Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Venue: Orto bar / Ljubljana / Slovenia
Concert date: October 23, 2010
Attendance: 60
Ticket price: €6.00
Top-tier musical virtuoso and Slovenian guitar ace Grega Habič brought his backing crew to the stage of Ljubljana’s Orto Bar as part of a short October tour. It was the day after their show in Ravne na Koroškem, where the band ran into a seriously dismal turnout. This time the picture was quite different. Some 60 heads did gather in Orto Bar, where the band, just like in Ravne, hit the stage at twenty past ten in the evening.
Among the fans of top-shelf guitar rock, the band was also greeted by a few hardcore music eminences from the radio station Val 202, which means the promo for the gig finally landed on fertile ground. The Grega Habič Band, made up of Grega Habič (guitar), Klemen Gasar (guitar), Robert Humar (keyboards), Matej Sušnik (bass) and Blaž Soklič (drums), immediately showed far more joy, enthusiasm and adrenaline-fueled haste coming onstage, since this time they didn’t have to play just for themselves. That was exactly the experience the guys got the day before, when they played Club Kompleks in Ravne na Koroškem.
Sure, the Orto Bar stage is smaller than the one at Kompleks, and Orto Bar doesn’t offer acoustics as friendly as Kompleks does, but it’s still the crowd that usually decides the overall live effect, the release of vibes that makes up the impression of any given gig. And this time, people showed up!
The guys plowed in with gusto. How could they not, when you sleep with your instrument at night and handle it like the most beautiful lady in the world? Full throttle, no brakes. The crowd, standing in a half-circle 2-3 m from the stage, watched the killer jam spectacle warily at first, but they didn’t hide their sweet smirks and big approval.
The sound in the middle was the sweetest. If you stood on the right (facing the stage), Gasar’s guitar cut through the mix; if you stood too far left, it was Habič’s. The middle was the ideal spot, and we jumped on it right away. That’s the main difference between Orto Bar’s sound trap and Kompleks, where you can get a proper hall-like balance. This gig instantly reminded me of Paul Gilbert’s visit to Orto Bar in October 2008! Grega Habič is incredibly self-assured in his performance, superb in execution. He’s got a relaxed touch, a soft hand, and knows exactly when to hit the gas and light the fire at those points where the noise has to get crushing enough to shake the Orto Bar ceiling. Spontaneity and unpredictability are the other name for the Grega Habič Band. Top-notch tightness, top-notch execution, wrapping the label of routine in such camouflage paint that we can almost write it off.
The band’s main focus was their current studio album “Self Destruct Sequence” (2009, RockLine review HERE), which also got the most attention in the live set. Besides the tracks from the new album, songs from the earlier albums “Catharsis” (2008) and “Rebirth” made it into the set as well. Slovenia’s bass-playing wunderkind Matej Sušnik also previewed his upcoming studio album with his own composition, Dr. Bass.
The Grega Habič Band, as the absolute one-of-a-kind charisma in the field of developing a personal essence of instrumental rock, left nothing out of an atmosphere charged with intensity and voltage. The band gave the maximum. Of course, the guys are still telling each other today where they slipped up, but in terms of auditory perception, those slips were inaudible. Looking at it from the world-class, professional angle of bands in this genre, the Grega Habič Band are easily comparable (not counting the difference in paychecks, but that’s another story). Yes. After this experience, there’s no way anyone can deny that the Grega Habič Band are firmly rooted on the path to one day vaulting into the narrow peak of the chosen few who deliver top-level musical quality in guitar-driven instrumental rock. And if you still don’t know what we’re talking about, but you’re definitely going to Paul Gilbert on November 30, 2010 in Ljubljana, know that the Grega Habič Band are a kind of Slovenian answer to Paul Gilbert, but of course with a strong engraving of their own Slovenian identity. A one-of-a-kind figure who, let’s hope, will go far and be fairly rewarded for everything they spoil us with.
At the end, the crowd gave them ovations and loud participation all the way through Neil Young’s Rockin’ in The Free World, “kicked” Matej Sušnik out of the game on vocals and took over as the club’s lead singer, paying the band back in the best possible way for its will, persistence and faith in the goal! The audience thus retook the exam it flunked and settled its debt to the band, a debt it had racked up the day before by ignoring GHB’s show in Ravne na Koroškem.
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist
1. Intro 2. Razor’s Edge 3. Voodoo Sex Thing 4. Alyx 5. Self Destruct Sequence 6. Beyond Redemption (sample 1) 7. Scars 8. Dr. Bass 9. Io 10. A Little Love Song 11. Crying Out Loud 12. Catharsis (sample 2) 13. Magic Fingers 14. Rebirth 15. Revolution (sample 3-4) —encore— 16. Through The Gates Of The Unknown 17. Rockin’ In The Free World
Photo Gallery
