Location: Ljubljana (Slovenia), Rollbar
Concert date: May 16, 2005
Attendance: 250
Ticket price: free admission
It was a Friday, and it was the thirteenth! A buddy and I were drifting around through the night, mostly winging it with barely any navigation, just going by feel. Then after the third pub, somewhere in the middle of Trzin, while I’m paying for a round of Staropramen, a badly crumpled flyer falls out of my wallet. I’d totally forgotten about it. Some chick had handed it to me on Čopova earlier in the week, advertising “Daytona Party 2005” at Rollbar. The flyer promised a juicy program, so we turned around and headed back toward Šmartinska in Ljubljana.
Rollbar was already buzzing like a beehive, a colorful crowd packing the place, which was already pretty smoky and hazy. Of course there were scantily clad hostesses at all the focal points, mixing vodka with Bull Dog and strutting around with total confidence and zero shame. I’m happily enjoying a glass (or two, maybe even three) when suddenly there’s a racket and I honestly had no clue what was going on. “What, live music? Heh, some local it-girl is going to squirm around up there and mime a quick song to a backing track!” I thought, waving it off. But the longer the noise rolled on and massaged my mechanoreceptors, the more surprised I was by what I was hearing. Distorted guitars right in the middle of a glitzy, glamorous yuppie joint. Not bad, not bad at all. I go to peek at the stage from behind the bar. Whoa! Black leather, a polished image. Where do I know this from? Seven people on stage: a guitarist (Fender Stratocaster model), a female vocalist, a violist (the one who plays the viola, for the uninitiated), a flutist, a cellist, and of course the rhythm section with a drummer and a bassist. Hey, this is no joke. I elbowed my way through the jam-packed Rollbar to the other side so I could get the band in view. “Goths,” gothic metal, that was my first sweeping guess! Guitar on riffs, no solos, Celtic ornaments woven into lovely three-part harmonies from flute and viola, and the female vocals fit beautifully. The sound out front was great, no fluctuations at all, considering the tiny space and the extremely cramped performers, who nearly stepped on each other’s toes whenever they wanted to move left or right from their starting spots. So I bit my lip and decided to make contact with them during the break. A perfect chance to write something for RockOnNet and at least partly make up for having to skip Uriah Heep on May 11, 2005 in Augsburg (Germany), sniff, sniff, … because of unexpected budget troubles of my own this May.
The drummer was phenomenal, at times very wittily breaking the rhythm out of nowhere and so adding a pinch of “progressive roll drive” to the band’s expression. The songs were polished, all of them genuine original material. The openings run through nicely decorated Celtic ethno-folk “tunes,” then the song unfolds over a tastefully layered curtain of guitar riffs, resting on a lightning-fast, dynamic rhythm section. And of course the cherry on top came from the wind / string part of the band with its seriously energetic viola, rounded out by a very pretty lead female vocal that added even more atmosphere to the whole thing. So that the soundscape was nicely filled out goes without saying. And I didn’t miss keyboards at all. A few times everything sounded so Finnish that it even summoned the “almighty” Nightwish in my ear.
After the break I walked up to the guitarist and introduced myself: where, from where and where to, why, etc. … basically all those little worn-out phrases, but necessary formalities all the same. “Do you have a manager anywhere nearby?” I asked, as if I’d just landed from Mars. “For now I’m the manager!” guitarist Črt answered modestly. It ended with us (quite logically) sailing off for a beer to watch the wild writhing of the fishnet-clad “babes” who were stirring up the spirits at Rollbar. Soon I had the info I needed. The band is Aperion from Žalec, they say they play Celtic rock, and the drummer also plays in The Stroj (which is why he made such an impression on me during the first set), and the cellist works at Rollbar by day. Črt says his inspiration comes from film soundtracks like Gladiator and The Lord of the Rings, … and that he also adores the perfectionism of bands like Nightwish. Who knows, given the goals they’ve set, it wouldn’t be crazy to say that Aperion will one day perform with a symphony orchestra. While we were chatting casually, the break flew by and Aperion were back on stage for their second set. And once again they came across relaxed and energetic, with no cramps and no brakes. The end result was a heartfelt, tight performance, and the stage presence was very convincing. Give them an even bigger stage and they’d shine even brighter. Still, you could see the band felt right at home at Rollbar. The crowd cheered the musicians on and played along nicely, and Aperion played an encore on demand. I couldn’t stop grinning, especially since I walked into Rollbar with zero expectations and discovered the ambitious Aperion, with an excellent image (professionalism is clearly no stranger to them) and music that brings some freshness to the impoverished Slovenian rock scene. They’ve found their niche nicely and obviously feel great in their role (the role of a Celtic rock band). Let’s hope things keep going only up for Aperion.
The following text about Aperion was sent to me by Črt. He also sent the lineup, the setlist from the Rollbar show, and some excellent live photos, which largely saved my skin in putting together this report as a casual observer of what’s happening on the Slovenian rock scene right now. I’m immensely grateful to him.
“Aperion was formed on 01. 11. 2002 on the foundations of the defunct band Xanthochroid from Žalec, of which only the guitarist and the flutist remained. With this turning point, the music evolved from grunge with classical elements into harder-hitting rock accompanied by violin and flute. The lineup gradually settled into a six-piece (vocals, guitar, bass guitar, drums, violin and flute). The first gigs started piling up, both alongside bigger names of the Slovenian music scene and as some solo club shows. One of them was a concert at Orto bar, where our genre was dubbed ‘keltrock’ (Celtic rock), which we all agreed with, and we made the name our own. After two years, various problems and disagreements led to major personnel changes in the band. Within two months the lineup changed completely, and by December 2004, apart from the guitarist and bassist, it was an entirely new lineup. The violin was replaced by viola, the bass guitar was joined by cello in the low registers, and the flutist, drummer and singer were replaced too. This lineup has stayed unchanged to this day, and we hope there won’t be any more changes this big. Since then our music has been developing into new dimensions, the dimensions with which we now stand on stage – Aperion.”
What to add by way of conclusion? The choice of a rock band was a first-class surprise for me, because with a “horde of gelled earring-wearers” in the audience you’d expect the host to offer anything but that. But the line on the flyer, “Bikers welcome,” fully justified the choice, although I’m not sure I saw even three bikers all night at Rollbar. The main thing is that all the guests were satisfied. Whoever wasn’t into the music dutifully feasted their eyes on the half-naked “chicks” who flaunted their femininity and tirelessly paraded around the Rollbar crowd with their breezers, so everybody was happy, even though the two bravest “topless” ones didn’t exactly show off any special abundance up top, … well, or lower down either. After Aperion came a striptease, a lesbian show, and, and, … plenty more, so the temperature after Aperion’s set at Rollbar definitely didn’t drop. Quite the opposite … There was no end in sight to the wild night.
Setlist
1. Fe+
2. Raj
3. XYZ
4. Anaksimander
5. Konj
6. Ü
break
7. Ocean
8. Izvorno sporočilo
9. Dajte
10. Srh
11. Aper
encore
12. Ü (that killer version)
