Punk is alive, the Toy Dolls showed

T-shirts with writing Punk is not dead it usually feels like an anachronism, like a requiem from a bygone era, but the Toy Dolls have proven that punk isn’t really dead. At the 40th anniversary concert they confirmed that not only do they lack energy, but their approach is able to fascinate listeners who weren’t even present at the time of the band’s formation, even if the singer didn’t jump as high as a the first Toy Dolls concert at Eden in the early 1990s.

Singer and guitarist Michael Olga Algard asked himself a rhetorical question of whether he was too old for that, whether the audience wasn’t too old, but there was no need for a negative answer to make it clear he wasn’t. Both sides enjoyed it. Then he started a punk version of Bach’s Toccata in D minor. The band likes to offer quirky covers, to which the Puerto Rican hit El Cumanchero in Arš has been added. In the long Harry Cross, he once again showed how he can play with the tune, and the song Alec’s Gone was great too.

Toy Doll doesn’t have much in common with the clichés that punk is usually associated with. There is no lack of artistic skill, Olga carefully refines rock’n’roll riffs and is not ashamed of her execution technique. The enraged band does not satisfy the typical idea of ​​nihilistic punk full of anger. The origins of the Toy Dolls, which they claim to be oi, even though they have nothing to do with skinheads, are different. The music is sharp, fast, aggressive, but not negative. In her lyrics, Olga draws on nonsense poems, absurd situations and children’s rhymes, after all, their first hit Nellie The Elephant was a children’s song.

Toy dolls do not beat the world and its evils, they show that there are alternatives to the gray world, it is possible to escape it at least for a while, they invoke the praise of madness and the joy of partying and joking. Ricky Olga dragged a bottle of champagne onto the stage, which was bigger than him. When he finally opened it, the confetti flew away. Then he again offered refreshments to the front row audience. The concert was more of an experience for the ears and the echoes of British cabaret tradition were evident.