The angry and insistent IDLES announce their return to Prague. The musicians, who call for boundless love through their punchy, angry songs, will perform at Prague’s SaSaZu on 11 March 2024 as part of the Rock for People Concerts series. IDLES earned a nomination for the prestigious Grammy Awards this year alongside artists such as Ozzy Osbourne and Bryan Adams.
IDLES have emerged from the dark holes of the British port city of Bristol to shout their fear, anger and concern about the world around them on the ruins of the declining indie scene there. The band’s genre oscillates somewhere between rock and punk. They then combine the fury of post-punk and punk rock with a muscular, moody instrumental attack that matches the purposeful menace of the lyrics. Their music is raw and honest to the core, and the band uncompromisingly wrings sweat and blood from fans and themselves while performing.
The musicians are not afraid to communicate their bold and brutally honest opinions on the state of British culture and politics in their songs, but they also delve into more intimate and personal topics. In their groundbreaking album ‘Joy as an Act of Resistance’, the Bristol five-piece mirror issues such as Brexit, the migration crisis and toxic masculinity. In it, singer Joe Talbot tackles his traumas from drug addiction and the death of his child.
The beginnings of IDLES in 2009 were already ambitious. In an effort to find an audience, Joe Talbot and Adam Devonshire started the Bat-Cave nightclub in Bristol and spread their first tracks to fans in the form of home-recorded demos. The band have come a long way since their beginnings. In 2018, this fierce five-piece earned a place in The Guardian’s best album of the year list. During their tenure, they have picked up Best British Breakthrough awards from Kerrang! magazine and Best Live Act at the US Libera Awards, among others.
Over the years, the band has gained many devoted fans at every turn – through the musical opportunities afforded by Steve Lamacq and BBC 6 Music, to independent gigs and the frenzied AFGang community – the latter of which has made a feature film called ‘Don’t Go Gentle: A Film About IDLES”, which has been released worldwide and screened at many international film festivals.
