Venue: Jamski Dvorec, Postojna
Concert date: 24.04.2008
Attendance: 150
Ticket price: 12 €
The Croatian blues troubadours Little Pigeon’s ForHill Blues have a good seven years behind them of scattering bluesy sunflower seeds of a very unusual, if not downright weird, taste. The Zagorje quartet of offbeat entertainers builds its unique take on the blues on committed experimenting with all sorts of genre tricks, from country through flirtations with jazz all the way to chopped-off ska rhythms. Funny, sure, but believe me, not even slightly fun. The show by the Zagorje club of little pigeons, as frontman Tomislav Goluban introduced the band right at the start of the night, can only be described as outright annoying, precisely thanks to the genre imbalance mentioned above, which, in its layered mismatch, joins forces into one seriously tasteless musical minestrone. With a healthy dose of country-bumpkin humor that makes it obvious the band comes from the Croatian music scene, Little Pigeon’s ForHill Blues have the most to offer in the form of Tomislav’s sensational wind skills. To prove his virtuosity, Tomislav borrows every trick of the harmonica blues giants, from Sonny Boy Williamson and Little Walter all the way to his personal favorite, Sonny Terry. Judging by his energetic playing, little Goluban surely carries lungs with the capacity of a whale, but sadly, at least when it comes to singing, they quickly deflate to the level of a mini turtledove.
Tomislav is obviously well aware of his band’s shortcomings, which ultimately brings us to the odd approach he used to work the small crowd tirelessly all night. The crowd returned the favor in fits and starts and as reservedly as humanly possible, with rare bursts of enthusiasm that were mostly down to Tomislav’s supernatural harmonica experiments. The heavily drawn-out exhibition of Goluban’s potential did open the night in grand style, with a seemingly endless shower of dynamic, lively improvisations, but those soon faded into a pale memory in the chaos of the aimless rumbling that followed. Then came the “treat of the night”, an unusual tribute to the heroes of Australian rock & roll in the form of Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap. With sharply chopped-off ska rhythms and a heavily lived-in imitation of Bon Scott from Tomislav. It’s hard to describe the feelings that shake you when you’re exposed to motifs mangled beyond recognition like this, but when a glance toward the stage catches Tomislav in his element, stretched out like a ballerina every which way, you can’t help but cheer the old guy on with at least a tiny nod for guts. After all, taming Angus’s riff, one that’s been thoroughly domesticated in our ears, takes a pretty hefty helping of courage. If there’s one thing Tomislav doesn’t lack, it’s balls, not even given the sorry state of Don’t Bring Me Down, which, apart from the nicely controlled harmonica tone, once more zipped past us mostly unnoticed.
The blues in the true sense of the word first hit us in the form of Pigeon’s Flight, which, after a good twenty minutes of dead air, finally kicked in with that characteristically beefed-up blues attitude. With excellent guitar playing delivered at full tilt, Krunoslav Dobričević suddenly exploded too. The kid obviously loves to go off every so often along the whole length of the guitar neck. Despite a bunch of thrilling flashes from the young guitarist, though, when it comes to the cheekiness of improvising, the absolute “boss” of our flock of winged Zagorje fellows always remains Mr. Goluban. Once the instrument glues itself to Tomislav’s upper lip, room for jokes quickly runs out. Goluban has an incredible breadth to his harmonica range. Through Zagorski Cug, for example, you could completely lose yourself in the huffing and puffing of a locomotive, while the aforementioned Pigeon’s Flight delighted with a brilliant harmonica imitation of a pigeon! 0,5 and Golden Fish got similar treatment, just a bit more Walter-inspired, while the old Washboard Sam classic Diggin’ My Potatoes came across as the complete opposite of the original’s cheekiness, and not even a Tomislav in excellent spirits could pull it out of the gray of the average.
So Little Pigeon’s ForHill Blues are as funny as they are brave, but sadly also mostly very unattractive. A big share of that unattractiveness surely comes down to their insistence on using Croatian, which does this kind of musical expression more harm than good. The band thus unintentionally gives the impression of considerable inauthenticity, which the mastery of Tomislav Bolubana simply doesn’t cut through often enough. On the other hand, the guys pour so much heart, will, and enthusiasm into the mission of first-rate revival of the country/delta blues tradition that it’s really hard to hold the shortcomings above against them live.
Words: Daniel Pavlica
Photos: Mojca Perdih
Setlist
1.Sv Rok 2.Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap 3.Don’t Bring Me Down 4.Riverside 5.Pigeon’s Flight 6.Ya Ya 7.0,5 8.Spread The News Around 9.Golden Fish 10.Diggin My Potatoes 11.Mr. B. 12.T-Train 13.Zagorski cug 14.Messin’ With The Kid 15.Just Your Girl 16.Goodbye Little Girl —-encore—- 17.Bourgeious Blues 18.Dust My Broom
Photo Gallery
