havel, is a commercial activity like any other.

Underground tent of Ivan Martin “Magor” Jirous

Despite the fact that our festival sanctuary needs long-term visions and it is not possible to plan ahead and expand under the current circumstances, there will be a few innovations in our foothill camp. The Underground tent will be extended and undergo a few changes. It will be renamed after the Guru of the Czechoslovak underground and newly called “The Underground Tent of Ivan Martin “Magor” Jirous,” who left our hunting grounds not long ago. The tent will be bigger and its programme will focus even more on the underground concerts held until the morning. There will also be lectures and projections. Some of you might remember that it was here when the two hour discussion with our Chief Václav Havel took place. The tent has also seen a discussion with the preacher Jakub Trojan, who buried Jan Palach (the man who set himself aflame as a protest against the 1968 Russian occupation), Vinnetou (a character from a very popular series of films about Red Indians based on books by Karl May) and a direct Woodstock participant. This year’s festival will extent its programme by theatre performances. Another change will be relocation of part of the camp with non-profit and ecological organisations into the area below the Underground tent. This will create a better area for the theatre performances as well as an area for a kid camp. Also the number of vegetarian tents will be raised.

Heralds and fixed stars

As always, this year will not be short of various oddities, happenings and musical extremes, which are so renown for our foothill camp.  Here is the first taste of Czech bands that are coming: The Plastic People of The Universe, Jiří Schmitzer, J.A.R., Irena Budweiserová, Vlasta Třešňák & Band, Neruda, Sto zvířat, Mňága a Žďorp, Petr Váša and Ty syčáci, Zuby nehty, Visací zámek, Baťa & Kalábůf něžný beat, N.V.Ú., Už jsme doma etc. After many years, Vladimír Mišík with his band ETC will return to Trutnov stage and for the first time we will host the legendary songwriter Jaroslav Hutka.

Geronimo

To please your eyes and souls we are attaching a capture of our Festival tribe from the  last year.

 

VÁCLAV, OUR CHIEF, LOOK AFTER US...!

Václav Havel – the last of the Mohicans – has left

December 18, 2011

Our mountains and valleys are still crying tears and we are crying with them. Our Chief has left; the one whose blue eyes used to sparkle and whose spirit used to soar as an eagle even though his body was giving up. Our festival tribe was made an orphan. The one who meant everything for me has left. Everything will be different from now on. It will be divided into the period before and after Václav Havel. The news approached me while walking along a street in Brno; something rustled around and my head got dizzy. I still find it hard to find the right words. My heart is heavy and my head is full of memories of this extraordinary man. There is no bigger personality in our land and only now we are staring to recognize who we have lost. Many countries can envy us for having Václav Havel and they do. Yes, I am one of the followers of the truth and love and our Chief, who was sometimes pejoratively called “truelove”. I believe that if Václav Havel was nowadays at the castle, this country would have a bigger prestige and it would be more respected. However, as it usually goes in these lands, those who would not even reach Václav Havel’s ankles are those who spit on him the most. I believe that it will change now and Václav Havel will start to be fully appreciated.

Even though it might sound pathetic, I feel that with Václav Havel I also lost my youth years; times when my own personality was being formed. We met when I was 16 or 17. I am grateful for the fact that Václav Havel and those who surrounded him significantly influenced and co-determined the direction of my future steps. I am grateful that I am part of the generation that experienced him.   Without Václav Havel, even the Trutnov festival would not exist in the form that we know it in. Even in the times of deep totality, Václav Havel took place at our cultural meetings and various unofficial concerts. It was not a problem for him to drive to some village in the middle of nowhere and it was sometimes quite a paradox when the Chief parked his Volkswagen next to shabby police Škoda cars and then this high profile dissident sat among the long haired youths. Of course these cops, who rarely missed such cultural evens (if they were not trying to abolish them), saw this with great dismay. The fact that the Chief did not refuse invitations to various meetings gave us great spiritual support and strength to continue. That is one of the reasons why he became Chief of our festival tribe.

In the recent years we have looked after the Chief’s garden in Hrádeček. Even in the times of deep totality we admired how tastefully and moderately Olga and he decorated it. In the times of general bad taste it was unusual. Everything had its order. No wheels from hay wagons, kitsch objects made of china or flower pots imbedded in tyres. Not even present times with plastic windows and showing off of property owners´ wealth did not influence Hrádeček. Several times I have been present when somebody saw Hrádeček for the first time. “This is it?” you could hear behind the content of these surprised words. Many had expected something different and pompously spectacular. The interiors were specific and full of order and peace. No Ikea furniture. Hrádeček has been and will always be a cult place. I wish it stays as it is for the coming generations.

During one of the last autumn reorganisations of flower beds the Chief remarked with a smile that he was looking forward to seeing the result in the coming spring. I am terribly angry with myself that in the last weeks I did not visit the Chief and that I was postponing my next visit to Hrádeček. I did not want to disturb. Apparently it was stupid. I will be blaming myself until the end of my life. Our last visits were very nice, strong and cheerful. We went to the cinema, to the pub and watched the news. Once before the news he complained about the direction the world was going. Another day when we were, together with the photographer Bohdan Holomíček, the nun and the director Andrej Krob, going to the pub after visit to the cinema, his blue eyes were sparkling. The Chief tasted perhaps everything the pub offered, it was long after the closing hours and the bodyguards were getting impatient by the bar. The Chief would have stayed until the morning. We left long after midnight. The face was shining and the spirit was strong, even though the body was starting to give up. I last experienced it with him a month and a half ago. Then we met at Václav´s birthday where I forgot his framed photography. Later I brought it with him to Hrádeček. On the front there is an inscription from the party that was held when he finished with his presidency. Nine years later he signed it for me on the back, smiling. It was our last meeting.

Whenever even complete strangers visited Václav at Hrádeček, he did not hesitate to treat them generously. He was not mean, he loved company and people. No matter whether a worker, homeless, important intellectual or politician, they all left with a great feeling that they had good conversation and that they shared something interesting. Unlike his castle successor Klaus and similar types, he did not listen to himself but mainly to others. That was our Chief’s greatest gift. I do not know anybody that would be disappointed after a discussion with him.  He loved people, company and discussions. His humility was impressive. In the recent years it shined from him more and more. It was pure happiness when during some discussions his blue eyes shined and his spirit took off like a hawk.

The Chief left quietly and his recent meeting with the Dalai Lama was more than symbolic. I believe that the Chief and Magor will invent some crazy games in the Underground heaven, from which they laugh at what shallow matters we are involved in. He told me I was his friend. And as a friend I am crying now. The Chief of a world format has left us. Václav, our Chief, look after us!

Martin Věchet, Geronimo Open Air Festival Trutnov