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Reviews & Features

Wilsonic Review By Dan Williams The BratVegas team arrived at Wilsonic early on the Friday evening. The weather is unseasonably bad but the atmosphere pleasant as bands play on the one open stage (the program on this stage will finish at about 2300, then performances at the 3 tents will begin, and the same will happen tomorrow). Our first impression is we hadn’t realised how many people with dreadlocks there are in Bratislava.
Pohoda Interview By Dan Williams If you’ve not heard of Pohoda you’ve probably not been in Slovakia for long. In case you haven’t it’s the most famous festival in Slovakia, attracting around 20,000 people each year (you can read our review of last year’s festival here). It was founded by Michal Kaščák in 1997 and has been run by him ever since. The Pohoda people had organised a night of live music, film and photography at Klub Za Krkadlom to preview the festival . We asked Kaščák why this event was important, he replied that “there’s not so many concerts of this size in Bratislava. As well as Pohoda we organise 5 or 6 concerts a year, the last one we did was Prodigy. Pohoda is a meeting of different arts, many people, many generations and this evening is the same.”
Summer Festival Preview By Dan Williams Following our preview of Pohoda a couple of weeks ago, many people have asked us about what other festivals are taking place across the country this summer. We’ve compiled a list of everything that’s worth going to in Slovakia, plus a few in neighbouring countries.
Polemic @ PKO, April 30th By Dan Williams Anyone who’s spent much time in Slovakia will have realised that ska is one of the most popular genres here. To the majority of Brits it’s something of an anachronism, though one fondly remembered for it’s message of equality a time of race riots, and positivity against the bleak economic backdrop of the late 70s and early 80s. BratVegas were at PKO to see Polemic, who are Slovakia’s biggest ska act and can’t be far off being the country’s biggest act in any genre.
Tolerance in Art @ Danubiana By Stephen Mander At the end of March the Slovak Foreign Minster, Miroslav Lajčák and his Hungarian counterpart, Kinga Göncz, presented an award to the former Czechoslovak ambassador to Hungary Rudolf Chmel for ‘good neighbourliness and understanding’ in Slovak-Hungarian relations. In a speech he gave when he accepted the award, Chmel said that a foundation supporting cultural, artistic and sporting activities should be established to further the cause of good relations between the two countries.
Wilsonic Festival By Stephen Mander (Micro.Wilsonic review by Dan Williams, photos by Rado Buransky) Whenever anyone mentions a festival to me I think of one thing: mud. Mud on your face, mud oozing into your shoes, mud collapsing your tent, mud flying like snowballs between giddy festival goers, who then spend a good few hours sliding through it like children in snow at Christmas only minus the creativity: no snowmen. And that’s why I’ve never been to one. I like messing around in snow, but messing around in something the colour of excrement while listening to uninspired indie bands has strangely never tickled my fancy. Thankfully Wilsonic, Bratislava’s premium cutting edge music festival, has never had that problem...
Pohoda 2009 Preview By Pete Mitchell Slovakia’s most anticipated summer music & culture festival, Pohoda, is coming up soon. Whilst not as big as festivals in the UK or even Szeged in Hungary or EXIT in Serbia, Pohoda isn’t trying to be. With the focus always on a wide diversity of cultural performances and global coverage, the organisers rarely fail to disappoint. Attendances normally range from 15000-2000 and most punters camp for the two night festival. It’s held on the Trencin Airfields which at night is backed by the illuminated Trencinsky Hrad. Cheap food and drink and plenty of scantily clad Slavs are the sideshows as a great time is had by all. With 8 stages running concurrently over the 2 nights, there’s always something to see. Tickets this year are at their most expensive of €59 for the 2 day “permanent” pass in advance, or €65 on the day.
Shangri-La: India-Nepal-Tibet-Bhutan, Slovak National Museum, 06/03/2009-12/07/2009 By Stephen Mander Read any dictionary and it will tell you what Shangri-La is: an imaginary paradise, a remote and exotic haven, more often than not found somewhere in the Orient. But, before 1933, it didn’t exist. It was invented by the British author, James Hilton, best known now for Goodbye, Mr Chips. In his novel, Lost Horizon, he describes a mystical valley in Tibet called Shangri-La, where Hugh Conway, his protagonist, finds love, inner peace and a sense of purpose. The book was made into a film by Frank Capra, and the word has passed into popular culture, finding its way into songs, films and TV shows, including Led Zeppelin lyrics and The Simpsons. Before the US presidential retreat in Maryland became known as Camp David, it was called U.S.S. Shangri-La. The new temporary exhibition at the Slovak National Museum, Shangri-La: India-Nepal-Tibet-Bhutan, takes you on a journey to the world that influenced Hilton’s book.
Slovak Idioms By BratVegas If you’re reading this website, the chances are Slovak isn’t your first language but you have made some attempt to pick up the essentials. You’ll no doubt remember the warm wave of satisfaction you felt the first time you smoothly ordered a beer, asked for directions or successfully answered an old lady’s questions at a bus stop. We want you to have that feeling over and over, so we've compiled a list of Slovak idioms to spice up to your day to day interactions. Read them and you’ll have 5 minutes of good entertainment. Use them wisely and your life may never be the same again.
Emergenza - Battle of the bands in Bratislava By Dan Williams Big Brother was never big in Slovakia. It was on TV but nobody seemed to watch it and nobody seemed to talk about it. Slovaks would speculate on why the show did so well across the world and expats would feel happy about avoiding it. Reality TV hasn’t taken off over here but the one exception was the Slovak version of Pop Idol - Superstar, which is hugely popular. We Brits tend to lump it in with reality TV but really it’s a good old fashioned talent show, the sort of which was extinct in the UK for a while but are very popular here. With that in mind, BratVegas wondered how much of a draw a Slovak battle of the bands competition would be.
Interview: Candice Night, singer and front woman of Blackmore’s Night (performing at PKO, Thursday Feb 12th) By Stephen Mander On Thursday Feb 12th one of the legends (nay, monsters) of rock will be in town. Ritchie Blackmore, the man who came up with ‘Smoke on the Water’ (yes! that song; yes! that riff) will be gracing Bratislava with his presence. First there was Deep Purple then there was Rainbow and now there is Blackmore’s Night. Formed in 1997, the band grew from a chance encounter at a football game with an ex-model called Candice Night. After recording Rainbow’s Stranger in Us All album on which Night performed backing vocals, Blackmore became interested in bringing one of his perhaps lesser known interests to a wider audience; to wit, renaissance music. With her natural singing ability and personality, Blackmore saw Night as the perfect front-woman for the band and in 1997 they recorded their debut album, Shadow of the Moon.
Winter Guide to Skiing and Snowboarding By Mike McCurdy So, you live in Bratislava and you want to go skiing or snowboarding. What are the options? Stay in Slovakia, or head elsewhere? First of all you need to decide what you're really looking for - an easy day out for a beginner or some serious off-piste shenanigans? Most things are on offer, you just have to know where to look. If you want a large, wonderfully well-run resort with great services, then I'd suggest you get on a plane and land a bit further away... However, that's never been my choice as it eliminates day trips and really starts to pile on the cost and when there's something on your doorstep for every level, why bother?
Useful Slovak phrases for plumbers, electricians, builders etc By Dan Williams Being an expat in Bratislava it’s fair to guess you’re working in the tertiary sector and the Slovaks you encounter are bright, young, Westernised things. The workers of Bratislava are a different breed, more rugged looking and apparently untouched by the rampant capitalism of the city. So if you need a builder, plumber, electrician or anything similar this is our guide to getting things done, along with a list of useful Slovak phrases.
New Years Eve in Bratislava By BratVegas Here at BratVegas we’ve been asked by a number of people, especially those gearing up for their first New Years Eve in Bratislava, to give some advice on what to do for NYE here. We’ve put our heads together to come up with some advice and tips.
Nonconformists, The Second Russian Avant-garde, 1955-1988 @ Slovak National Gallery By Stephen Mander When the Nobel-prize winning author Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn died in August this year the Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, described him as “a great writer, humanist and patriot” while the Western press depicted him as a man who stood up against totalitarianism and that Russia’s loss was also the world’s.
Christmas Markets By Sarah Puett, photos by Kevin Troy As Winter dawns on us and the days grow shorter and the evenings lengthen in Bratislava, it's not all gloom. Come the 28th of November once again the main squares of the Old Town will be filled with stalls, people and enough hot beverages to keep you warm until the Summer months - well not quite, but to late December anyway!
Five Corner Quintet @ Nu Spirit By Dan Williams I’ve never been quite sure what to make of Jazz. In fact, I’m not sure I could even define it. Jazz is a broad term with numerous sub genres, but to me it can crudely be divided into 3 types; ‘dinner party jazz’, ‘crooner jazz’ and ‘jazz jazz’.
Pendulum @ PKO By Pete Mitchell For those who came in late: Pendulum are an Australian group, based in London. Their first album ‘Hold Your Colour’ is the highest selling drum’n’bass album of all time. Their follow-up title ‘In Silico’ was released earlier this year. This album and corresponding tour are about Pendulum’s new sound and evolution into more guitar and rock based sounds.
Animal Collective @ A4 By Stephen Mander Back when Guns n’ Roses weren’t boring the whole world by putting off the release of ‘The Chinese Democracy’ for ever and ever, Axl Rose and friends used to play sell-out concerts to stadium audiences all over the world. They were the biggest band in rock. People loved them. Even hipster types would argue about whether ‘Appetite for Destruction’ was an important record or not.
Pohoda Festival By Dan Williams Pohoda is the biggest festival in Slovakia, having grown year on year since a couple of thousand people attended the first one in 1997. In the last few years the festival has attracted bigger crowds and bigger acts, including The Prodigy, The Pixies and Wu Tang Clan. This year 30,000 people were expected to turn out to see acts like The Streets, Fatboy Slim and Jana Kirschner.
Exploring the 'real' Slovakia By Dan Kirk Those Slovaks from areas outside of Bratislava will tell you that in order to experience the real Slovakia you must travel outside of the capital city. To an extent this is true but it is also somewhat naïve as it ignores the reality that Slovaks are embracing the glitz, glamour and wealth offered by the free market, which is currently only available in Bratislava.
Dave Seaman @ Dopler By Dan Williams I was seriously excited about this one – I’m a big fan of progressive house and of Dave Seaman. It was the first time Dave had been to Slovakia and his kind of music isn’t something that people are into over here. There are plenty of good nights in Bratislava for most types of dance music...

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