Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik, Jernej Vene
Location: Ljubljana / Prulček bar / Slovenia
Concert date: 01.03.2014
Attendance: 100
Ticket price: €0.00 (free entry)
Moonlight Sky Trio! We’ve already written plenty of big words on RockLine about this “holy trinity” of excellent musicians. And rightly so. Moonlight Sky Trio are a perpetuum mobile that knows no limits, with only one direction that counts: constant positive change, a constant that exists outside of space and time. In other words, right where the most beautiful works of art are born.
Prulček bar! A new name? Fairly new, yes. A lifeline of hope that, now that it’s harder and harder for bands to find a concert space to present their music, actually works out just about perfectly. It’s a renovated former Mercator snack bar in Prule, which has been running regular concert nights at full throttle for the past three months. With the focus, of course, on jazz, blues and folk stuff, but above all on wildly experimental musical adventures. Moonlight Sky Trio are one of those unique musical stories you just can’t pigeonhole, and one you can always safely predict will “knock you off your feet” (and blow your socks off).
The clock had just struck a little past nine in the evening. Prulček was in full carnival Saturday mode. The place was packed. To the last corner. In the first half the trio played an acoustic set, in the second an electric one. Miha Petric (guitar), Janez Moder (bass guitar) and Žiga Kožar (drums). A trio where pure magic reigns and the on-stage chemistry is perfect, once it comes to interpreting the material.
“Changing Parameters,” the band’s third studio album, released in spring 2012 on the Celinka label, naturally got a new lease on life, especially in the first half, while the guys also touched on works by some of their favorite role models and other “musical delights” that keep inspiring them, one way or another, throughout their musical career.
A singular fusion of rock and jazz elements, richly seasoned with folk, spilling over mostly from the Balkan Peninsula in many a well-tuned pattern of melos from thoroughbred, seductive “arabesques.” With a rhythmically concrete “scattered kinetics” that also serves up some seriously demanding rhythmic time textures, and certainly plenty of “Balkan” flavor too. These moments of bold musical “shenanigans” are especially fun at Moonlight Sky Trio gigs. This time too, the band played as if in a trance. As if it were a matter of life and death! As if it were the last day. Of humankind. They played with heart and devotion. Once again they gave the most a musician can possibly offer at a concert.
So much genuine energy, so much adventurous daring in the outstanding solo acrobatics and spontaneous solutions, from individuals and the team alike – you’d hardly find it all gathered in one single place anywhere else! Moonlight Sky Trio are the kind of crew who absolutely have to try their luck abroad. Absolutely. They simply cast a spell on the listener with their one-of-a-kind energy, built on an incredible mileage of rehearsals, countless stage appearances, collaborations with an epic roster of musicians, and of course whatever it is that keeps driving them forward! With an untamed hunger for free-spirited expression of what they carry inside and what they feel has to come out when they take the stage!
Even though Miha Petric is always a step ahead of his two companions, he remains the main generator of the band’s musical character and form! With another bravura performance from one of the most accomplished and distinctive Slovenian guitarists – we might call him a one-of-a-kind wizard – the exceptional talents and experimental flexibility of Janez Moder and Žiga Kožar must by no means be overlooked. The energy flux all three of them bring out is incredible. Almost hypnotic! They simply understand and sense each other’s playing so well when they’re on stage together. Even when a flub creeps into such passionate playing as the trio’s shows deliver, they always turn it to their advantage, spinning the slip through a new improvisational adventure back into the motif that defines the framework of the song. That is exactly the element that astounds. Not one transition in their playing is the same. What the listener witnesses at a gig is unique and unrepeatable. At the next show, the trio will loosen up those very same musical forms with brand-new improvisational excursions. Unpredictable, spontaneous, truthful! Moonlight Sky Trio, thank you for an outstanding music lesson, a one-of-a-kind musical adventure, and a wonderful, unforgettable evening. A concert the way only the greatest musicians can deliver it, while keeping all the wisdom of a modest, reserved attitude. Guys, we’ll definitely see you again. And very, very soon!
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