| Půlnoc | |
| Origin: | Prague |
| Genre: | Rock |
| Years Active: | –, – |
| Label: | Arista Records |
| Associated Acts: | Globus International, The Plastic People of the Universe |
| Past Members: | Milan Hlavsa Josef Janíček Petr Kumandžas Tomáš Schilla Karel Jančák Michaela Němcová Jiří Křivka Jiří Michálek Jiří Kabeš Tadeáš Věrčák |
Půlnoc (pronounced "pull-knots" and Czech for "midnight") was a Czech rock band established in 1988 by three members of the Plastic People of the Universe: Milan Hlavsa (bass guitar), Josef Janíček (keyboards), and Jiří Kabeš (violin and guitar).[1] Hlavsa chose his sister-in-law, Michaela Němcová, to be the band's lead singer. Hlavsa started Pulnoc because the Plastic People was denied permission to travel or perform openly by the Czech government.[2] In the spring of 1989, Pulnoc went on a tour of the United States that led to them gaining considerable favorable attention there. For example, Robert Christgau named a bootleg of a concert the band played in New York City the best album of 1989.[1] Steve Hochman described this tour as "remarkable at least as much musically as it was culturally," writing that when the band played a show in San Francisco in 1989, "Plastic People fans and the uninitiated curious alike were floored by the combination of heavy metal, art-rock, operatic vocals and locomotive-worthy propulsion."[3]
In 2011, the band reunited (without Hlavsa and Kabeš) and played a number of concerts during the following decade. In April and May 2022, they embarked on an eight-date final tour, culminating on 13 May 2022 in Jihlava.[4]