10th International Bikers’ Meeting, August 11–13, 2006, and the Hruševje Rock Festival near Post

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 11 June 2026

Location: Hruševje (Postojna) / Quarry / Slovenia
Concert date: 17.08.2006
Attendance: 1208
Ticket price: 1000

Sometimes the weather really messes with you and throws everything into chaos when it shouldn’t, not even in anyone’s wildest dreams. But no obstacle, however unbeatable it looks, can touch the grit and faith of the organizers of the “10th Biker’s” festival in Hruševje near Postojna. I was wrecked like a “tin can”, and the low pressure and days of rain had sapped my will to do anything that meant stepping out my front door. Still, the thought of John Lawton coming to Slovenia just wouldn’t leave me alone. Around 5:30 PM I “putt-putted” into the quarry, where I was met by Dragan, the frontman of Outsider and “co-organizer” of the festival. This guy is bursting with ideas and creative drive, and above all he’s got a big heart, which is what really counts. He took me straight to the eminence himself, Mr. John Lawton, who was just getting ready in the “HQ tent backstage” for a warm-up, or rather a soundcheck, with the Slovenian “hard rockers” Mary Rose, whom John picked as his backing band for the Hruševje show. Just as Dragan and I were getting close to the stage, someone up there was yodeling the song Hocus Pocus (Focus). Is that Thijs Van Lehr up there? No, no! It’s Davorin Žorž, the singer of Firebird, who’ll be backing the legendary John Lawton onstage together with Mary Rose. The weather hadn’t been this sour in ages as it was tonight. Brrr… After a few numbers the guys ran through with Lawton, I got some serious goosebumps, and then it was time to hang out over beer and a nice chat in the pub nearby.

VOODOO: 20.30 – 21.15
It started pouring, of course! Voodoo were up. The area in front of the stage was depressingly empty. Everybody was crammed under the canvas of two tents, safely huddled up and sprawled out with their beers. It was a really sad sight. Still, Voodoo hit the gas and opened the show with Lynyrd Skynyrd and “hot wheels” and a sweet home in Alabama, as much as they could motivate themselves in such miserable conditions, with only the rain keeping them company onstage. If there’d been as many people as raindrops, that’s probably what the guys in Voodoo were dreaming of up there. Sadly, even their name didn’t help conjure up a bright moon on the horizon! Voodoo are “hard rockers” and a classic four-piece. They had an enviable sound and showed real guts, especially when they tackled Fool For Your Lovin’ by Whitesnake, Highway To Hell (AC/DC) and Livin’ On A Prayer (Bon Jovi). Voodoo are a band that, let’s hope, has a bright future ahead. Personally, I’d start by dressing them up in a poisonous Motley Crue “image”! But that’s just my own personal touch… Let’s hope some original material makes it onto their setlists soon, that the band keeps growing fast, along with its onstage confidence, and that it gets the support it deserves from all the good folks, meaning rockers. Keep it up, guys!

Voodoo setlist:
1.) Hot Wheels
2.) Proud Mary
3.) Rokerji
4.) Saturday Night
5.) Whiskey R’N’R
6.) Highway To Hell
7.) Fool For Your Lovin’
8.) Born To Be My Baby
9.) Ciganka
10.) Livin’ On A Prayer
11.) Wild Thing
—-encore—-
12.) Tush

OUTSIDER: 21.45 – 23.30
Next up were the wild “Balkan meets the rest of Europe” hybrid rockers Outsider, who decided to lure people out from under the tent canvas into the rainy open anyway, because they kicked off with a noticeably higher gear than the band before them. They also went with melodies that are more familiar to Slovenian ears, the Balkan ones, starting with A i ti me iznevjeri by Bijelo Dugme. What really worked was the relaxed performance of their frontman Miško, which is Dragan’s working name. He cracked jokes without any brakes on and had a great time teasing the crowd, who were still paying more attention to their beer and burgers from a safe distance and clinging tightly to their mugs. Guitarist Žika added his own special routine too: in a burst of rage and raw energy he blew a guitar string, and the guys cleverly turned it to their advantage and laughed at their own expense, which shows they’ve really got stagecraft down pat. Miško showed what Slovenian frontmen are actually missing. More guts! Miško honored the first six people who ended up at the barrier (in the first and last row) below the stage by buying every one of them a big beer. The guys also “unleashed” two hilariously funny tracks under their own license, namely Špela and Hej, nek se čuje, but the crowd showed real interest in the music coming off the stage for the first time only when they heard the opening bars of Ne spavaj mala moja (Bijelo Dugme). Over the course of the show about 100 people did gather in front of the stage, and they really got going with the Divlje Jagode classics Kap po kap and Motori. Probably inspired by Whitesnake’s recent show in Ljubljana, Outsider also surprisingly took on the Deep Purple song Soldier Of Fortune. Since Delirium cancelled their set even though they’d shown up in Hruševje, Outsider got to storm the stage for a whole hour and three quarters more. So they filled out their long-since worn-out repertoire with a few hidden aces pulled out of their sleeves, like Smoke On The Water (Deep Purple) and Bandiera rossa (Pankrti). In short, the repertoire was a mix of everything you could want, and Outsider were just the right pick for a rainy day, because at the dictate of their tempo a lot of people forgot the rain was soaking them and gave themselves over to partying in front of the stage. A tight performance, just like I said! Of everyone onstage, Miško was by far the standout, proving himself a born band leader, a singer who kicked up more of a storm than all the other members put together. Confident, unrestrained and without a shred of fear, and he especially wrecked it with his voice in the imitations of Bijelo Dugme vocals, where he was simply flawless. A totally convincing, enviable performance!

JOHN LAWTON & MARY ROSE: 00.00 – 01.15
The legendary Uriah Heep singer had flown in the day before. So he and Mary Rose played just one rehearsal together the day earlier. John had mailed the sheet music to the guys in advance, giving them, as he joked, homework. Mary Rose diligently tackled the material of the mighty Uriah Heep. Me, seeing Lawton in Hruševje? I wouldn’t have dared to imagine it, not even in my dreams. Even though he’d been to Hruševje once before, and once again this rain wanted to stop him. Damn rain. What a shame for the great bands and their gigs, because the party would have been the real deal, with covers swarming everywhere. There were so many that some even overlapped! Lawton served us a full ten Uriah Heep covers. Well, ten? He did cut his set short, no doubt. There were simply too few people and it was too late. So Lady In Black and Look At Yourself, which we’d heard during the “soundcheck”, dropped off the setlist. Still, Lawton and Mary Rose opened their set dreamily. With Hanging Tree (“Firefly”, 1977), one of the most intense songs in terms of atmosphere of everything Lawton sang for Uriah Heep. He caught me off guard with Stealin’, but as we know, at his deepest core Lawton is drawn to the blues, and there’s blues “feel” aplenty in Stealin’. The guys worked brilliantly with Lawton, not just brilliantly but virtuosically, which confirmed their top-notch quality and the simple fact that they’re born for rock and roll! Then another hard-rocking assault with I’m Alive (“Fallen Angel”, 1978), where Davor’s Hammonds roared again over Eki’s shared guitar riff. Mary Rose clearly have a feel for melody in their blood. The band cooled things down with The Wizard (“Demons And Wizards”, 1972), and then hit a higher gear again with the metalized Free N’ Easy (“Innocent Victim”, 1978). Then they seduced us again with the romantic ballad Come Back To Me (“Fallen Angel”, 1978), a song that, together with Free Me, probably best characterizes John Lawton as a rock singer, or rather as a Uriah Heep singer. And then it was nothing but “rock” until the end. So Sympathy (“Firefly”, 1977) and then Easy Livin’ (“Demonds And Wizards”, 1972), where the folks, all 300 of them in front of the stage, finally got what they came for, as the saying goes. Interestingly, Davor opened it the way it opens the Uriah Heep album “Live” (1973), except that there Uriah Heep go into Sunrise, which I’d also assumed at first would happen here in Hruševje. Well, out of all that heavy anticipation came (“just”) Easy Livin’. For the (too quick) end of the regular set, John offered the audience Free Me (“Innocent Victim”, 1978). The band purposely chopped it up hard. So, a reworked Free Me, and John left the chorus to the small crowd, who joined in eagerly. For the encore the band started with a devastating apocalyptic riff. Gypsy, of course (“Very Eavy… Very Umble”, 1970). The intro was original, just like on the studio “Heep” record! Uriah Heep haven’t played it like that live in ages, they just skip straight to the song’s main motif. In the middle psychedelic instrumental section, Lawton gave Davor a few minutes, so the maestro could once again show how to wait on a Hammond organ and make clear that nobody else in Slovenia handles that classic “rock” organ sound so deftly. He even borrowed some of Emerson’s glamour, stabbing a knife into the keys and letting the sound ring for a few moments until he pulled it out. Gypsy was stretched out and hot. You could see Mary Rose were still up for some hot action, but John had had enough of performing and bowed out of the show decidedly too early.

John proved that, despite the three decades weighing on him since he last sang with Uriah Heep, he’s holding up at an enviable level. Wherever he was put to the test, having to lift his voice into registers no longer (or less) accessible to him, he deftly steered around it with his innate feel for “soul” improvisation and acrobatically slipped out of any possible trouble. And so the mistakes dropped away during the performance. Besides, John was himself as always, but with that distinctive vocal of his! A few times we could intensely feel that magic John brought so effectively to Uriah Heep, right there at the festival in Hruševje. Mary Rose passed the test excellently and with bouncy resolve! And of course we mustn’t forget the backing vocalist who covered for Lawton. That was the singer of the Slovenian hard rock band Firebird, Davorin Žorž, who accepted John Lawton’s praise for his great contribution far too modestly. In short, everything. From Davorin and Eki successfully filling the big shoes of Hensley and Box, to the playful rhythm line of Jure’s jazz-tinged drumming and Mitja Kobal’s hot-footed bass playing, success simply couldn’t fail to follow. Lawton was visibly delighted with his crew. Like I said! A short but punchy performance from a legend. We got the Lawton-era Uriah Heep for just a fleeting but sinful dessert. I was quietly hoping for a surprise like Firefly (“Firefly”, 1977) or Been Away Too Long (“Firefly”, 1977), but Hanging Tree, I’m Alive or Sympathy are by no means a joke either, while Free N’ Easy and Free Me were somewhat expected tracks. Let’s hope we get to see Mary Rose and the legendary John Lawton live together again sometime, and that they take on some ambitious project that would help properly revive and kick-start the culture of classic approaches in hard rock and proto prog/hard rock in Slovenia. Even if I was soaked and frozen to the bone, there’s no way I’d have forgiven myself for staying home that evening. So here’s hoping the spark between Mary Rose and Lawton caught!

John Lawton & Mary Rose setlist:
1.) Intro
2.) Hanging Tree
3.) Stealin’
4.) I’m Alive
5.) The Wizard
6.) Free N’ Easy
7.) Come Back To Me
8.) Sympathy
9.) Easy Livin’
10.) Free Me
—encore—
11.) Gypsy

A “striptease” followed. All the way down, of course! I think you know what that is, so I won’t go into detail here, although going into detail in situations like that is always, and was, super exciting. Meanwhile I went to get a burger, since I easily found a chair under the tent, rain notwithstanding. But the burger was raw, disgusting, and the bun completely dried out. Yuck. Do they serve the customers slop or garbage here? But I was starving like a dog, and the beer that flowed in streams that night did its part too. Too bad I wasn’t in charge of quality control back then!

MARY ROSE: 2.00 – 3.00
Mary Rose once more, this time in their own solo set! Unlike John Lawton, who was already happily snoring in the hotel and dreaming somewhere far beyond the English Channel, the Mary Rose boys were still damn lively. This time they went all out, and with the full lineup. Singer Žak was onstage, and Mary Rose made up for what they’d been “shortchanged” on with Lawton. In short, now they could properly warm their bones once more and spew out all their remaining hard rock energy, which they just couldn’t in that good hour with Lawton. They played their own material Strah, Izgubljen, Krivda, Najdražja, and didn’t forget a brand-new song, Sam, whose mp3 you can also listen to on the band’s official website, and they closed their gig with the track Kralj. In between they stuck in a few hot numbers that further fired up the by now well-staggering bipeds, who didn’t forget to go wild. Wild in a way worthy of the harsh weather conditions. A surprise with Vertigo by U2, mainly meant to stir up the crowd, since they’re (over)obsessed to this day with all of U2’s glory. Mary Rose managed to get more racket out of the people there, and the real triumph came with a one-of-a-kind rendition of Don’t Break My Heart Again (Whitesnake), proving what real chemistry in a band and valuable experience in the music business mean. They also kept firing people up with Deep Purple, which they played dot-on, thanks to Davor’s majestic Hammond. They poured that into Black Night and people kept happily “shaking it”. On top of that they slipped Easy Livin’ onto the setlist, which they repeated this time, but with Žak on vocals instead of Lawton. It would have been interesting if Mary Rose had called up a special guest for the occasion, say John Lawton. But evidently there was still plenty of time, and the band also included the song Motori (Divlje Jagode), which was maximally devilish and poisonous in their hands. Mary Rose have the right chemistry! Virtuosity and a feel for melody come naturally to them, and above all they come across as tight and confident, with no letting up in their performance, whose quality is high. With Žak’s explosive vocals. Powerful and ultra-melodic, even in the highest registers! Of course it would have been nice to see the band now for a quick comparison at a gig in the middle of a clear night, without a drop of rain, and that goes for the whole lineup of performers, but still… Mary Rose once again gave it their all and delivered their repertoire very solidly. Evidently “hard rock” is on the rise in Slovenia,… The Buldožer reunion, a whole bunch of young bands from the Postojna area… It’d be a damn shame if the scales didn’t tip in favor of healthy mainstream taste in Slovenia too…

Mary Rose setlist:
1.) Strah
2.) Izgubljen
3.) Hard To Handle
4.) Vertigo
5.) Krivda
6.) Najdražja
7.) Don’t Break My Heart Again
8.) Smoke On The Water
9.) Black Night
10.) Easy Livin’
11.) Motori
12.) Sam
13.) Kralj

ROCK SHOCK: 3.20 – 4.05
The most thankless role fell to the young Rock Shock from the land of cviček. They recently made a lineup change that could mean a stylistic shift down the road. We’ll see. The band now has a keyboardist, and one of the two guitarists is gone. And in that form, their lineup practically debuted right there onstage in Hruševje. They surprised me! Maybe it was an awkward choice for the melodic hard rock approach they cultivate to kick off the show with Enter Sandman. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying they can’t play it. They’re not born for Motorhead either, if you know what I mean. They play too nicely to play Metallica. Not enough poison in the vocals! But they did manage to let the people at the festival know that Rock Shock had taken over the stage. And if not already with Enter Sandman, then definitely with the next track, It’s My Life (Bon Jovi), which flowed far more smoothly through the guys’ fingers! The guitarist immediately stood out as an extremely talented, promising young creature who likes to flirt with guitar virtuosos like Gary Moore. The kid has a nice feel for R & B solo tricks, and above all he’s technically excellent! Great oaks from little acorns grow! The foundations are very promising! The guys pulled it off. Thanks to a repertoire made up exclusively of covers (the only original on their tracklist was Ne poznam te), it was all cult hit favorites like I Love Rock N’ Roll (Joan Jett), Speed (Billy Idol), Proud Mary (CCR), Walking By Myself (Gary More), Tush (ZZ Top) and a closer with Knocking On Heavens Door (Bob Dylan). Rock Shock pulled off the thing I doubted. They held on to the people in front of the stage who’d watched Mary Rose before. Thanks to the hot repertoire, the excellent playing and the lovely fact that the rain stopped for a few hours, the Rock Shock gig turned out really nicely. With inspired young bands like Rock Shock around, there’s clearly no need to worry about the future of great “hard rock” in Slovenia.

Rock Shock setlist:
1. Enter Sandman
2. It’s My Life
3. I Love Rock N’ Roll
4. Ne poznam te
5. Long Train Runnin
6. Speed
7. Proud Mary
8. Walking By Myself
9. Tush
10. Knocking On Heaven’s Door

The clock struck four! As far as the music went, the festival was over. Beat like a “noodle”, I dragged myself to the car and slumped into the seat, wondering whether to fall asleep or drive to Ljubljana. There was nothing but genuine praise for the dedication, the excellent organization and the welcome from the organizers, a full measure of it! That’s the least I can say. Despite the unlucky rain that washed us mercilessly, absolutely everyone at the festival got to party to their heart’s content. Everybody got a great helping of “rock and roll” to the head. A beautiful evening, swarming with covers of noble hits and “evergreens”, most of them played excellently. There were no sound problems during the second day of the festival, and the bands, given the outside factors, gave their working onstage maximum. Well, there are factors you have to take into account. The first is the bad weather, which drove Delirium home, for instance, while all the other bands gritted their teeth hard, and surely nobody regretted being at the “10th Biker’s Festival” in Hruševje near Postojna that night, where it thundered the way it should at a festival like this. See you again next year!