Inside-Poland.com
News and more from around Poland, in English

A little dollop of Dżem

It's rare that I actually splash out my hard-earned money to go to see a concert.

There are always so many free ones to attend, such as the recent XParty festival where the Silver Owls played. The last paid concert I attended was Stare Dobre Małżenstwo. Even then the tickets were great value for money seeing as they are one of my favourite bands and I knew that they would play for well over two hours.

Dżem was a slightly different proposition. For a start they are a blues band, perhaps one of the best blues bands in Poland, but still a blues band. And I'm not particularly a fan of the blues. Anyway, I knew a handful of there songs and had fond memories of sitting on the university steps singing Whisky Moja Żona (for those of you who may be wondering if I was a student at a Polish university let me set the record straight; this was last year and we were just using the university as a short cut on the way back from a disastrous karaoke session and decided to make our own karaoke session on said steps). 2nd anyway, I was quite keen to see Lizard King, one of Kraków's premier concert venues.

So, the day of the concert soon arrived and I made my way to Tomasza (St Thomas' Street). Dżem arrived there at exactly the same time as I did. Not that I would recognise any of them (a minibus emblazoned with Dżem logos). I went into the club and after misguidedly queuing for the cloakroom for a short while soon found myself in one of the bars. Lizard King is quite an interesting venue, with various tiered levels. The sound system and acoustics are excellent. The drinker is quite well catered for, unfortunately slightly vertically-challenged concert-goers like myself and quite so well catered for. It took me a while to find somewhere I could actually see anything at all (upstairs in the bar area). Lesson learned; next time I will wear my New Rock boots which will give me a few extra inches (in height) and then, I too, can be one of those annoying people who block the view for other people. Either that, or I could get there early.

The support act (230 Volt) was already playing when I arrived. So, I didn't have to endure much of that (they were good, but not exactly my taste, maybe if you are a Rammstein fan you might enjoy them). Half an hour after 230 had left the stage it was Dżem's turn to do their stuff. They were as good as one can expect. But quite a while elapsed before they performed any songs that I actually knew.

I left the concert fairly satisfied, but after being on my feet for over 5 hours (included in that over two hours of walking) I was glad to be home. I look forward to my next Lizard King concert.  

Blog Archive