Wild, raucous and nasty in all the right ways…keep and eye out for them.” - L.A. “These guys are great they literally look like they’ve been swept off of a dive bar floor and piled into a van, then shoved on stage. Whether headlining or opening, Hillbilly Herald knows the job and always delivers. Raspy vocals, raw guitar riffs, lyrical hooks, thundering bass and hard driving drums are at the core of this Blue Collar Rock n’ Roll show. Audiences are sucked in from the moment the lights go down. Their live show can only be explained as “highly energetic”. Hillbilly Herald’s sound is a colourful blend of some of his influences such as Guns N’ Roses, Aerosmith, AC/DC, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Bob Seger. The name of the band plays tribute to Herald’s parents and represent what it means to have a dream and work for a living to support the pursuit of that dream. At the advice of Guns N’ Roses guitarist, Slash, Indiana native, jimmy Herald started a rock band. Until July 15.Hillbilly Herald is all about blue collar rock and roll for the working man.And Sinead Cusack, doubling as Max's cancer-stricken wife and grown-up daughter, and Peter Sullivan as a Havel-like Czech protester turn in equally strong performances.īut the remarkable thing about the play is that it touches on so many themes, registers its lament at the erosion of freedom in our society and yet leaves you cheered by its wit, buoyancy and belief in the human spirit. Rufus Sewell as Jan charts immaculately the character's gradations from passive observer to disgraced dissident and shows him emerging on the other side. Brian Cox exudes massive power as the Marxist Max who goes on fighting to the end even after the loss of his wife and his political faith. And the other great virtue of the production is that allows ample scope for each intellectual viewpoint. Even though he acknowledges that they have given way to the blander effusions of today, he constantly uses music as a symbol of pagan ecstasy.Īll this is clearly articulated in Trevor Nunn's excellent production, in which the scenes are spliced with exultant rock.
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Each scene is punctuated by the sounds of legendary groups including the Stones, Pink Floyd and the Grateful Dead.
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It's a democracy of obedience."īut although Stoppard takes a pessimistic view of an England that seems to have lost any sustaining faith or principles, his play paradoxically finds hope in the liberating spirit of rock'n'roll. They put something in the water since you were here. But it is Lenka, an expatriate Czech don who seems to voice his sentiments when she urges Jan not to return, saying "This place has lost its nerve. In a crucial second-act dinner-party scene, Stoppard brings together Max, Jan and various representatives of two different cultures. In presenting two worlds, Stoppard also suggests that, while the Czechs have fought strenuously for their freedoms, we are allowing ours to slip from our grasp.
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Stoppard treats Max's convictions seriously and allows him to score strong debating-points: he is, in fact, the first sympathetic Marxist I can recall in all Stoppard's work. Jan is no heroic martyr, but an observer more drawn to the subversive band, the Plastic People of the Universe, than to protest-movements: it is only the steady erosion of Czech freedom that turns him into a dissident. What is fascinating about the play is that there are no easy victories. Meanwhile the Cambridge left is powerfully embodied by Max: an unrepentant Marxist don, as old as the October Revolution, who is still drawn to "this beautiful idea". The former are represented by Jan: an exiled Czech who returns to Prague in '68, at the time of the Soviet takeover, and who, although primarily a rock-loving non-combatant, finds himself inexorably drawn into dissidence and Charter 77. In plot terms, Stoppard deals with the contrasting fortunes of two worlds: that of Czech freedom-fighters and Cambridge Marxists.