Prague – The Tiger Lillies

Cynthia bought a copy of the Prague Post the other day because it is printed in English. I was looking at the entertainment section and there on the cover was the unmistakable visage of Martyn Jacques of The Tiger Lillies. I read the article and it turns out the band was playing 5 nights in Prague as part of a theater show at the Archa called “Here I Am Human

These guys never come to Houston and have rarely played in the United States, but they have quite a cult following and I figured I should seize this opportunity. As it turns out, the Archa is only an easy 15 minute walk from our apartment. We decided we’d check it out and purchased tickets.

The theme of the show is, as the name would suggest, about being human. It was not a concert, per se. It was an avant-guarde stage performance featuring a narrator explaining various aspects of what it is to be a human being.

He took the audience from biblical creation and being cast out of the garden of Eden through Darwinism and explained how we as humans separated ourselves from our more animal instincts. Of course all the narration was in Czech with minimal English subtitles so I am sure much was lost in the lack of translation. But the performance of the actors did a good job of keeping us on the story track.

All the while The Tiger Lillies were on the stage and performed songs they had written for the show. Sometimes as background music

Most of the time as musical interludes during the stage performance.

The songs themselves were in English so that was a plus. Some of the songs were really quite good while others catered to the more base aspects of the story line.

I should point out that the above photos are not mine. They were provided by the Archa Theater for me to use. But I did take my camera and was able to get a shot of me posing with the band after the show thanks to Cynthia.