25 Years of Rock at the Bar: Šank Rock Celebrate in Velenje’s Rdeča dvorana (2007)

In the style of Big Foot Mama the year before last and Siddharta’s marathon last year, the third “giants” of the Slovenian rock scene spent a long time preparing their concert of 2007 – a celebration of 25 years of the band in their home Rdeča dvorana in Velenje. The band hyped it up very pompously, and there was whispering that the ’80s look and music of the band would be the main attraction of the show. But was that really the case?

Around 7 p.m. we showed up in front of the hall, 2 of us with tickets, 2 supposedly on the guest list, and one planning to buy a ticket on the spot……Nope! Concert sold out, and getting a ticket off the list turned out to be an art form of its own, and I almost gave up on seeing the show. In the end it all somehow worked out, and shortly before eight I was already sipping a hoppy beverage of a green brand from ridiculously small 0.3 glasses, while on stage Zablujena generacija kicked off their set. All well and good, the guys have loads of energy on stage, and kudos also for the banter from frontman Primož, but the music just isn’t really my cup of tea….except for the odd legendary Green Day or Offspring record, I’d had my fill of pop punk way back at the end of the last millennium, so I only barely chewed my way through a show that was otherwise fun for the crowd around me. Superboj, parararararara……

 

And then the waiting…and waiting…and the photographers in the photo pit yawning around me….and waiting…a short documentary about the band, which we couldn’t watch from the photo pit…and a bit more waiting… Finally, though, Šank Rock appeared on stage in some kind of quasi-glam-rock rags that were sadly beneath all criticism, especially given the promises made, and the whole thing looked more like a cheap office carnival party than a stroll through the history of a serious band. After two songs in that vein (rockers and partying), Uranjek stepped up to the mic and quickly said something along the lines of it being 2007, not 1987, and the guys vanished from the stage, which was taken over by DJ Housemouse, who treated us to his house version of the Šank Rock track TV. After that the band came back on stage in “normal” clothes, and from then on there were no more surprises in the form of old and rare songs, which I count as the biggest minus of the show. What flew past us instead were the standards TV, Hočeš nočeš (with the obligatory Natalija), Hvala za vse (with a guest from the coast whose name escaped me), Le 17, Laški pir, Maček, the obligatory bass, guitar and drum solo spots, and of course a large part of the otherwise excellent latest album Senca sebe, and then the next surprise – the vocal group Cantemus performed the legendary ballad Ker te ljubim a cappella, which sounded interesting enough, but personally I’d rather have heard the original. While the eyes of the hall were fixed on the songbirds on stage, the stars of the evening almost unnoticeably relocated to the right side of the hall, where on an improvised “mini stage” they hinted at the beginnings of their career, but again played a song from the latest album…. When they returned to the main stage they were joined by soon-to-be mom Tinkara Kovač, and together they delivered a truly excellent Metulj, though the Slovenian rock singer’s flute sadly stayed a bit too far in the background. Two extremely plastic strippers also showed up on stage and clearly warmed up the male audience, followed by yet another obligatory (but slightly unnecessary) guest, 6pack Čukur, and with him the band played another hit, Dej bolj na glas radio. Over two hours of concert soon flew by and the band said their first goodbye. Of course an encore was a must, and the guests of honor came back one more time, thanked the fans for all the years of support, and with Pravljica o mavričnih ljudeh and Jaz nimam noč za spanje it was a wrap.

What to say in conclusion? As the eternal grump, I naturally take a dump on the setlist….I was hoping for some songs like Verjemi mi, Hold on, Heart is a fire, Hej ti, Hiša strahov, V balado spremenjen…in a show of almost three hours they could have squeezed in quite a few of those. I also hold it against them that Zvone Hranjec, the legendary author and guitarist on the band’s early hits, neither appeared on stage nor got so much as a word of mention. I’d also slam the audience, because there were few real rockers, but plenty of classic Slovenian country bumpkins in little shirts, for whom a show like this is one more chance to pick a new fight, dragging in everyone around them from radio 2m….sadly, there was no shortage of such cattle. The band itself is in excellent form, Matjaž’s voice is top-notch, and it looks like they’ll keep playing for many years to come; but there’s no need to shove their own history off into some subconscious corner.

text: Gregor Šujica
photos: Gregor Šujica