Location: Velden, Carinthia (Velden Am Wörthersee) / Bluesiana Rock Cafe / Austria
Concert date: 14.02.2014
Attendance: 50
Ticket price: €10.00 (women) / €20.00 (men)
The spirit of American saccharine sweetness, which has sadly spread to Europe too, pushed us to look for a nice evening away from hearts, the color red and anything else from the commercialized Valentine’s industry. Except for love, of course. We didn’t have to search long. This time we found comfort in musicians from the Balkans. Only we didn’t head south, we went north, once again to our beloved Bluesiana club in Velden, Austria.
Even before crossing the border through the once-again alternately closed Karavanke tunnel (a warning for potential Bluesiana visitors – the tunnel will be closed on alternating schedules until mid-April), we were greeted by a blanket of snow, which only got deeper as we got closer to Velden. Well, at least it wasn’t snowing. Charmed by the winter idyll, we parked in front of the club. Finding a parking spot right outside the club after nine in the evening is usually a bad sign – it means a meager turnout. But once you step inside, you stop worrying about that. A pleasant chat with the club’s owner Gudrun Kofler by the crackling fireplace fills you with calm and a homey feeling, and the photos of the stars who have already played Bluesiana, staring at you from every wall, only whet your concert appetite further. But this time we had come for a show by Sex Tension, fronted by Alen Brentini.
Alen Brentini – a guitar virtuoso from Rijeka, Croatia. Take a pinch of Adriatic climate, a hard rock heart and a softer blues-funk soul and you get a mix of world-class musical talent. That is, if and when all the other circumstances lined up too – the ones shaped by the music industry, which a musician can influence only a little. So homegrown musicians of Brentini’s caliber, instead of playing big halls, are left with the more intimate club scene, with smaller crowds but all the more precious, genuine contact with the audience. Yeah, sometimes less can be more – at least for the listeners.
Alen met the guitar as a kid, and as a teenager he was already playing in his first bands. Over his career he has put out three solo albums, the latest, Soul’d Out, just this January. His musical talent has left its mark far beyond home, too, as Alen has worked with many big names, including Richie Kotzen, Kee Marcello and Michael T. Ross, and we could go on. The Parni Valjak singer Aki Rahimovski also invited him to collaborate on his solo project, and he has worked with the Croatian band Ayra as well. This time, though, he showed up at Bluesiana with his fresh band Sex Tension, which saw the light of day at the start of last summer. Besides Alen on guitar and vocals, it features Arsen Uran on bass and Dejan Turk on drums.
The show kicked off at half past nine on the dot. The modest crowd gave the trio a warm welcome as they took their positions on stage right away and opened the night with a fast cover of Skid Row’s Slave to the Grind. Sex Tension play mostly covers from the 80s, though they dip back into the 70s too. With a skillful pick of more or less familiar songs by the giants of the past, the band enchanted a crowd that was mostly seated below them. Alen’s talent isn’t just flawless guitar improvisation, but also an excellent voice, at times with a touch of soul and blues, elsewhere with a raspy hard’n’heavy edge. His stage act includes slipping into the skin of the rock stars whose songs the trio plays, through movement and not just feel, yet Sex Tension still stay authentic. They add something of their own to every cover, whether it’s shifts in rhythm or improvised extras while playing the well-studied solos right down to the last note. Dejan and Arsen followed their leader nicely and in sync, but all eyes in the crowd were on Alen, who deftly worked the strings with his long fingers, coaxing out sounds of calm melody and lively waves of tone at once, which blended with the bass and drums into perfection on every guitar solo. Although the band doesn’t have a long history, they play tightly and in perfect sync even during all the improvised bits, which came through especially on Kotzen’s Go Faster, which they smoothly merged with Long Train Running (The Doobie Brothers) and then, with a few Kiss snippets, swung back into Go Faster. Alen’s charismatic vocals rounded it all off into sonic perfection for the listener’s ears, and all you could do was surrender to the flawless melody ringing out from the stage. A real balm for all the souls in love, who made up most of the Bluesiana crowd this time.
Besides a stroll through covers of Whitesnake, Europe, Kotzen, Testament, Steel Dragon,… the band also played a few of Alen’s own songs. We heard Trust, the instrumental Transexpress and 2 songs from the new album – Losing You and Someone’s Love. It immediately became clear that Alen isn’t just an outstanding instrumentalist and vocalist, but also a songwriter and arranger. Alen has also already recorded original tracks with Sex Tension (you can hear them on YouTube too), but sadly the band didn’t decide to play any of those this time.
The show wrapped up after a good two hours. For the encore the band chose to repeat Skid Row’s Slave to the Grind, even though a peek at the setlist made it clear they hadn’t played everything they’d planned. But what they gave us was more than satisfying, and nobody can ever give enough anyway. Still, it stung after the show to see the bonus setlist they’d prepared – it included covers of Hendrix, Clapton, Gary Moore,… Sadly Alen didn’t go for the more blues-flavored songs, but we can take that as encouragement: Alen and Sex Tension will definitely have to be seen live again, so we can catch the bonus too.
Valentine’s Day without the sugary sweetness and commercialized trappings. Except for love, of course. Alen Brentini has plenty of that. Above all, a genuine love of music, of playing and of performing live. The kind of Valentine’s Day you’d want to relive several times a year.
Setlist
1. Slave to the Grind (Skid Row)
2. Symphony of Destruction (Megadeth)
3. Electric Crown (Testament)
4. Fool for your Loving (Whitesnake)
5. Oh my God (Richie Kotzen)
6. Anarcy in the UK (Sex Pistols)
7. Fire (Jimi Hendrix)
8. Superstitious (Europe)
9. Give me all your Love (Whitesnake)
10. On the Loose (Europe)
11. Trust (Alen Brentini)
12. Transexpress (Alen Brentini)
13. Losing You (Alen Brentini)
14. Someone’s Love (Alen Brentini)
15. Shot in the Dark (Ozzy Osbourne)
16. Go Faster (Richie Kotzen)
17. You Give Love a Bad Name (Bon Jovi)
18. Wicked Game (Chris Isaak)
19. We all Die Young (Steel Dragon)
20. The Deeper the Love (Whitesnake)
—encore—
21. Slave to the Grind (Skid Row)
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