“Have you seen 21 Pilots?” asked the Czech sat next to me. “I’ve yet to see one!” I mentioned as the helicopter drivers seat next to me remained empty. We were about to have a flight around the skies above Bridgwater’s Czech twin town Uherske Hradiste. The best I could have offered in return was a trip to the top of West Street flats. “No… 21 Pilots are American band headlining Colours of Ostrava festival!” My finger wasn’t on the pulse of modern music these days. It was news to me that Yoko Ono was joining the Beatles. I hope that works out!
In fact, we were in the Czech Republic to visit said festival with a group of music agents from the UK and Germany under the auspices of pioneering Bridgwater music man Matt Bartlett whose Midnight Mango agency was breaking ground across the globe. But from humble beginnings. As all good stories start.
Communism
37 years ago, Communism collapsed in East Europe and Czech Labour leader Antonin Machala (the anticipated pilot in the opening sentence) wrote westwards to ask for help with elections. I answered him. We set up a link.
In 1992 Antonin had just stopped work at the Let Kunovice aircraft factory and set up a small business making wheelchair ramps with his dad in their shed. Today he is the largest employer in UH with some 450 workers and a massive factory. And a helicopter.
My first thought was to take a rock band over. We formed one. I played guitar Matt played bass. We played gigs in shopping centres, museums, pubs and children’s forest camps. In the following decades I took Bridgwater musicians across every year. 1400 musicians in 87 different bands 20 choirs and 2 orchestras. We played several other Czech towns where the reputation of Bridgwater musicians preceded us-Prague, Olomouc, Ceske Budejovice. But in Uherske Hradiste it was always the Mir Klub (peace club) where we’d have the biggest welcome. The club is still there today with its doves of peace on its roof.
Wildman
Of our first group of 10 that visited in 1992, 2 never returned and have lived there ever since. The Czechs needed English teachers and so we left them our bouzouki player Andrew ‘Wildman’ Napthine who we met up with last week to see if they’d learnt anything. They’d learnt the bouzouki.
Matt Bartlett moved from bass playing in my band to forming his own band (The Visitors) (which he got me to play bass in). We supported Joe Strummer on his last Bridgwater gig. He moved into music promotion and then agency work. The world is now his workplace, but this week it was the Czech Republic.
International
I had first visited Ostrava in 1993 when it was a grim black hole of post-communist industrial depression. Crazily all the punks I met were big fans of Thatcher.
I argued into the night with them in this grim dark coal dusty city. Ostrava’s reputation preceded it.
Of the hundreds of Czechs who came to Bridgwater after European enlargement 90% came from that area.
They mainly left again after Brexit.
Festival Organiser Petra Hradilova told me the history of the festival.
Into this black environment they wanted to bring colour. That’s exactly what they did. They found the black heart of Ostrava – a massive industrial estate of foundries and furnaces and dark satanic towers and built their festival around it filling the grime of the past with the music and colours of the now and of the future. I’m not saying it didn’t look like a health and safety nightmare…but it did look like a brilliant cinematic backdrop.
Music is a unifier. Internationally and locally. And it’s a key driver for business. Music tourism alone contributes £11billion to the UK economy in a sector that sustains 220,000 jobs.
In Bridgwater we’re a majorly creative town of musical and theatrical talent and this can be a driver for us. From Carnival to the Cobblestones and from the Bridgwater Arts Centre to Midnight Mango we should nurture, support and be proud of our achievements.