Double Adapter tour diary: Prague, bitches!

The south African electro duo Double Adapter has visited Prague recently. Here is the newest part of their tour diary.
Part 2: Prague, bitches.

Dan and I arrive in Prague and it's wall to wall tourists and celebrations for Easter. There are stalls everywhere selling all sorts of crazy food and miscellaneous other crap - you can buy everything from a suit of armor and a sword to a hand carved wooden shuttlecock - presumably for a fucking MANLY game of badminton.

The city itself is fucking beautiful and the promoter for the party we're playing at, Simon, tells us a little about the Czech republic and Prague's party scene. He says it's a great place to live, although sometimes it can feel like you're stuck in a 24/7 tourist attraction... which in a lot of ways, you are. I can completely see where he's coming from. Prague (at least to my uneducated eyes) is a bit like a cross between a museum, an art gallery, a strip club and Disneyland.

We take in the sights (which are numerous, and include the legendary Astronomical clock, and the history steeped Charles bridge, a site of Catholic pilgrimage) before heading off for a distinctly Czech dinner. This is clearly a country that eats like Dan - meat, starch, beer, more beer, done. You don't even order more beer when you finish your first one. They just spot the empty glasses and immediately place new ones on the table. So I guess I should have said the Disneyland of drinking.

The venue we're playing at is called Chapeau Rouge and if you're from Joburg, you'll be able to picture it by imagining Roxy's in Melville... Just place it in a catacomb/bunker and give it a subtle soviet twist. The thing about Prague clubs, we learn, is that until about 12 you basically have a club full of American pub crawl kids. And they come in waves! The club goes from empty to jam packed about 5 times from 9:30 until 12, and these kids want RIHANNA BITCH. Now, we love us a little Rihanna, but for fucks sakes, these kids want the originals! Club hell club hell!!!! So we're a little worried in these foreign conditions, but curiously, just before our set and to our relief, the Americans suddenly vanish (presumably to go and puke on their girlfriends in their hostels), and we start seeing familiarity. Wayfarer sunglasses, Converse shoes, girls with lip rings and crazy hair, and guys that are definitely here to mosh! It's almost like we're home again, except this is now the real deal Czech crowd. From almost empty, the club swells back to full, and this time, these are our people! Not only that, but we're totally fortunate because one of our idols from the SA music scene, Counterstrike, just happens to be in Prague and stops by to say hello! South Africa represent!

We play, and its a super fun set... those kids threw down until 5am, jumping just as high as us, fists in the air and screaming for metal. It ends up as Double Adapter vs The Fakes (awesome local Czech DJ crew headed by Simon) as a one on one set before Dan and I have to come to terms with the fact that the sun is coming up outside and we have to be in another country for sound Czech (see what I did there) in about 12 hours. Shit.

We pull ourselves out of the club and stumble back to our hotel, across the now eerily deserted Charles bridge while the beautiful and sometimes terrifying statues look down on us... keep an eye out for the video footage from Prague on MK from the 5th May onwards, and check back here for our next Dear Diary confession session about our gig in Stuttgart Germany soon - we're playing with Hey Today!

As I type this, we're on a train, motherfuckers!

Speak soon homies,
Tim and Dan