Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Nova Gorica / Travnik (Trg Evropa) / Slovenia
Concert date: September 1, 2012
Attendance: 3,000
Ticket price: €0.00 (free entry)
This year’s Goriški festival wrapped up this very weekend! From June 22 to September 1, 2012, Nova Gorica hosted over 50 different acts on five stages as part of the festival. As befits the Primorska region, in the spirit of big-hearted hospitality, with free entry! Over the summer, the stages in Nova Gorica saw Vlatko Stefanovski, Demolition Group, Tinkara Kovač, Elevators, Čompe, Ana Pupedan, Elevators, EMŠO Blues Band, Same Babe, Gwen Hughes, Lolllobrigida, …. And on the very last day, Saturday, September 1, 2012, the festival built to its peak with a set from the cult Slovenian art rock legends Avtomobili, who are celebrating a whopping 30 years of existence this year, while the evening’s headliners, Plavi Orkestar, closed out the festival.
What dragged us to Nova Gorica was, once again, an unshakable urge to chase sonic perfection in the homegrown craft of Avtomobili’s one-of-a-kind artistry. These great masters, who really do have plenty to be proud of in their own body of work, will release their jubilee tenth studio album this year, in honor of the band’s thirtieth anniversary. A nice, honest gesture by the organizer to invite a local band from Ajševica, just down the road from Nova Gorica!
It’s a little past nine in the evening, and the rain comes pouring down on Nova Gorica. Damn rain. The camera gear’s going to have a ball with this one. All along it looked like the evening might somehow dodge the nasty weather, but sadly it wasn’t to be. Umbrellas everywhere on the lawn in front of the stage, and of course people were packed under the awnings of the surrounding buildings, watching the band from a cautious distance. As expected, the band opened with the bolder, more direct rocker Ona nosi uniformu, a track that doesn’t hide the band’s original punk influences, the first song on the debut “Mjesec je opet pun” (1984), and then, in sharp contrast, served up a cut from the latest album “Mesta železniških postaj” (2006) called April, which with its sophisticated, wonderfully twisted arrangement instantly drove home just how far the band has pushed its artistic evolution through the years of defiance.
This time things moved fast on stage, since Avtomobili had just one hour. So the one-of-a-kind hit Ljubezen ne stanuje tu came very early, firing up the soaked crowd in front of the stage, and the classics Gorica and Enkrat v življenju kept the mood high right after it. With the new Netopir, the band made it clear that it’s obviously cooking up an exceptional new studio album, which we’ll be able to hear at the start of this October.
The building blocks of Avtomobili’s unique sound were superbly balanced in the mix. Nothing new, you might say, but not everyone can pull that off. Only the best. David Šuligoj’s warm but pulsating bass masterfully filled the available space in the songs, as in the gorgeous Argentina, with Bushy’s opening “Santana-like” guitar ornament. The band’s youngest member, David Morgan, held the reins of the rhythm in his hands with flinty precision, while the icons Mirko and Marko Vuksanovič, of course, conjured up that standard stage presence. The extraordinary charisma of both brothers: the ever calm, dependable younger Mirko on Nord keyboards, and the first and famous voice of Avtomobili, Marko Vuksanovič, irreplaceable with his trademark falsetto. The latter once again, with a warm, velvety caress, hypnotically knocked on the deepest corners of the souls in front of the stage. When Marko opens his mouth, there’s no other way. This is a man with one of the most beautiful natural vocal tones in Slovenia.
The tried-and-true arsenal of classic hits and the band’s most recognizable moments, its vivid expressive alphabet, once again swept me up in the feelings it so effectively conjures when you listen closely live. The contrast between the two acts was downright weird. First the splendid sonic perfectionists Avtomobili, and after them the clumsy rock brutes Plavi Orkestar. Like putting Spandau Ballet and Sex Pistols together. Incompatible. David and Goliath.
The setlist was basically a shortened version of the band’s show at Orotbar in Ljubljana in mid-April this year, where Avtomobili played six more songs. The band loved the spacious stage and the serious stage lighting. Bushy shone with a few guitar specialties, which he used to add extra spice to the band’s classics. The man has matured tremendously in his performance over his time with Avtomobili. Relaxed, mellow, with a careful play of blending tones and masterful tone manipulation, which means he’s got the real touch and has developed, over the years, remarkable control over the things that define his guitar playing. Hats off. The band closed the set with yet another brand-new song, Poslušaj, which only fueled our curiosity and impatience for the new studio album.
The sound was excellent throughout the show, with no slip-ups to be detected, at least not by lay ears. The song Poslušaj was finished off by none other than Marko and Bushy. Bushy launched into some outro tapping on the guitar while Marko very slowly turned down the pots on his guitar. If it weren’t for the rain, there would have been more people in front of the stage and more energy. The band would probably have gotten even more fired up on stage as a result, and the connection would have been even more intense. Still. Even after this concert experience, it’s clear who the “Gospodar” of the trade is.
Avtomobili remain a byword for sonic excellence, exceptional originality, and conceptual sharpness. An art rock band that embodies every shade of meaning in the word “art”. They simply won’t let you down. An exceptional symbiosis and arrangement of building blocks. This is a band where nobody sticks out, but everyone brings their own perfectionist touch to the expressive, performative optimum of musical magic.
October 5 at Cankarjev dom will be a special day! It will be a magical evening, a one-of-a-kind evening. The band has exactly one month to polish the repertoire, prepare an unforgettable scenario for their 30th birthday, and delight us with a new studio achievement that we’ve had to wait a good six years for. In tense anticipation of hanging out with the band at Cankarjev dom, let me wrap up by saying that Avtomobili remain an eclectic experience you can never get tired of. And I’ll add that it’s probably only logical that after their set none of us wanted to burden our receptor organs with Plavi Orkestar, though we’d have gladly done so if Toto or Simple Minds had taken the stage after Avtomobili.
Setlist
1.Ona nosi uniformu
2.April
3.Ljubezen ne stanuje tu
4.Enkrat v življenju
5.Gorica
6.Netopir
7.Gospodar
8.Sama
9.Argentina
10.Skozi leta
11.Nekaj let
12.Drugačno nebo
13.Enakonočje
14.V mrzlih dvoranah
15.Proti luni
16.Poslušaj
Photo Gallery
