Šla jsem na koncert streda noc.

Last night I went to a concert at Palac Akropolis – the Black Sufis from Gujarat India. More on them later. First, Akropolis – it’s not too far from my apartment and I went there for the first time about a week and a half ago. The night I was there it was fairly empty, only a few people were dancing…overall it wasn’t too interesting. We did meet some Australians, and I talked about music and dancing for a while with one of them (he did not like pop music, but he “didn’t mind Justin.” YEAH!) Some of my friends went there before with their Czech roommate, Petr, who DJs there on occasion, and supposedly that time there were lots more people, most of whom had dreadlocks. So maybe that will give you an idea of the place.

Anyway, before the concert we had dinner at the attached restaurant (also called Palac Akropolis…I believe the club might actually be called Klub Akropolis.) Dinner was very good. I had fried trout with vegetables, and there actually were real vegetables! I ate carrots for the first time in months. It wasn’t expensive, either, only 120 crowns. I’d eat there again.

The concert started at 8 pm. The Black Sufis from Gujarat India are “a tribal Sufi community of East African origin which came to India eight centuries ago. They carried with them their exceptionally rich musical tradition and kept it alive and flourishing through the generations, unknown to the rest of the world.” There were eleven men total, and they started out the show in a semicircle on the stage, each with an instrument and microphone. They were all dressed in white, with white caps. It’s kind of hard to describe the music, but it was all acoustic drums, maracas, bongos, and some kind of large bent stick with a string that they would hit with the end of a maraca. During this part there was singing and a little bit of individual dancing.

Then there was an intermission, after which the really cool part started. The men all came back out dressed in traditional outfits with face paint and headdresses. Now they were really dancing. So were some people in the audience, which was hilarious in and of itself. The most impressive part of the performance was when two guys threw coconuts up in the air and broke them on their heads. I have no idea how one goes about thickening your skull enough to break a freaking coconut…I couldn’t even break one open with a hammer when someone brought one to my house two summers ago.

Overall it was quite cool and I’m glad I went, because I normally don’t go out of my way to attend these types of things. I should really do it more often.