2012-01-15   

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.

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.