Re: Joe in Prague 1994
Posted: 04 Dec 2008, 5:40pm
Joe and Dirty Pictures in Prague '94
http://carolina.cuni.cz/archive-en/Caro ... No-115.txt
"A Good Event for a Good Thing
On Sunday, April 16, the Refugees Help Organization (OPU in Czech) together with a Czech-American rock band
Dirty Pictures put on the rock marathon called Rock for Refugees in order to both raise funds to help refugees and inform public on situation of refugees in the Czech Republic. There were several sponsors contributing to a successful course of events, Repre club and the Pilsen beerbar provided space and free service, all bands were performing without a right to be paid for.
Rock marathon began in the afternoon in front of almost empty hall. Repre club and the Pilsen beer bar were connected to each other. One band played the allowed time (30 minutes) on one stage while the other band was preparing on the other. Throughout the afternoon the halls were gradually filling up by mostly foreign audience which could , beside the music production, more closely get acquiented with organizers or buy goods made in refugees' camps. The pre-midnight performance of Joe Strummer, former musician in bands Clash and Pogues, was such
a highlight of the whole event. Despite playing only four songs accompanied by Dirty Pitures and a power blackout, he totally impressed
people in the full hall.
Marathon then went on with following performances up to early morning hours. Both stages saw about 20 music bands, of which the most successful were Hypnotix, Support Lesbiens and Tony Duchacek and Garage.
The Refugees Help Organization is a non-commercial, independant and
non-religious organization. Its goal is "to help foreigners who applied for asylum or received it or took a refuge on the land of CR because of political, ethnic, religious or racial persecution or war." However organizers expected a larger audience, the results of the happening was satisfactory. Saturday event and OPU as it is got a high publicity, about 1,500 people saw the concert and a pay-off is roughly 200,000 Kc.
The money will be used on supporting journal of Bosnian refugees "Mostovi", on university education of refugees and on the new housing
project.(Quotation taken from the OPU Newsletter). Honza K./Zbynek"
and a brief mention that "...a guy who had a local band named Dirty Pictures got to play "London Calling" onstage with Joe Strummer at a benefit for Bosnian refugees." http://www.praguepost.com/articles/2006 ... -to-be.php