Venue: Hala Tivoli (small hall) / Ljubljana / Slovenia
Concert date: 29.10.2012
Attendance: 3,700
Ticket price: €34
Val 202 is the last radio-and-music bulwark in Slovenia standing against the rabid, greedy commercial stations, which have less and less to do with music or with what radio is actually supposed to be for. The second program of Radio Slovenia (as it’s officially called) is anchored somewhere between the avant-garde, underground Radio Študent and the rotten upper crust of the airwaves. For four decades now it has been shaping, nurturing and watching over Slovenian musical taste. It steers superbly between the delights and the traps of popularity and feeds us fresh musical currents and names every day. The smart editorial policy, led for years by Andrej Karoli, caters with its picks to demanding music listeners and ordinary folk alike. This very blend of quality and more broadly palatable musical expression has been Val 202’s trademark since the very beginning. The musical middle ground, which is so often a synonym for blandness, weakness and profit-minded posturing, shines in a different, positive light in the context of Val 202’s program. That middle is made up mostly of quality artists whose catchy, melodic, interesting music reaches even the ears of the musically illiterate. Most often these are acts that came out of alternative circles but, with their recognizable authorial touch, reached the hearts and won the ears of an audience that isn’t keen on experiments. And there’s one more criterion that sets Val 202 apart from other Slovenian radio stations (the exception being the precious Radio Študent): they’re loyal supporters of Slovenian music makers (and of the language). Foreign and domestic music get roughly the same airtime, and not just in the night hours but in the morning and late-morning slots too, when radio is listened to the most. All of this only cements Val 202’s place at the top among Slovenian radio frequencies. It’s a good example of how other national institutions should work, too.
So for its fortieth anniversary we could expect a big (concert) event to mark this venerable stretch of time. Somewhere at the start of this year, various bits of info about the anniversary celebration began popping up in public, and there was even talk of a Franz Ferdinand show. After the initial guessing, the media went quiet on the subject, and then the news suddenly hit that a special event was in the works, with a two-part anniversary concept (a comparison to the airtime split is in order here) – the first part would be a kind of tribute to Slovenian music of the past four decades, led by the band Elevators, and the second would have an international flavor, with the hugely popular global band Keane. The very idea got a lot of attention, and after the press conference (you’ll find our report from it here) we could all barely wait to see how it would play out live. The Slovenian part especially stirred up all sorts of speculation and suspicion. The very selection of Slovenian artists (and songs) would need some special explanation (criteria!!); and even though the organizers said it wasn’t meant to be a representative selection, the way the Slovenian part was announced made it come across as one. Of course, plenty of objective and conceptual circumstances forced them into compromises (and taste is hard to argue about, but they could at least have justified the selection in a ‘popular’ sense, if not a theoretical one), but the answer that all these artists have been a (popular) part of Val 202’s program for years, or even synonymous with it, just isn’t enough. Of course the great majority of the artists belonged at this event, since it was after all about Slovenian popular music, so there weren’t many creators from the more alternative range either, even though many of Slovenia’s popular musical peaks are hidden right there (limiting myself to recent years: Katalena, Terrafolk, Demolition Group, Srečna Mladina, Moveknowledgement… among singer-songwriters, say, Iztok Mlakar or the older Tomaž Pengov). All of that in parentheses, despite a more alternative flavor, falls within the sphere of popular music – and is very much present on Val 202’s airwaves too. On the other hand, it would be interesting to hear why katarina Mala or Billy from Bombe deserve priority over, say, Gušti, Gal Gjurin, Bilbi, Panda, Elvis Jackson or Jan Plestenjak. It would also be interesting to hear why N’toko, who is evidently the best Slovenian rapper, wasn’t among the rappers. There’s also the question of whether all these artists were even willing to perform themselves (in this context), so I don’t want to condemn anyone, but still: there are quite a few questions and unclear points, so it would have been welcome if the organizers had explained the selection at all. Even adding more performers probably wouldn’t have fixed much without at least some public info on how the picks were made. But maybe that’s all just my curious nature and a youthful delusion. On the other hand, I’m glad that a spot in the lineup didn’t go to the many slick, generic, banal ”crap” acts from the hick side of the Slovenian nation (your various Atomiks, Rays, plagiarists, a thousand and one singing beauty queens, assorted Slovenian (multi)talents and instant quasi-celebrities, etc. – and this jab absolutely isn’t aimed at folk-entertainment music). Karoli’s idea of a one-hour musical medley, or collage, absolutely deserves praise. Innovative, easy to follow and, on top of that, great fun.
And live, that’s exactly how it turned out. The fears were unfounded. The hour flew by. All those changeovers, the nostalgic touch, the energetic performances and even the comic mishaps added up to a real treat for eyes and ears. What marked every performance in particular was how relaxed it all felt. Here we have to praise Elevators, who played a full hour nonstop (with a bit of a breather during Murat’s beatboxing) and gave the vocalists a superb sonic backbone. It’s a real little masterpiece to squeeze so many different rhythms and characters into one hour. They pulled it off with confidence, without a single mistake, and were a real inspiration to everyone else. So Elevators gave the event its hour-long pulse, while the other forty or so musicians and vocalists had roughly seventy seconds each for their turn. The stage changes were flying, if I may borrow some sports jargon. Nobody ”fell asleep”, although I personally was expecting to see Magnifico and Severa Gjurin as well (both had been announced – Severa was supposed to sing Poletno Noč). For clarity’s sake, I’d split the performers into five groups, the most distinct ones. The most applause and sympathy went to the legends of Slovenian stages, like Janez Bončina Benč, Aleksander Mežek, Adi Smolar, Andrej Šifrer, Neca Falk, Oto Pestner, Jani Kovačič, Pero Lovšin and Vlado Kreslin. Neca Falk made an especially memorable appearance just by showing up, Mežek deserves praise for his touching Julija, and so does Jani Kovačič, who marched onto the stage with a whole squad of supporters (Oto Pestner was among them) who helped him with an ‘a cappella’ rendition of his by-now-folk-classic Delam. Before the final round of rockers, the well-established pop-song rhythm was shaken up considerably by the hip hop acts, even though (at least to me) the most interesting ones weren’t on stage: N’toko and Alien (though they did spin an instrumental insert of his track Sirni in Mesni). Nikolovski joined in on Murat’s beatboxing, after that Zlatko explained how beautiful the world is, then came the pacifist Od ljudi za ljudi by Murat and Jose, Klemen Klemen didn’t sing about cash and chicks but about his first love, and Kosta wrapped it all up successfully with Bombnar. Over the past fifteen years Slovenian hip hop and rap have left a strong mark on the Slovenian scene, so it was only right that they got that much room, or time, among the performers. The majority of the lineup, and the closing part, went to the vocalists of Slovenian pop bands. The list included all the important Slovenian bands and the singers who left their imprint on our scene, from Tokac (Dan D), who closed this delightful hour (all the other musicians joined him on stage and they sang the closing verses of the song Čas together), Tomi (Siddharta), Niet’s by-now-not-so-new singer Borut Marolt, and the fatally provocative Mina Špiler (Melodrom), Grega Skočir from Big Foot Mama, Billy from Bombe, the entertaining duo Jernej and Tone of Mi2, Dejan Došlo and Damir Jazbec of the almost-forgotten Leteči Potepuhi, to Lara Love from LeeLoojamais. And of course we can’t forget one special moment, since former Tabu singer Nina returned to the stage after several years away, singing the song Divje as a duet with Tina Marinšek. Female representation also included Neisha with Planet za zadet, Alenka Godec singing Domicelj‘s Danes bo srečen dan (he was absent, since he’s in the US), katarina Mala with Ciao, Ciao, and a pregnant Tinkara Kovač adding vocals to Elevators’ original Na krilih ljubezni (Pikl also played and sang Ke si lubi, a creation of his other band – Manouche). As the fifth and last ”group” I’ll mention a few instrumentals. Despite the missing Magnifico, the bars of his Silvija rang out, and Elevators also took care of Predin‘s (Lačni Franz) Praslovan (Zoran Predin is recovering from heart surgery), Novo Vrijeme by Buldožer (a nod to Marko Brecelj) and the Slovenian pop-song ”anthem” Poletna noč, the work of Mojmir Sepe and Elza Budau. Marjana Deržaj’s immortal vocals were heard via playback (a fairly unique moment of the event: the whole hall singing in one voice, and singing and singing, and would most likely have kept on singing for quite a while). Right after the final ”Live Aid-style” choir, with all the performers singing the last verses of Dan D’s Čas together, the preparations for the second highlight of the evening began. Keane.
Even before the medley of Slovenian songs, the stage was warmed up by the British band Zulu Winter, who follow Keane everywhere around Europe and come across as a kind of teenage indie version of Coldplay. A decent set, and we’ll see how the band develops. Future Keane? Well, let’s hope not. The latter’s set didn’t surprise in the slightest, which doesn’t mean we can write it off a priori as a failure. Keane have been around for fifteen years, and over all that time they’ve built a very precisely measured show for the audience and the PR machine. Tim Rice-Oxley (keyboardist and the brains and heart of the outfit), Tom Chaplin (vocals), Richard Hughes (drums) and Jesse Quin (bass) are known today above all as the golden, sweet boys of England. The setlists are always the same, the banter with the crowd is identical from town to town (the only difference is the name of the town),… even the body language is probably synced to the parts of the songs as they go. There’s no room for surprises here. Maybe that’s exactly/also what makes them a B-list band. And the latest album came out in this slightly boring vein (you can read the review and more details about the band here). Despite many people leaving (mostly older citizens) after the Slovenian hour-long medley ended, good energy stayed in the hall, a great send-off for Keane, and they made the most of it. Their live ”new-age drive” is built on trying to coax mostly positive feelings and sides of life out of us. So that a person feels good and comes to the show to unwind emotionally. Light, dreamy, a bit nostalgic, yet soothing and joyful. Ideal for moms over forty, widowed dads and squealing teenage girls. Chaplin’s constant smile never falters, even when he’s singing melancholic or depressing lyrics. An ”artificial” band? They grew organically, out of a garage. It’s true, though, that the market winds carried them off down strange and shady paths.
The show flew by at a terrific pace, songs followed one after another without a breather, and even though many are built on a sentimental foundation, there wasn’t much time for romance and lighters (the exception being a couple of gorgeous ballad moments the guys really have a handle on – e.g. the opening song of the encore, Sea Fog). Most of the time it was Rice-Oxley’s inventive, melodic but polished piano figures and Chaplin’s perfectly velvety voice that came to the fore (he has lost an unbelievable amount of weight, looked healthy and very lively, and kept climbing the boxes set up for that purpose at the edge of the stage – there’s no more talk of a ”junkie” look either). The stage design was mostly white, and the back of the stage was adorned with a big emblem shaped into a sort of ‘Strangeland’ flag. People sang along quite a lot, and knew the many hits from the first (‘Hopes and Fears’) and second (‘Under The Iron Sea’) records by heart. The new album proved to be a real added value; the songs slot in great with the older material (e.g. Somewhere Only We Know and Is It Any Wonder) and this time we heard as many as eight from the new record (they played twenty-one songs in all, three of them in the encore – people especially liked Sovereign Light Café, Disconnected, Silenced By The Night and the opener You Are Young). If the good sides of the concert are mainly the dynamics and the relatively positive atmosphere, we also have to list some of the most obvious downsides: too much sweetness, too much similarity between the songs (as if you were listening to one song for the whole show), an uncreative stage performance and banal banter with the crowd (which may still hide a grain of sincerity). They played for about an hour and a half and had some truly brilliant moments in between. But what can you do when, every single time, they stop short just before a real discovery and musical breakthrough. For example, the song Crystal Ball develops an excellent, appealing, deep cosmic sound in the second part, but they stop in their interpretation right where they should have been developing it and taking even the more demanding concert audience to purification, to catharsis. The biggest excitement for most, though, came with the well-known radio hit Everybody’s Changing. A truly successful and mischievous song that rocks even the most serious individuals into dancing and won’t leave you alone for at least the whole next day – unconsciously humming it in the street… The show will stay in many people’s fond memories, but we’re far from being able to call it a unique or unrepeatable experience (although getting into the individual level and personal experiences is always delicate – that and taste are a topic for another time). The show contained too much generic stuff, too much professionalism and too many stage clichés we’ve already seen to really leave a deep imprint (say, for the annals of journalism). It’s a shame they didn’t play Queen’s Under Pressure at the end, which was on the setlist; Chaplin’s interpretation of the song is, at least judging by the YouTube clips, brilliant). A decent concert pick (especially since this is an event of a middle-of-the-road musical nature), but when we think of all the other world-famous names they could have brought in for this anniversary, we get a bit of the hiccups.
To finish, I’d add a few sour notes about the organization (the choice of venue itself is a smaller problem (flow, aesthetics….), and even Keane’s vocalist Tom Chaplin joked about it before the end of the show – though I do have to praise the sound system, which was surprisingly good for the conditions). Even though Val 202 conceptually pulled the event off in a way fitting for the anniversary, in grand style and memorably (first part: a celebration of Slovenian music, second part: decent, though maybe the band choice could have been better), it honestly tugs at my heartstrings when I remember the accreditation mix-ups and photography tangles right before the Keane gig. Rockline has never in its entire history had such a big problem getting photo accreditation. In other countries we’ve photographed all the biggest music legends and stars (U2, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Radiohead, Bruce Springsteen…), yet in our own country we can’t get even a single photo accreditation as one of the leading music portals (even though we covered the event ”one hundred percent”: I wrote an extensive report from the press conference and a review of the album ‘Strangeland’ myself, not to mention the banner that ran for four months). This time even people who have never photographed a concert in their lives, amateur photographers of natural landmarks, were given priority over us. Incomprehensible. We got accreditation at the last minute, on site, and even that we then had to wrangle out before the Keane show. I’d like to know on what basis their manager decided which outlet is important enough to photograph ”his” band. What were the selection criteria? Apparently their manager is a real media guru (an expert on the Slovenian media landscape!!). Such transparent arguments are downright laughable. He could only have chosen based on readership numbers, and even for that he most likely got the data from the Slovenian organizer. And if that’s the only selection criterion (maybe geographic coverage too), then it’s truly sad how far we’ve come. Hence the lack of photos from the Keane show. I hope a similar situation won’t happen again next time.
Setlist
Dan 202 (chronological):
– V aorto (Elevators)
– Ta noč je moja – Janez Bončina Benč
– Silvija (instrumental)
– Ljubezen v avtu (instrumental, Robi Pikl)
– Samo ljubezen (Sestre)
– Na krilih ljubezni (Tinkara Kovač and Elevators)
– 42/Divje (Tina and Nina, Tabu)
– Ciao, Ciao (katarina Mala)
– Planet za zadet (Neisha)
– Kje si lubi (Manouche)
– Ne zameri mi (Lara Love, LeeLooJamais)
– Julija (Aleksander Mežek)
– To se govori (med ljudmi) (Andrej Šifrer)
– Daleč je za naju pomlad (Adi Smolar)
– Vsi ljudje hitijo (Neca Falk)
– Danes bo srečen dan (Alenka Godec)
– September (Mina Špiler, Melodrom)
– Poletna noč (instrumental)
– Trideset let (Oto Pestner)
– Srečen (Billy, Bombe)
– Še je čas (Vlado Kreslin)
– Praslovan (instrumental)
– Delam (Jani Kovačič, Oto Pestner and a cappella choir)
– Bicikl (Dejan Došlo and Damir Jazbec, Leteči potepuhi)
– Murat (beatbox)
– Niki Niko (Nikolovski)
– Svet je lep (Zlatko)
– Od ljudi za ljudi (Murat & Jose)
– Still love her (Klemen Klemen)
– Sirni in mesni (instrumental)
– Bombnar (Kosta)
– Vse, kar imam (Trkaj)
– Pojdi z menoj v toplice (Jernej and Tone, Mi2)
– Črn tulipan (Grega Skočir, BFM)
– Totalna revolucija (Peter Lovšin)
– Novo vrijeme (instrumental)
– Moja Mama (Anja Rupel)
– Na soncu (Tomi M., Siddharta)
– Lep dan za smrt (Borut Marolt, Niet)
– Čas (Tokac, Dan D)
Keane:
1.) You Are Young
2.) Bend and Break
3.) On the Road
4.) The Starting Line
5.) Nothing in My Way
6.) Silenced by the Night
7.) Everybody’s Changing
8.) You Haven’t Told Me Anything
9.) We Might as Well Be Strangers
10.) Day Will Come
11.) Spiralling
12.) A Bad Dream
13.) Hamburg Song
14.) Disconnected
15.) Is It Any Wonder?
16.) This Is the Last Time
17.) Somewhere Only We Know
18.) Bedshaped
encore:
19.) Sea Fog
20.) Sovereign Light Café
21.) Crystal Ball
Photo Gallery
