Viva Polska!

Tuesday July 27^th, Czestechowa, Poland

We woke up, cleaned up and rolled out of Prague and towards Poland.

We’ve heard mixed reviews of the country regarding everything from roads and shows to police and locals. Robert tells us that the country has a faction of rednecks, but also that the hardcore scene is very tight and has historically been pretty consistent. Our third driver, a small German named Vincent has never been to the country without being attacked by someone. He assumes that it’s largely because of his German citizenship, but it may be debateable.

We arrived to the venue in what may be considered downtown, but Czestechowa is largely a pilgrimage city and things are pretty decentralized unless you’re around the churches. Pavel from Regres provided us with a thick pile of vegan food and we loaded in as the rain poured down.

The show filled up slowly but steadily, and we were amazed at how many kids came up to us with a few words of English: “Thanks for coming up here” and “We’re excited to see your band” were common, if not perfectly stated sentiments. We played a longer set, since Poland is Robert Matusiak’s (AKA Robert Refuse) home country, and the demo 7” record was released there and well distributed. We came out to some tracks off the demo and immediately the place went bonkers. We were amazed at the reaction, and passed the Mic to Robert to sing Glue so hess’ knees could get a break.

It seems like the Polish faction must be bigger and stronger than any other group of HC kids we’ve seen on tour, and maybe in the whole world, because they threw Hess and Robert around like rag dolls as they fought for the mic and their turn to dive. We closed with Our World and a couple covers, wiping down guitars and cymbals with ear-to-ear grins and a crew of new friends testing our Polish language skills and asking for sticks, picks, and setlists. I have to say that it might have been the best set of my life, both in terms of our energy and the energy of the crowd. Their sincerity and enthusiasm made me wish that we had a whole ‘nother record to play for them in addition to the 35 minutes we played (maybe our longest set ever!).

We did a quick interview where the lines of questioning were around Hess’ last name and One Life Crew. A gun may have been on the table during the interview. Apparently Hess has the same last name as an infamous Nazi leader, even though there is absolutely no relation. Similarly, after many questions on tour, we’d like to clarify that “Right Idea” does not allude to any right-wing politics or nationalist leaning. We’re a straight edge hardcore band comprised of five friends who lead our lives as we each believe to be the right idea. This doesn’t entail any tolerance for discrimination or intolerance within the scene or the world around us. As Hess says on stage, “We’re a unity band.” Following the delightful interview, we crammed into the soggy van and drove off into the night.

We went back to Pavel’s where we spread out to sleep and caught up on emails with loved ones. We awoke to a split pea-corn spread on toast with tea and coffee, ate ourselves full and quickly began our drive to Vienna. Big ups to Pavel and his partner Agata for helping us out with the show and home cooking. Regardless of previous heresy, we were impressed with the strength of the scene and were delighted to get to play in Poland.

Better photos than we can provide are available at http://keepthismoment.com/photos/right-idea/. Please check them out.

There is also a full video of the set here