So we’ve been watching Polish X-Factor, which is basically American Idol. On it, one of the judges, Czesław Śpiewa (see video in previous post), rocks Meghann’s world. In fact, he is her Polish boyfriend. Turns out, I like him, too. Um. Anyway. He’s revived accordion, cabaret, punk music in the Krakówian fashion, and, to my unrefined eye, has a rather Kantor-like aesthetic in his music videos. (Lamb aside: I can’t believe I’ve gone this long with no Kitten aside). (Kitten aside: I call it klezmer-punk.) (Lamb aside: There you go.)
Anyway, on our 6th month anniversary, which I mistook on our 5th month anniversary, I bought Meghann Czesław’s two CDs, and I listen to them more than her. Typical gift from a lamb. In exploring Czesław’s website, we discovered he was coming to Poznań! (Kitten aside: I was supposed to originally see him in Bydgoszcz for my birthday.) (Lamb aside: Just be glad you got a dinner.) So. The Lamb figured out, all on his own, that we could buy tickets for his Poznań concert at the happiest place on Earth! Stary Browar! So off to the mall we went. A very minor adventure getting the tickets, not worth detailing (Kitten aside: It’s the first time I bought concert tickets all by myself!) (Lamb aside: I was standing right there.) (Kitten aside: All by myself!) More notable than buying the tickets were the tickets themselves. (Kitten aside: Not the amount of communist stamps we needed in order to verify our purchase?) The tickets are about 6”x4” with a lovely picture of claymation Czesław and the inhabitants of his most recent album. They are lovely, and, while Meghann’s was torn severely by the bouncer upon entering the concert, mine survived more or less intact, and we have a souvenir suitable for framing.
Okay, but the concert. We had to get out to some cinema complex. Yes, a cinema complex. So Meghann works her magic, we board a tram, we decide it’s the wrong tram, we alight the tram, get on another tram, take said tram to communist blocki, and get off where we clearly don’t fit in. (Kitten aside: I think the Lamb has messed up his verbs of motion. I think alight means “get on,” not “disembark.” (Lamb aside: She may blame me, but she’s the one that suggested the word. She just can’t take responsibility. That liberal fault, unable to assume personal responsibility for her verbs.)
So we’re in this blocki neighborhood, and Meghann decides to get out a big map and unfold it brazenly on the corner where everyone is walking by either to catch a tram, disembark from a tram, or simply walk by us carrying liquor. (Kitten aside: Most of the inhabitants look like they remembered the Wehrmacht.) (Lamb aside: What about that big party of hoodies and wolves where the hoodies were dressed in pastel-colored shirts under their ridiculously narrow-shouldered suits carrying liquor on their way somewhere?) (Kitten aside: The key in that description: pastels.) (Lamb aside: Having studied hoodie masculinity from a sometimes unfortunate proximity this trip, pastels mean nothing good.) So Meghann’s got this map, we decide we need to walk along this busy road, we do, we come to a field into which Poles are just sort of ambling, we amble behind, we have to cross a freeway onramp, but, hey, the Poles are doing it! (Kitten aside: And might I note, all the Poles were dressed very well. I.E. NOT SKETCHY!) (Lamb aside: True! True! I assumed we were all going to the same concert.) So we walk under a freeway overpass, through this field, across an onramp, through a warehouse district, and, yes, all the while following well-heeled Poles, until we see, rising in the distance, like a megastore in California, the grey, featureless, parking-lot surrounded, Cinemaplex. (Kinopolis, in Polish, that is, City of the Kino.)
There’s a huge line outside, but, for some bizarre reason, I think it might be for Kung Fu Panda 2. So we go inside and, no, it’s not for Kung Fu Panda 2, it’s for Czesław. (Kitten aside: at least I got a bathroom out of the deal.) (Lamb aside: Oh my God, yes, if we hadn’t had those bathrooms before the concert all would have been lost. As you will see, dear reader. Read on! Read on!) (Kitten aside: Or you just could have peed on the side of the building.) (Lamb aside: You think once we were inside?) (Kitten aside: Eh.)
Okay, so we pee, we get in line, the herd begins to move! To stampede! Sorry friendly local Poles, but it’s just a fact, Polish people do not, cannot, will not, queue. I imagine this is true in many post-Communist countries were waiting in line could mean not getting food. However, we were all going to get into Czesław. We had tickets. Then again, one time I had tickets for an airplane and I couldn’t get in because, I did not queue in time. I guess if LOT oversold an airplane, Czesław could have oversold a concert.
Regardless! The line was crazed! A mass of people! And, dear reader, wolves were fighting in their high heels, and we cut around them. Yes, we cut. So sue us. But eventually we got into… the cinema! It was a movie theatre, with popcorn, where else would you have a concert? (Kitten aside: It was really more of a lobby. There was no screen.) (Lamb aside: Okay, a movie lobby.) But the location didn’t matter when Czesław came out. It was brilliant. Wonderful. Obscene. Vulgar. Accordion. Hot. Sweaty. No AC. Lots of bodies. From children under 10, to babcie. The three-piece band sounded incredibly full; the accordion was like a synthesizer in its range of electronic ability; the guy who played bass/guitar similarly could make that bass sound like I’ve never heard a bass sound, and the drummer had all sorts of fun things to hit. Czesław mostly sung, though did play the accordion in the encore. Meghann has a video. Perhaps she’ll post it.
Afterwards, we took a taxi home, and the nice man driving had to shoo another taxi out of the way to take us. Riding home, we crossed the Warta River, I saw the towers of the Rynek, and I thought: “I’m in Europe.” It was lovely. I held Kitten’s hand. We got off at the happiest place on Earth, Stary Browar, and walked home.
But oh! It continues! Shortly after, I wrote to Bill, the DJ at Radio Paradise, my online radio station, telling him of Czesław’s glory. To my surprise, Bill wrote back, asking how to pronounce Czesław’s name. Now Czesław regularly plays on Radio Paradise. If this is not my contribution to Polish/American relations, as was entrusted upon me by the Fulbright Commission, I don’t know what is. (Kitten aside: America, that’s your tax payer money, hard at work.)
(Kitten PS: Sigh. Verbs of motion struck again. Without taking responsibility, “alight” means to dismount.)
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