Imodium at Pilsnerfest: Vocal Cords Took a Beating, While the Beer Flowed Freely

Early October in Plzeň can only mean one thing – Pilsnerfest, a festival celebrating the city's world-famous lager Pilsner Urquell and the first batch brewed by brewmaster Josef Groll on October 5, 1842. This year, the beer celebrated its 184th birthday. In recent decades, the festival has traditionally set aside one or two days when the entire brewery opened its doors to the public, with countless Czech bands taking the stage over the years. The event has long offered a particularly strong cultural programme.

This year's edition has been expanded into a full week of celebrations. A huge tent in the brewery courtyard hosts a steady stream of bands throughout the week, with plenty of room for local acts and tribute bands. On Tuesday afternoon (October 6, 2026), however, the invitation went to Broumov-based Imodium. The brewery grounds are certainly nothing new to the band – they have performed here before, including as part of the Léto v Prazdroji series.

Imodium kicked off the evening programme at around 8 PM, drawing a sizeable crowd, with some people arriving straight from work. They opened their set with Divoká řeka, followed by Tajný lásky, Kluci nepláčou, Lampy and Klub 27. During Deset životů, Thom ventured into the crowd, clinked beers with fans and sang while sitting right in the middle of the pit. The set closed with Valerie.

Thom himself admitted that, given the state of his vocal cords, he probably shouldn't really have been singing at all – but he knew he certainly wouldn't be doing it alone in Plzeň. It was clearly no easy set to get through, but everything worked out well, with the fans refusing to leave him to it. That makes us all the happier that the band managed to play the show, especially since they had to postpone their autumn tour precisely because of the strain on their singer's exhausted vocal cords. We'll therefore have to wait until January for their next Plzeň show. For now, all we can do is wish Thom a speedy recovery.

The Pilsnerfest continues through Saturday, October 10, 2026. Alongside tribute and smaller bands, locals can look forward to Friday's Morčata na útěku and Saturday's performance by punk veterans Visací zámek. Still, we hope that next year's Pilsnerfest will return to the classic one-day format packed with a diverse lineup of bands, as it was in previous editions.

Šári