Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Banale Club, Padua, Italy
Concert date: 06.11.2006
Attendance: 40
Madness! Back in the car! Back to Italy. The days fly by so fast that you literally go emotionally numb from the sheer flood of events spinning in front of your eyes, quicker than you could consciously take them in. There were events that people once lived so intensely, waited for with impatience and burning fan enthusiasm. Terrible, what we’re sinking into!?? But without that enthusiasm, we wouldn’t be going nuts over Padua!
House Of Shakira are a band that cultivates the very musical style RockLine was born for in its most basic essence. Melodic hard rock, AOR (adult oriented rock). Just how uninteresting this genre is to the masses these days was confirmed by this gig, which for RockLine actually meant a long 8 months of waiting, since the site’s birth in March 2006, for a first chance to cover a show by a band that represents the AOR genre. As for the further reasons why this genre gets overlooked, despite the fact that a heap of excellent AOR studio albums comes out every year, you’ll find out below anyway.
Per the usual expectations, born from the experience of this kind of trip around Italy, we got lost. Naturally, right after leaving the motorway. But less than we had predicted. Around 20:15 we happily came barreling up to the scene of the crime, which is horribly badly signposted, by the way. The very first contact was fateful! At the door, as I asked my “scuzaned” question: “Scuza… Banale Club?!?!?”, the first to speak up was none other than Emiliano, the friendly and likeable head of the concert promotion agency Bologna Rock City, who had come to Padua from Bologna, around 100 km away, to help House Of Shakira for this event. I almost jumped into his arms with joy that we’d found each other. Soon after, Anders, guitarist of House Of Shakira, appeared at the main entrance. Our crew had been in constant e-mail contact with him beforehand, because the official website of the local promoters running Banale Club was badly out of date! Not once on it was the name House Of Shakira mentioned, not with a single word. Things started rolling for us beautifully! Emiliano didn’t hesitate and invited us straight inside. Not a few minutes passed before two members of the evening’s support act turned up in front of us, both guitarists of the Italian band Markonee. By looks and age they seemed like Obi-Wan Kenobi & his young apprentice – Stefano and Carlo. Bojan in particular found plenty of common ground with the younger of the two, especially after the promising young guitarist showed him the original Jackson Phil Collen (Def Leppard) model electric guitar that the kid uses at Markonee gigs.
Meanwhile, the members of House Of Shakira were already warming up and tuning in properly in the “soundcheck” on stage. Cool, refined Swedish perfection. They were completely absorbed in what they were doing. We knocked back a few “cups” of beer, as is the old rocker concert custom, and enjoyed the show.
People were nowhere to be seen. That’s the one and only truly sad thing that followed the band through the whole week of their Italian tour. Markonee were announced for 22.00, but Banale Club simply waited to see if a few more people would show up. Did they?
MARKONEE: 22.55 – 23.15
By then there were 25 people, maybe 30 (waiters and tech crew included), but it was high time and the promising Italians kicked off their set. Markonee play typical glammed-up glam hard rock, built under the heavy influence of the hot bands of the second half of the eighties, like Van Halen and Whitesnake back then, though they also like to nod to the rawness and directness of seventies classic rock riffs a la Grand Funk Railorad (in the soundcheck they were warming up on We Are An American Band) and Led Zeppelin. Since people just wouldn’t show up, the guys shortened their set accordingly. They lit the fuse with the song Motori/Markonee. As you can tell from the title alone, it’s a cover of the Divlje Jagode original. Markonee reworked it by writing their own English verses while keeping the word Motori in the chorus. The band is supposedly already fairly popular in the countries of the former Yugoslavia, while in Slovenia they haven’t managed to get noticed yet, even though, as Stefano told us before the show, they’re working hard in that direction too. Since the desired reaction from the audience just wasn’t coming, the band wrapped up after 20 minutes and gave us a repertoire of just four songs altogether (no encore, of course). Enough for us to keep an eye on them in the future!
HOUSE OF SHAKIRA: 23.30 – 00.30
The guys quickly found their feet in their element and stormed their gear like kids at toys in a sandbox, and there they were. Truly like seeing a rare species of dinosaur, the monster from Loch Ness, the Yeti, Godzilla…. In short, the guys got the chance to do a shortish one-week tour of Italy, and luckily they ended up close enough that we drove to Padua with the greatest curiosity to see them live.
No doubt about it. The guarantee of their excellence was the two studio albums we’d listened to beforehand, “Lint” and “On The Verge” – thanks to the diligent Bojan. The lads have four albums, a “live” DVD and a “live” album out in their career, yet they’re hopelessly poorly covered promotionally across Europe, so the sight of the “merchandise” was most pleasant, and the prices were exceptionally friendly too. CDs and DVD at 10.00 € each.
The fellas hit us right away with The Song Remains, a seriously striking song from their second album “On The Verge” (1998), which grabs all your attention immediately. A walk six years forward with Uncontrolled (“First Class”, 2004). The hall gaped with emptiness, a horrifying sight. And yet the Swedish perfectionists didn’t let it faze them. They delivered first-rate sound, perfect instrumental balance, with an impressively melodic vocal in the center, a real treat for the ears – with a speed-driven, virally infectious effect! Singer Andreas has that rare feel that today adorns only a few singers of the younger generation. An extremely powerful voice in every single passage, an outstanding feel for falsetto swoops and for carrying a melody. By In Your Head (“III”, 2000) he was fully warmed up and, with his approach, brought to life more than a passing resemblance to Steve Perry – the most important singer of Journey’s career.
Of course, whenever there’s a debate about their music, House Of Shakira always get a pinch of Journey, however you turn it. The guys really do deliver technically and melodically compact songs, instantly accessible to any ears, with choruses of top-notch expression, seasoned with rich multi-vocal backing. A “stripped-down” Journey, their somewhat rawer reflection in the mirror, leaning more on the guitar riff, with no keyboards, and yet always with a pinch of that recognizable essence that points to the aforementioned American AOR heavyweights.
Because the show was miserably attended, House Of Shakira cut three songs (Mboulomona, Lint, Elephant Gun) from the set, and the drum solo on top of that. The guys took every bit of chanting from the individual lonely heads in the audience, me included, with approval, but you could feel a whiff of cynicism in their reactions, because it just wouldn’t sink in how their gig could be so miserably attended. First row empty! More than that. The first several meters – nothing! Darkness! Total blackout! Of course we suffered a big loss in terms of the atmosphere a decent crowd creates, which this time just wasn’t there.
Then bassist Per made an interesting move and it caught the “crowd’s” attention. And what was so earth-shattering that he did? In this case the deed carried for humankind almost the weight of the groundbreaking act of the most serene Noah himself, when he saved the living world from the universal flood. Per, you see, tossed out a few guitar picks. The little Italians came rushing right up in front of the stage in formation. Unbelievable, how fake! And yet at least now they chanted with newfound courage and backed the band right at the stage, which softened the sad picture conjured up by the dismal attendance! The band closed the shortened set with Method Of Madness, an excellent song from the debut “Lint” (1997) with a chorus that literally begs the crowd to sing along. But not this time. This time the audience gave off more of a muted twittering than loud cheering.
The band was already about to say goodbye. The guys had practically all picked up their tasks to start packing away the gear, and yet guitarist Mats gestured to the people to please make some noise worth mentioning. So the band, more out of routine than anything, took their positions on stage again and offered two more AOR treats. We’re talking covers. Whose? To play Journey, you have to have big balls. House Of Shakira not only have them, they masterfully handle the tough, perfectionist mouthful that is Journey. Swedes, after all. Unwavering striving for perfection – a big job, a grueling job. Andreas shone again with his heartfelt singing. It was Stone In Love and then one more! Any Way You Want It! Madness!!!! I was quietly expecting Separate Ways, I knew House Of Shakira had plenty of affection for Journey, but they obviously master more than just one Journey song. Hats off, guys. For the sound, for the complete stage approach of the technical playing itself, for how tight they are with each other.
Then only Andreas (vocals) and Mats (guitar) remained on stage. They closed the night with the excellent ballad Chicago Blue (“First Class”, 2004). The guys absolutely still felt like playing, but too much was just too much. I remembered this year’s Biker’s festival in Hruševje, but there rain ruined the festival, while this time in Italy people literally ruined House Of Shakira. The bulk of the blame naturally lies with the local promoters. Anders, who incidentally earned plenty of sympathy from the only female member of our three-person Slovenian delegation, said in conversation that House Of Shakira had, for example, had just 100 people under the stage in the middle of big Rome. You can’t believe it! Before this tour, House Of Shakira supposedly sent 90 posters to local promoters for a total of 5 concert dates around Italy. Of all those posters they didn’t see a single one stuck up when they rolled into the locations where they played. Truly sad. They’d probably find it easier to fill Ljubljana’s Orto Bar even without advertising the gig beforehand. It’s simply proof that Italians couldn’t care less, while here people would surely welcome House Of Shakira in a far more genuine, or rather musically warmer way, even though this is a “small” melodic hard rock band, the kind that just never makes it to Slovenia from abroad.
The band entertained us for barely an hour in total. Even Emiliano was visibly crestfallen after the show because of the crowd’s ignorance. Still, the three of us tourists were more than satisfied with the experience. A friendly and warm attitude and welcome, an exchange of experiences and contacts, a deep conversation with the band,…. The reception of media representatives like that could be a lesson for many concert promoters in Slovenia. Hey! The comparison is fair, isn’t it? We’re part of the European Community, after all.
Setlist
Markonee 1. Colours 2. Loved Land 3. Motori/Markonee 4. Burnin’ House Of Shakira 1. The Song Remains 2. Uncontrolled 3. In Your Head 4. Hey Lord 5. Best Of Times 6. Wings 7. Morning Over Morocco 8. Who’s Lying Now 9. You Are 10. Method Of Madness 11. Pellucid —encore I.— 12. Stone In Love 13. Any Way You Want It —encore II.— 14. Chicago Blue
