Given that Europe is now the epicenter of the pandemic, European bands—like Poland’s psych-rock group Trupa Trupa—have also been heavily affected. “On March 10, Trupa Trupa was supposed to play a big show in Warsaw with Mura Masa,” says the band’s lead vocalist, Grzegorz Kwiatkowski in an email. “We packed our equipment and started to drive from Gdansk to the capital, and just 10 minutes later we had information from Live Nation that this show is canceled because of the government’s new coronavirus policy. So we stopped our van and returned home.”
Although the situation is frustrating, Kwiatkowski is hopeful. “We’ve got one song called ‘Only Good Weather’, and in some ways it means that even if it’s bad nowadays, we know it will be better,” he says. “If we are not playing gigs, we are using our time on composing and having more rehearsals.”
As panic, and respiratory droplets, both spread rapidly, hope remains crucial—and nothing inspires hope quite like the arts. Kwiatkowski, the Trupa Trupa singer, urges us to remain optimistic. “I think the next four weeks should be really restricted time and I hope these four weeks will minimize the spreading of disease,” Kwiatkowski says. “We should all remember that from this kind of tragic moment, great things are born and established. The Solidarity worker movement was established in Gdansk in a very dark Communism era.
“I hope this tragic moment will improve USA and Europe and the whole world as a community,” Kwiatkowski adds. “What is most important: that we save as many people as we can, ’cause this is all in our clean hands now. We are responsible for others.”
Zach Schonfeld, www.consequenceofsound.net
