Beck saved the Metronome from trouble, but the real stars were Oh Wonder
It’s raining, it’s raining, it’s just pouring … That was the main theme of the second day of the event called Metronome Prague, which brought the award-winning Beck to the Czech Republic after many years. However, due to the relentless weather, it was not clear for a long time whether we would see at all. Fortunately, it had a happy ending. More or less.
Live: Metronome Prague, day 2
place: Exhibition Grounds, Prague
date: June 25, 2022
Speakers: Beck, Oh Wonder, Lola Marsh, Everything Everything, 7 times3 and more
setlist Oh Wonder: Better Now, Without You, I Wish I Never Met You, Heavy, Rollercoaster Baby, Dazzle / Technicolor Beat, Fuck It I Love You, Ultralife, Landslide, 22 Break, Lose It, Drive, Hallelujah
setlist Beck: Hyperlife (Intro), Mixed Bizness, Devil’s Haircut, Dreams, Colors (Transition), The New Pollution, The Valley Of The Pagans (Gorillaz cover), Wow, Hollywood Freaks, Wizard (Transition), Where It’s At, Loser, Hotwax, Nice life, Cycle (Transition), Morning, Stratosphere, Lost Thing, Girl, Hyperlife, Nicotine and Sauce, Earthquake Weather, Missing, Qué Onda Guero, Go Alone, Black Tambourine, Debra, Novacane, Chemtrails, One Foot In The Grave, Dark Places, Saw Lightning, It’s All in Your Mind, Everybody’s Got To Learn Sometime (The Korgis cover), E-Pro Fotogalerie
© Marie Trávníčková
The second day of the festival was marked by rain. He sprinkled the area before David Žbirka performed his project Sunnbrella, but then the sky calmed down a bit, and 7 times3 with the Live Band they could play for the audience on gradually drying seats at Křižík’s fountains. It was a concert that Mardoš did not miss either, who took the same stage with his Tata Bojs a little later. And visibly he had a good time. After all, it was no wonder, because Štěpán Hebík sang like a king. Not only his deliberately poignant lyrics and spicy tales, but especially his vocal strengths were the decoration of the festival. It is a pity that although he lives as a physiotherapist, he did not give more movement to the performance. In the future, it would also be worth investing in vocalists so that he doesn’t have to have half-playback, but still be an excellent set. If you haven’t had the honor yet, fix it.
© Marie Trávníčková
Almost at the same time, she performed on the Marpo Park stage, which celebrated ten years with Troublegang. He showed his usual standard, he didn’t forget hits like “Generation of Big Dreams” or “Bad Man”, however, under the stage he was relatively empty compared to the conditions of his other Prague concerts. We wrote it at the beginning of the report from the first day and it is necessary to repeat it – Metronome Prague has a destination completely different and it is no wonder that Ota Petřina’s fans arrived rather suddenly. After all, for many of them, another artist, close to the genre, does not play at the festival that day to pay for the purchase of an expensive ticket. But those who went a few tens of meters further could go to the Tree stage, which was freely available to visitors without a ticket, to Emily Burns. We only managed a short distance from the set of the London singer, but even that was obvious that the 27-year-old singer has the potential to hear about her with a little luck. It’s a pity that she played on the stage, which was filled with noise from the nearby Marpa.
© Marie Trávníčková
Larger crowds gathered under the main stage, where Lola Marsh came to show a month after the concert at the Acropolis Palace. The dreampop duo used to be dating, but today only playing partners came in Tel Aviv, Israel, they have two records at the end and perform live with an accompanying band. However, if you were not aware of these facts, you could easily think that you are looking at another indie singer from Britain, who learned a few Czech words before the performance. Singer Yael Shoshana Cohen is so dominant in her speech. The set was nice, but it did fit a bit into the competition of others. And by that we mean in particular Oh Wonder. We really like the phenomenal pop duo on the music server and you will find many hymns to their address in the archive. Three other musicians perform live with them, so they are already a full-fledged band and since their last concert in Roxy they have come with a number of novelties. The light show was better than ever with the gradually blackening sky, and the changes took place in the personal lives of the protagonists. Not so long ago, fans on the social network wrote to them that Anthony and Josephine should put it together as a couple, because it suited them very well, and they steadfastly refused to say so. And by the way, they were already playing on the Metronome together as the West couple.
© Marie Trávníčková
But with the fact that not everything is just pink, they confided in themselves before the song “Rollercoaster Baby”: they admitted that they had gone through a period when they almost broke up forever. The creation of the fourth studio film “22 Break” was for them a couple therapy, when they got back together both musically and humanly. By the way, the name is not meant to symbolize the number twenty-two, but a pun related to the well-known wisdom of life that both sides are always behind the breakdown of a relationship. But the concert was amazing. In fact, the best that has ever been seen on the Metronome. The pleasing but unobtrusive melodies attracted a solid number of fans, the band communicated with the audience and, as always, the centerpiece of Josephine, who again seemed to be hampered by the need to play something on the keyboard from time to time – otherwise she would like to jump on stage from side to side and rejoiced with fans full of euphoria. Yeah, the new “Fuck It I Love You” is a hit on the first listen.
© Marie Trávníčková
In the meantime, however, the first drops began to fall from the sky, and when Oh Wonder finished, the sky over the area had completely ruptured. Soon the darkness was permeated only by more and more lightning flashes. The grassy areas in front of the capital have become mud puddles, and although it has not yet had the amount of mud on the recently completed Nova Rock, it was clear that the program would not continue as planned. And here, unfortunately, the organizing mines started to show again. Weather conditions are a great touchstone, according to which you will get to know a well-organized festival. At some events, you know about the upcoming storm before it starts. Then the festival app and social networks will inform you in time. Welcome when it starts. They will guide you where to hide, what to avoid, when, who and whether to play at all … In short, despite the adversity of nature, you feel like in cotton. But not here. It is embarrassing that Metronome’s social networks are managed by someone who does not speak spelling, but it can be survived. There was one post about the rain, and his main mission was not to take an umbrella, which many people had in the area anyway. But what about the information scandal? Some of the posts appeared only in the event on Facebook, but only the positive posts about the fact that this and that is playing were hidden for the fan page. Large screens were not used for communication, it just so happened that the image fell out completely during concerts. And on the main stage, just a few times someone appeared to announce that in about fifteen minutes it would be evaluated somehow. In short, horror.
© Marie Trávníčková
The little miracle is that Beck finally got out. However, it was with a sixty-two-minute delay, when many spectators were already far away. He wasn’t completely empty under the ode, but it certainly wasn’t the kind of crowd he deserved given his imprint on popular music. Insufficient and thoughtless communication from the organizers also caused us not to see the otherwise excellent band Everything Everything play. She was originally supposed to introduce herself on the Moon stage after Beck, and she would have fulfilled the hour’s wait perfectly if the organizers had moved her a little earlier. But while we – like many others – thought we had to regret them because they were playing at the same time as Beck, we learned that we were late, that they were leaving and only playing after him, when we were together with most of the visitors, they left the area exhausted after four hours of persistent rain. According to the responses of those who stayed, it was not worth it, because the Moon stage provides a horrible sound every year, and the concert of these British people was one of the others who took it in the pavilion. That it would be good to promote such a good group more in terms of marketing, not to mention.
But back to Beck. It was already clear to him at the announcement that he did not attract such crowds as Nick Cave, even though (or perhaps precisely because) he had not visited us for many years. And after all, his music on some of his records is not entirely simple, so if you are not an expert like our colleague Jakub Malar, it may be more difficult to absorb his work. And this also applies to his Prague ensemble, which was not only non-standard due to the current situation. Beck is in the habit of playing many more songs than other artists – in Prague he got thirty-five items in about ninety minutes. It is clear from this that a number of songs did not sound complete, the intra, outra and entire verses were cut off. Much of the set was not even room for applause to make it happen.
© Marie Trávníčková
But such concerts are usually on the current tour, less is sometimes more. For example, “Dreams” or “Wow” are such great pieces that it is quite frozen to hear only a part of them. Beck praised him several times survivor for waiting for him even in the rain, however, it was clear to him that he was quite in a hurry to conclude, and rather than an experience for the fans as well, and enjoying shared moments, he wanted to fulfill his part of the contract. It is probably not entirely fair to read it to him, in similar conditions anyone would behave like that. Withdrawal from the trot slowed down only in its last third, when the musical chameleon made it known how his first visit to Prague was with his grandfather and how he met Milan Knížák at that time. Just before the end, when the little hand on the watch pointed to number one, she also offered her version of “Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime”, which they dedicated at the beginning of the millennium to the amazing film “Eternal Light of the Immaculate Mind” with Jim Carey and Kate Winslet. Unfortunately, his live version sounded a lot different and worse than we remember from the studio version. Either way, Beck in Prague was an experience more for everything that was going on around it than for the concert itself, during which he only played the guitar a few times.
Colleague Dan Hájek will report on the third and last day, when the most performers at the Exhibition Grounds met. But there were also relocations there, for example Flohio, as a big draw for rap fans, was postponed due to the delayed flight until sometime at three o’clock in the morning. Andy Čermák’s concert also moved. And the Park stage didn’t work either. He doesn’t even talk about the absence of internal night connections from the Exhibition Grounds. But you will read about all this soon.
© Marie Trávníčková
Even from the previous two days, however, the same can be said as about previous years. Metronome Prague is an event with huge potential, which could easily compete with Ostrava’s Colors. And with all those sponsors and connections to Prague, it could be even better. We keep our fingers crossed for her on that journey. Unfortunately, the reality is still elsewhere and even in its fifth year of the festival makes a lot of mistakes. So something like this – as long as there are more ties from PPFka, which is organizing its party there, than how many people we will see in the T-shirt of the rising stars, we will know that change is in sight.