Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Venue: Hala Tivoli / Ljubljana
Concert date: 03.02.2010
Attendance: 2000
Ticket price: 15 €, 19 € on the day of the show
Slovenia has always had a quality music scene, built on its peak in the sixties and seventies. So Dragan Bulič, the king of Slovenian music journalists and a real little encyclopedia of music history, decided to organize a one-of-a-kind, historically important event: “Bulstock,” as singer-songwriter Andrej Šifrer dubbed this concert marathon. The journalist invited every act that shaped Slovenia’s musical past. He talked most of them into playing, though a few sadly turned him down (Buldožer, for one, who has to be mentioned in the same breath as the Slovenian music scene).
“Do you still remember, friends?” sums up the whole point of the event. We got to hear all the legends who wrote Slovenian pop/rock history. Singer-songwriters and bands tried to play a selection of their biggest hits, whether a medley of crowd-pleasers or a song or two that earned the musicians their place among the immortals.
In the packed Hala Tivoli you could spot music lovers of every age: nostalgic members of the older generation, middle-aged folks who spent their youth in the arms of the Yugoslav new wave, and young voices who reject the commercialism of today’s MTV-style music and know how to appreciate Slovenian culture.
So around 2000 souls in Hala Tivoli waited for the start of an unrepeatable night, which kicked off, of course, with the arrival of the man who made it all possible: Dragan Bulič. In his opening words he laid out the program and announced a couple of surprises (one of them was singer-songwriter Tomaž Pengov, who unfortunately couldn’t make it to “Bulstock” because of a sudden illness). He wrapped up the intro by introducing Bumerang, who were, as he put it, probably the “hardest” band of the evening. With three songs (Grenka želja, Inside Looking Out and Got the Thing on the Move) they warmed up the crowd nicely. Then Stari mački took over from Bumerang, and besides playing Stari med they backed nearly all the singer-songwriters too. One after another, the solo names of Slovenian pop culture hit the stage: Matija Cerar, Miha Jazbinšek, Lado Leskovar, Eva Sršen, Lidija Kodrič and Metka Štok. Some of them were appearing on stage for the first time in a few decades, and they proved they’re definitely not ready for the scrap heap. Stari mački were then replaced by another bunch of old rockers you can’t overlook, Čudežna polja, who first surprised us with a medley of Beatles hits and then “set the Hall on fire” with a medley of the best of their own repertoire. Aleksander Mežek was next to warm our hearts, and he sealed the deal with his last song, none other than Julija. It wasn’t just the crowd that showed Mežek is still a big name in Slovenia. Bulič also let slip that Aleksander will soon release a new album, which isn’t for the Murka crowd, to paraphrase Dragan. After thirty years we saw and heard Ultimat back together in a fresh lineup, handing men the formula for a better life with Moški čaj. Next came a band from Novo mesto, who else but Rudolfovo. Edvin Fliser and Rdeči dečki treated us to covers of Keep on Running and Delilah, followed by one of the leading singer-songwriter names still going strong today: Andrej Šifrer. With Gorska roža and Oče (during the song he worked in various other tunes of his, in context of course, a sort of medley) he probably gave the crowd what it wanted, since these are arguably his two best-known songs. A smile spread across our faces at the next performer, Tomaž Domicelj. This “cheeky” guitar master and rocker to the core was joined by probably the best Slovenian drummer and Slovenia’s jazz icon, Drago Gajo. Domicelj took us into Srečen dan with a crazy intro, and then the two of them played Letnik 48, which of course wasn’t dedicated only to people born in ’48 but to everyone in the room. Then came probably the high point of the night, though not in the original lineup: Srce with mastermind Janez Bončina – Benč. The missing members of Srce were filled in by players from September plus some younger musicians. Gvendolina, Vsak dan ob istem šanku, Ta noč je moja and Zlata obala: all of that was probably heard live for the last time, from one of the most influential bands in Slovenia. Bor Gostiša blues band had more young players than old ones, which extended their run on our scene even further, and the excitement carried on with the legendary Dekameroni, who of course couldn’t get across the rushing Sava. After a few decades Jernej Jung sat down at the keyboards again, and among other things he sang Molitev with his friends. After Jung came Jimi Hend… er, Pavle Kavec with his band Oko (not the lineup from the debut Raskorak (even though Miro Tomassini was there, since he played with Bumerang), but a trio that works as a Hendrix tribute band), followed by yet more rockers, of a more progressive kind this time: Ave. Prizma represented the Primorska scene with Pogum and Senca, and then came one of the biggest surprises of the night: jazz-rock band Predmestje, who were one of the biggest in Yugoslavia in their day. Because of time constraints they had to cut their three prepared songs down to two, Ritem življenja and Oaza. Last to play, or so we in the audience thought, was Milan Petrovič’s band, who supposedly closed with the Kinks hit You Really Got Me. But Dr. B (Dragan Bulič) had a very special surprise for the finale: Lado Leskovar, with the help of Stari mački, sang Poslednji vlak.
Because of the “long arm of the law” from the men in blue, the concert had to be cut short, but the announced four-hour spectacle still ended up running five hours. Anyone who missed this event has every reason to be sorry, because history was written that day. And as Šifrer said, we hope “Bulstock” becomes an annual fixture, maybe not in this format and with this program, but anything similar would be more than welcome.
Photos: Peter Hozjan
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