Kamil Pešťák

* 1967

  • "Folk has always been intertwined with the underground through such personalities as Vláďa Merta, of course some of them couldn't perform, like Třešnák, but here at Porta, Merta performed. I know it was unreal, it was really great, I was there, there were some twenty thousand people there. Occasionally people who were involved in dissent would show up or get there. The parties, the sessions, I used to go to those were great at the Porta. That was the unofficial program in the back of the fairgrounds, as were the huts and that background. It was just for musicians and you could get in on the cheap through the organisers. They played until the morning, the musicians were there working with each other, jamming, for me it was probably the best."

  • "That concert of Suřík in Roudná, that was in 1987 in a hall upstairs in Roudná. I took my friend, who was studying here in Pilsen at the high school, there. All the Pilsen people were there, about a hundred people. Now the building was surrounded after the concert started, there were about ten police cars, uniformed, undercover, everybody, a huge action. They locked us in, they just surrounded it, the whole Roudna was full of cops, and then one by one - they didn't let anyone go to the toilet, they left the girls there, we were there for a long time - now they put the patrols there and let us out one by one. They legitimized us and took some people away, it was crazy, incomprehensible from today's point of view. Then they called us in for these interrogations. I was here on the waterfront in this new building, they had a maid's room upstairs, and now they were showing me pictures of my friends to see if I knew them. They knew everything anyway, they were taking pictures of us, filming us, but they were blackmailing me, they were showing me a picture of my friend from the gymnasium - she was applying to college - if I knew her, that they weren't going to give her a recommendation for the school."

  • "One of the events took place in Dýšina, where we played with the band Po čtyřech, Znouzecnost and Kuličkový ložisko also played there. We played this secret gig in a pub and walked home at night with Petr Hrabák. We walked through the village somewhere before Doubravka and fancied beer. There was a light on in some pub in the playground, we went there with the guitars, the long hair, that we would try to go there. At that time they were closing at ten o'clock and there were lights on. I said I'd volunteer to go in there if they'd make us a beer. The pub lady was quite rude to me, I was quite offended because I went in there begging. So I told her to fuck off... and the whole room came at us, they beat us like horses, I've had a crooked nose ever since."

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Plzeň, 31.08.2023

    (audio)
    duration: 02:11:13
    media recorded in project Příběhy regionu - PLZ REG ED
Full recordings are available only for logged users.

Those who didn’t want to go through the embarrassment of a playback had to perform secretly

Kamil Pestak, 1969
Kamil Pestak, 1969
photo: Archive of the witness

Kamil Pešt’ák was born on 5th August 1967 in Pilsen. He spent his childhood in Šumava, where his father served in the mountain service. After elementary school, he apprenticed as a lift repairman in an industrial company and began to devote himself to music. He played with like-minded young people at unofficial concerts, because he did not want to attend the obligatory rehearsals before ideological committees. He recalls how the members of the security forces, as well as ordinary people, treated the so-called Mánička people. He describes the most brutal as the police intervention at a secret concert of the band The Suřík in Plzeň, Roudná. In the spring of 1989, Kamil Pešt’ák returned from the army and, ironically, became a lifeguard at the Red Star sports club, which managed the Na Lopatárně swimming pool. During the Velvet Revolution, he and a group of friends went around Pilsen’s businesses and persuaded workers to join the strike. After the revolution, he devoted himself fully to travel, sports and music, helping to found the legendary Pod Lampou music club. After the beginning of the new millennium, he began to write books on mountaineering and Sumava.