This Tuesday, the O2 Prague arena held a concert for the 85th anniversary of the birth of the most famous Czech singer of the second half of the 20th century under the name Karel Gott – his songs live on. With such a large number of actors, it couldn’t be watching anything but a well-executed variety show from the 80s. It was not a shameful event like the same tribute to Waldemar Matušek a few years ago, but nothing memorable either.
The first half hour looked disastrous. There would be so many second-rate actors with performances without divine color Karl Gottawhich is he died in 2019 at the age of 80, may not be happy. Although, with his famous portion, he certainly wouldn’t show it.
Almost miraculously, an a cappella version of one of Gott’s originals, Eyes Covered in Snow, played by Bára Poláková, stuck out amidst the shunt singing. Definitely the most original act of the evening. And in a way, an interesting contemporary issue, because at the time when this effective tune was created by Jiří Šlitra, the dissonant doo-wop style was just flirting all over the world. Poláková has now “translated” the song into it after six decades.
Ilona Csáková, whose Muzika performance, finally brought boundaries worthy of Gott’s evening, plucking the audience from the galaxy of bad young artists who were too tired by the media. After that, several interesting moments appeared, because the event was not completely useless.
Twenty-five-year-old Kristián Šebek became the biggest star. When he was making a collage of songs with bird motifs, it was as if Gott’s spirit entered him. Except for a few details, the person with his eyes closed thought he was hearing the Master himself.
Šebek is unlucky though, because today’s popular music is different than it was in Gott’s time, and as Andrea Bocelli says, it’s not so easy now than it was -write these songs for musicians. So Šebek could end up touring programs similar to those where impersonators once imitated Vlasta Burian.
The actress and singer Hana Holišová belonged to the additional class of Gottov actors. The way she handled Eloise’s dramatic rise left the audience breathless. Her performance could only be compared to the performance of “Ka tánát šel új bráter Jan”, with which Lucie Bílá ended her three-song block.
Female singers dominated the whole idea. Ilona Csáková, Anna Julie Slováčková, Monika Absolonová and Lucie Bílá mostly bet on amazing ballads that will rip the heart and lungs, and sometimes you could even believe it.
Richard Krajčo was the only one who could compete with them with his performance. He made full use of his expressive acting talent and moved well-chosen songs to a positive civil situation. Just argue and C’est la vie got a completely new dimension, more modern compared to others.
A careful listener might have noticed a little technical trickery, but it didn’t throw the artist off and they didn’t bother the audience. The honest backing band worked especially hard for the singers and won the respect of the nearly sold-out O2 arena. Those who were looking forward to the man who advertised eighty-two, Josef Zíma, were disappointed – he didn’t do that.
The presentation was accompanied by moderator Libor Bouček. Someone wrote unnecessarily long and too clever speeches for him, but he handled them well and proved that he has no competition in his field today in the republic.
