Dateline, July 16, 2022

Some people in this world are great singers. Others are great songwriters. And some are very good singers and songwriters.

Amy Winehouse was one such person. There are very few people in this world who have the gift of matching music to words. Paul McCartney has it, Carole King has it, and Amy Winehouse had it. However, McCartney and King did their best work as part of a duo, whereas Amy’s lyrical and musical genius seemed to reside entirely within her amazingly complex soul. Although it is certainly sad that she was taken from us too soon, Forever Amy rises like a phoenix from the ashes, so that her immortal music may live in. Featuring Amy’s musical director/bassist Dale Davis, Amy’s guitarist Hawi Gondwe, Amy’s drummer Nathan Allen, and Amy’s horn section of Henry Collins (trumpet) and Jim Hunt (saxophone), there is no doubt about the authenticity of the music. Bristol native Bronte Shande sings Amy’s immortal words, and while Shande may not be blessed with the same extremely think vocal chords that Amy possessed, but she sings pitch perfect and with the the same passion and intensity that Amy had. The fact that two women share the same working-class English accent is an added bonus.

And lucky me. As soon as I saw the poster for the Forever Amy show, I purchased a ticket. The concert venue took place at Mystic Skatepark, a small platform with bleachers on the eastern edge of Štvanice Island. As fate would have it, Štvanice sits right between Karlín and my student flat in Holešovice. I made sure to arrive nice and early, as my ticket was standing room only, and I wanted a good view of the band.

Everything about the show was simply electric. The band clearly enjoyed themselves on stage, and Bronte invited the crowd to sing along on more than occasion. People sang, they danced, they clapped. At times, I wondered which was more unbelievable: that 15 years had passed since Amy Winehouse took an unsuspecting world by storm with “Rehab,” or that such a complex song like “Rehab” would even rush to the top of the music charts in the first place. Some people tried to clap along during the show, only to realize that it’s not a simple 4/4 beat song. Like Amy herself, it’s very complex. And like all of her songs, the musical melody fits with the whimsical lyrics perfectly. It’s fitting that one of Amy’s only cover songs was a Gerry Goffin/Carole King number, “Will you still love me tomorrow?” And of course, Bronte and Forever Amy played that song live to perfection. This rendition was so hauntingly beautiful, that some in the audience had misty eyes by the song’s conclusion. In other words: yes Amy, it’s tomorrow, and we still love you.

After the show, Bronte stayed to pose for photographs and talk to literally every single person who wanted to on they out. I thanked her for doing such a great job at keeping Amy’s legacy alive. As I did so, Amy’s musical director must have overhead me and gave a smile for the camera as he walked on by.

I was a little nervous asking a stranger in a large, foreign city to take my photo, as I wasn’t even sure that anyone would be able to understand my English–and then I realized: Literally every single one of these concert attendees speaks English, because they just saw an English music show! After I thanked Bronte, I thanked my photographer, and headed back to Holešovice.

Tomorrow is a new day . . .