Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Venue: Kulturni dom / Križe (Tržič) / Slovenia
Concert date: 12/26/2009
Attendance: 100
Ticket price: €2.00
It’s great to read about, and to experience, bands teaming up to make their goals easier to reach. Especially when everything between the bands is out in the open and all that binds them is a shared hunger for success, with each one backing the other the whole way. Not a speck of envy, not a hint of sneaky backstabbing.
One such Slovenian rock alliance rolled on through December too, under the banner of the so-called RockStick tour, when Mit and Rock Shock joined forces and played six shows together before the end of 2009, promoting their debut albums “Rock Shock” (2009, RockLine review HERE) and “Stik” (2009, RockLine review HERE).
Within a single year, things have finally clicked for both bands. They put out their studio debuts and found a real coherence in lineups that breathe for the same cause, with a clear vision and clear goals! Last year Matevž and Uroš of Mit were still making the rounds of the bars with a little hat and a bag, playing acoustic versions of evergreen songs everybody knows by heart just to fill their pockets (read the RockLine report from Kranj, 12/25/2008 HERE). This year Mit have grown to the point where they can boast a loyal base of supporters across Upper Carniola and central Slovenia. And Rock Shock are no strangers to the stage anymore either, whether in the Inner Carniola corner of Slovenia or in its central part.
To wave goodbye to the year, the two bands dropped anchor in the village of Križe near Tržič, where they played the closing show of the RockStick tour. Just the day before, they’d played the Božični Rock festival in Postojna, in front of a much bigger crowd and on a far roomier stage. The hall of the cultural center in Križe is normally meant for drama and puppet shows, and its walls are probably rarely rattled by rock or metal, but that doesn’t mean the place is wrong for this kind of revelry. It’s not much different from a cultural center like the one in Muggia (Italy), where we caught the notorious hard rockers White Lion on 11/19/2006 (RockLine report HERE). The acoustics are just right, with a guaranteed sense of intimacy where you can get within an inch of the band, which lets you feel their music live that little bit more intensely.
Since Mit are known for being great colleagues to bands that are still fighting their way up, they let two groups warm up the crowd before Rock Shock and Mit. First onto the stage at quarter past eight (in the evening, just so there’s no mistake) were Profeel. The youngsters showed they’re not short on skill or drive. Besides their own material, they tackled two classics by Motorhead and Megadeth. And those two bands pretty much sum up Profeel’s problem, which needs a hefty dose of “profiling” in the near future. In the guitar solos, as well as in the riffing itself, you can tell both guitarists are metalheads, while Profeel’s overall sound comes off as raw, dirty rock n’ roll, and the two don’t quite fit together. So a touch of calibration “left and right” to shape clear goals, and they’ll get there. The band has talent, and they’ve got good musicians.
After them, I was literally chased out of the hall by Parazit p.13. I bit my lip and preferred freezing outside to punishing my ears with their laughable, immature approach, which mashes together some kind of ska and punk leanings, with plenty of detuning, deliberate detuning. Really, that overdose of unhealthy, tasteless clowning at their own expense, at the audience’s expense, or at whoever’s expense, introduced us to a local band that couldn’t give a damn whether it climbs any higher in the future or stays in its own little private pit, where it’ll keep safely jerking off in a hollow of intangible emptiness, searching for its own identity and reason to exist.
After the Parazit p.13 circus, we lovers of good music finally got our due. This time Rock Shock handed the role of the evening’s main act to Mit, who are the bigger name in this corner of Upper Carniola. In Postojna on 12/05/2009 (RockLine report HERE), the roles were swapped, since Rock Shock are the better-known band there. The guys trimmed the set a bit compared to the Postojna show and in an hour and 15 minutes played pretty much their entire studio debut “Rock Shock”. As always, it’s their own songs that ignite the most, since some of them carry truly powerful messages and melodically flawless choruses. Songs like Glej me v oči, Čakam te, Heroj, Zdaj letim or Ne poznam te draw from the melodic hard rock of the eighties, which most people have kind of forgotten about today. On that front, Rock Shock are seriously brave. They also spiced up the show with the originals Vračam spomine and Igra, though it was (sadly) only the covers of Bon Jovi, Whitesnake, Metallica and Van Halen that lured the people who’d been crowding the bar up to the foot of the stage. Above all, the Joe Cocker song burns brightest among the covers in the set, and it suits singer Matej’s voice perfectly. Once again the band confirmed its exceptional tightness, the product of rich experience and some solid concert mileage, and above all they really opened up on stage during the set, firing up the next act, their buddies in Mit. Martin Rozman, a hired gun, handled the situation superbly, filling in on the tour for the band’s injured bassist Marko Turk. At moments the keyboards were a little hard to hear in the mix on the board, but that in no way spoiled the excellent impression the band left on stage yet again. Andrej Rovan and Janko Tomšič breathe wonderfully in sync on the keys-and-guitar axis. The guys know each other down to the last hair, and that’s the essence of stage conviction and effectiveness!
Unlike what we saw in Postojna on 12/05/2009, when you could feel a mild reserve and uncertainty in front of a much thinner and less engaged Rock Cafe crowd, this time Mit went all out, no brakes. The energy in the room was just right, and the guys were fired up above all by the crowd’s support, which counted a nice crop of true allies. They swayed along diligently to Mit’s repertoire. What “shocked” above all was the band’s incredible confidence, which was “a few heads” taller than in Postojna. The band delivered excellent sound and fully packed curtains of riffs from both guitars, while in the background Miha Plesničar – Flesho on drums once again played the key role that holds Mit’s whole stage presence together. Above all, the spacious stage let the lineup really move around during the set. Newcomer Matej Žibert on bass has grown another notch with the band, and he’s surely a factor who, just by arriving, emboldened Mit further and lifted their stage confidence even higher. Most of the attention fell on Uroš’s charismatic, distinctive vocal. Lower-pitched, manly, with mournfully muted overtones, it combines with the massive riff curtain of both guitars to add serious weight to the uniqueness of the band’s expression, as well as to the stage atmosphere itself. The band was properly well-oiled throughout the show, and the songs Pošasti, Črni dež, Neskončen dan, Odisej, Stik, Senca, Mit, Imolo Vesperi and the closing Maršal came across in optimal form.
The band showed its big gesture when it invited two rappers from Tržič onto the stage, who are currently searching for candidates to make up a full lineup. Five Masters Duo put together a joint original song with Mit called Save Your Life, where the rapped parts go to the rap side of the crew and the chorus melody goes, of course, to Uroš. An interesting and unusual thing that probably rubbed rock purists the wrong way at first and doesn’t really belong in the regular Mit repertoire, but here it’s mainly Mit’s gesture of collegiality that deserves credit. The second highlight of Mit’s set was the red T-shirt of the late Soviet Union, which guitarist Buco put on especially for the night, as a thank-you to his friend and Mit supporter, who’d come back a few days earlier from the Russian end of Europe. The band seasoned the repertoire with reworked covers of U2, Depeche Mode, Billy Idol and Ramones, played, naturally, in the groove of their own musical essence. Compared to both bands’ shows in Postojna on 12/05/2009, Mit evened the score at 1:1 this time in Križe.
And so the last day of the RockStick tour wrapped up in a thoroughly successful way. The tour can itself be a great example to other Slovenian bands, who, pushed aside by the media and, as a result, short on audience interest, suffer from a lack of gigs, and who should think about similar alliances. As the RockStick tour proved, these can bring them a huge amount, and they have absolutely nothing to lose. The remarkable harmony between Mit and Rock Shock was also shown by the very affordable joint sale of both studio debuts. You could pick up both CDs for a measly €10.00!
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
* You can read the interview with Rock Shock and Mit, recorded after the show in Križe near Tržič on 12/26/2009, HERE.
Photo Gallery
