Venue: Kino Šiška / Ljubljana
Concert date: 10.12.2009
Attendance: 600
Ticket price: 18 €
Tinkara Kovač is back among us, amazingly alive and well, even though truth be told she never really went away. In keeping with the moronic sensationalism of the brilliant minds at the helm of Slovenia’s promo machinery, you could almost have expected the girl to “reincarnate” right there on the Kino Šiška stage. Anyway, with her show on the big stage of the self-proclaimed center of urban culture, Tinkara Kovač presented her November-released compilation “The Best Of”, putting under the microscope the musical road traveled so far, which over thirteen years of intense musical activity has given birth to 7 albums.
Tinkara Kovač’s setlist was very much like the selection on that best-of compilation, with only the running order of the songs shuffled around a bit. Tinkara left nothing to chance. Her six-piece band, kicking off with “Če je to vse”, quickly stepped onto the rails of a predetermined script that allowed no notable deviations in the direction of improvisation. The stage banter stayed predictable throughout, so the fan tasting menu of the singer’s career highlights mostly passed in a game of keeping up with discipline. This didn’t put Tinkara’s “survival” of the evening in the eyes of her most loyal fans in any danger, of course, but her image suffered in the eyes of those of us who dare to expect something more from a promised rock spectacle than, for the most part, a literal transplant of studio recordings onto concert stages.
Tinkara won us over with an exceptional voice, confident across every register she showed off, and still the most recognizable element of her expression. The solid vocal delivery, together with a few slightly reworked arrangements, breathed new life into songs like “Odhaja poletje” and “S tabo”. The successful reworkings of familiar song structures and forms produced the definite highlights of the night, though it’s only fair to point out a few not-so-successful moves too, which at times came unexpectedly close to making the band look at least seemingly under-rehearsed. One such blunder cut right through the ears in the middle of the fresh “Ljubezen je padla z neba”, and the surprising cover of the Men At Work classic “Down Under” marched confidently into the category of less successful interpretations as well. With the by now proverbially excellent acoustics of the Šiška venue, we also missed a bit more signs of life from the gently swaying pair of backing vocalists, whose contribution to the band’s overall sound was practically zero.
The pulse of the whole concert was of course set by Tinkara, as a rule mainly thanks to that aforementioned voice. The frequent flute acrobatics also demanded their share of attention, and among the more substantial excursions in that direction, the heartfelt rendition of “She” is worth mentioning in particular, preceded by a brief lesson on the greatness of the life and work of Jethro Tull merrymaker Ian Anderson. Tinkara also found some time to pay tribute to Robert Plant, served up as a very pleasant surprise in the form of a likeable take on “29 Palms”. Brave, no doubt, but without any notable response from the audience. The first in a series of volleys of in-tune singing along, especially from the female part of the crowd, was reaped by “Od zvezd pijan”, while a special peak in audience response came right at the end of the show, when the memorized lyrics of “Brez laži” echoed through the whole crowd over a sparse, barely audible guitar accompaniment.
With a convincing show, in many ways above average by Slovenian pop music standards, Tinkara Kovač successfully wrapped up the symbolic launch of her compilation, and in doing so, as expected, further cemented her status as the leading figure of the domestic pop-rock phalanx (ever more numerous in recent years). If anything, the only thing we can hold against Tinkara is a lack of charisma (the girl comes across as rather static on stage), which is crying out for a more concrete boost in stage presence.
Photos: Robi Lipej
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