Amadou et Mariam played one of the most memorable concerts in the history of our festival 11 years ago. A few talented musicians met at the Institute for Young Blind People in Bamako in the 1970s. The definitive breakthrough in their career was the album Dimanche and Bamako, which was produced by Manu Chao. Subsequently, they recorded the hymn of the FIFA World Cup in Germany, "Celebrate the Day", along with Herbert Grönemeyer. Another album Welcome to Mali became the most successful album of the year on Metacritic and was nominated for Grammy. Shortly after, they played the main stage at Glastonbury and during the Nobel Prize ceremony in 2009. Amadou et Mariam collaborated in following years with artists such as Damon Albarn, U2, David Gilmour, Coldplay, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and Scissor Sisters. Their concert at Pohoda 2019 will also be about exceptional collaboration.  Amadou et Miriam will perform with one of the most famous gospel bands of the world, Blind Boys of Alabama in project named BAMAKO TO BIRMINGHAM featuring Amadou & Miriam and Blind Boys of Alabama → read more

The legend of the Caribbean music and the queen of the Calypso genre – Calypso Rose, will also play at Pohoda 2019. Her first album was Cooperation (1964), which earned her victory in the Calypso King contest as the first woman in history. In the 1970s the award was even renamed to Calypso Monarch in her honour. At that time she also performed with Bob Marley & the Wailers. Over the course of five decades she has released up to 800 songs and 22 albums. Two years ago she recorded another great album, Far from Home, together with Manu Chao and Ivan Duran, for which she won the WOMEX Artist of the Year and the World Music Album of the Year awards at the "French Grammy" Victoires de la musique. In 2016 she released a compilation Calypso Rose, Queen of Calypso for 40 years! This year, she released the album So Calypso!, which features her most important songs, hits like Rom&Coca Cola, I Say A Little Prayer and other cover versions of artists that influenced her, such as Nat King Cole, The Melodians and Angélique Kidjo. The world-music.cz portal wrote the following about the album: “Together with the producers she put a great deal of modern vocal vitality to her older songs and cover hits, which is almost inappropriate for her age and stings like a bee.” → read more

Another name of Pohoda 2019 is an extremely innovative band from the Congolese metropolis – KOKOKO!. According to Pitchfork, they excel at turning chaos into euphoria. A group of musicians from a Kinshasa suburb puts listeners into a trance with their dance music played on "DIY instruments" made from electro (and other type of waste. The band around the French producer Débruit already caught the attention of media such as TIME, Pitchfork, Resident Advisor, BBC6, and Afropunk, and performed at the Roskilde festival, Sonar, Dour, We Love Green or Down The Rabbit Hole. KOKOKO! will also bring the unusually processed everyday life sounds of the third largest African city to Slovakia in July 2019. → read more

Pohoda 2019 will also feature Sofi Tukker whose debut Treehouse is nominated for GRAMMY for the Best Dance/Electronic Album of the Year. This is the second Grammy nomination of the duo; their first single "Drinkee" was last year among the five best dance records of the year. Drinkee and Best Friend have over 100 million streamings on Spotify also thanks to the Apple Watch or iPhone X ads. Unpredictable dance music by Sofi Tukker decorated with Brazilian instruments and inspired by the Brazilian poetry will be heard in July 2019 in Trenčín.   → read more

If you want to have something from our shop under your Christmas tree, order it by 18/12 (6 p.m.). Orders placed after this date will be delivered after the holidays. We also remind you of our special Christmas offer - when you buy two three-day tickets for 99 € each, you'll get "Christmas" socks for free. These are also available separately in three colour combinations. We're also gradually running out of older merch items, which are now being offered at a 50% discount in our shop. More at www.pohodafestival.sk/en/shop → read more

Pohoda will host a 6-member, extremely contagious post-punk band from the Swedish metropolis, Viagra Boys. Although they released their debut Street Worms only in September this year, they managed to catch the attention of media like BBC, Pitchfork, Q Magazine, The 405, and The Fader. Pitchfork included their single “Sports” in the Best New Track category, and The Guardian placed the song on the 45th place of the 100 Best Songs of the Year 2018. “Viagra boys are the epitome of the immortality of punk music. I saw them at Reeperbahn, and they were definitely the best band. They go well with Slaves, Sleaford Mods, and The Wildreness. Saxophone and keyboards never sounded so great in punk music and the singerʼs performance is phenomenal. Viagra boys are my personal discovery of 2018,” said Michal Kaščák about the band. → read more

The 1975, the winners of Brit Awards for the best British band and the NME Awards for the Best Live band will play at Pohoda 2019. They have never been short of fans, as evidenced by the fact that each of their albums reached top sales in the British chart. Initially, however, they struggled to find their way to music critics. Rolling Stone gave their first album two stars out of five, and NME awarded them a prize for the worst band. As for the second album, both of the aforementioned media ranked it first in their year-ending charts. NME even marked their latest “A Brief Inquiry into Online Relationships” as OK Computer for the millennials and gave it a 10/10 review. It was also granted approval of The Daily Telegraph, The Times, Skinny, DIY and The Q, and it also got into Best New Music category of the Pitchfork magazine. The 1975 will come to convince the Slovak fans of their qualities the first day of Pohoda. → read more

In addition to Lewis Cappaldi, who was recently nominated for the Critics' Choice of the prestigious Brit Awards for 2019, the Bastille concert in Bratislava will feature also Scottish songwriter ONR (read as honour), which is the artistic name of Robert David Shields. Nate Albert (Vice President of Capital Records for A & R, who has worked with names such as Weeknd and Florence and the Machine) said about their first encounter two years ago: “It is absolutely crazy to discover, out of the blue, someone playing at this high level”.  It is not surprising that ONR recently released the single “Jericho”, “5 Years Time”, “AMERICAN GODS”, and “LOVE IN SUBURBIA” with this label. Before he started using name ONR, he played in the band Finding Albert and wrote music for films and TV programmes of channels like Sky Sports. The Village Voice said that he is the latest export item of the Scottish scene, and his musically vital songs with a slightly dystopic touch sound like a perfect day of a totally bad year.     → read more

This year's European Festival Awards (EFA) shortlists were dominated by the Danish Roskilde and the Polish Open'er with four nominations. They are followed by the festivals Pohoda, Sziget, Exit, Wacken and Mladí Ladí Jazz, which won two EFA shortlist nominations. Pohoda was once again nominated in The Take a Stand Award category, and for the second time, Michal Kaščák found himself among the ten influential personalities of the European music business in The Award for Excellence and Passion category.   → read more

The Brighton band Penelope Isles will appear at Pohoda 2019. “When Penelope Isles started playing at the London IFF conference presenting promising artists from big agencies, I wanted to leave after the first song. But I liked the second, loved the third one, and after their fourth piece I knew that we wanted to have this band at Pohoda. It was like the spirit of Pixies was floating above Brighton and visited this special party of musicians, creating the unique music that the longer you listen to, the more treasures you find in it,” said Michal Kaščák about Penelope Isles. → read more