On Wednesday, March 25, I headed to Palác Akropolis to see a German band Die Happy, fronted by Marta Jandová, who was born in the Czech Republic but has built her career mainly in Germany. Ironically, the band isn’t very well known here and doesn’t perform often, so I was curious.
I arrived at the club around seven o'clock and was surprised by how few people were there. Die Happy had brought a Finnish band Moon Shotas their opening act. The band was formed by former members of better-known projects like Children of Bodom and Lapko, and plays an energetic mix of alternative rock and indie. And Moon Shot went all out. Their singer, who is a truly distinctive figure, played a big part in that. He’s eccentric, highly expressive in his movements, and constantly engaging with the audience. There was always something happening on stage. In the front row, they even had two die-hard fans—two ladies who had traveled all the way from Finland to see them, because this was their sixtieth concert in the front row. The singer gave them a moment of his attention and thanked them, which was a nice touch.
Die Happy took the stage shortly after eight, and by then the club had filled up quite a bit. Marta Jandová stormed onto the stage like a hurricane and kept that energy going throughout the entire set. She’s exactly the kind of singer who makes you think, “This is basically an aerobics class, just with a microphone.” And that makes you admire her all the more for managing to sing flawlessly while doing it.
Throughout the evening, she interacted a lot with the audience, and it was clear she was enjoying being back home in the Czech Republic. Her bandmates don’t speak much Czech, so sometimes they just stood there watching Marta take the stage, but it was more endearing than distracting. At one point, she even mentioned her dad, Petr Janda. Apparently, he wanted to come see the show because Die Happy doesn’t play here very often, but then they found out that he was playing with Olympic in Ústí nad Labem on the same evening—and even at the same time. So, understandably, that didn’t work out.
They also performed the new song “Empathy Is No Weakness”, which gave the entire tour its name and was written in response to a statement by Elon Musk. The audience also responded well to older tracks like “Too Fast”, “Goodbye”, and “It’s The Rebel In You”. It was during this song that Marta taught the audience to sing in a raspy voice, which was one of the funniest moments of the evening. Considering how many people were in the club, the chorus sounded surprisingly strong.
There were also some behind-the-scenes tidbits. Marta mentioned that their roadie had been injured the day before and ended up in the hospital, so the tour manager filled in for him this time. Things like that are just part of the reality of life on tour.
Overall, it was a great concert. Musically, it was maybe a little softer than what I'm used to, but a concert is all about energy. And Marta and Die Happy definitely have plenty of that.
Report and photos by Lenka Machuldová