Author: Urban Bolta
Location: Orto bar / Ljubljana / Slovenia
Concert date: 06.03.2014
Attendance: 100
Ticket price: 4€
After a run of themed nights, the first Thursday of March brought another gig-flavored Kadilnica smrti to Orto bar, the series with which Dihurčka keep the whole season stocked with a regular dose of live Slovenian metal. This time it was marked by more aggressive rhythms, as the upstairs of Orto bar hosted the Dol–Ljubljana alliance Panikk and scene newcomers Big Bad Wolf.
For Big Bad Wolf, the Kadilnica show was their very first brush with a concert stage, so what metal on stage would feel like was a total unknown right up until they kicked off. The band has been playing for years, but until this day the guys had clung to the walls of their rehearsal space, and with them to anonymity, so Thursday’s gig was a big career step forward for Big Bad Wolf, helped along by massive support from friends, otherwise rarely seen concert-goers. We had plenty to watch! With the opening cover of Motörhead’s Born To Raise Hell, Big Bad Wolf showed right away where they stand! An aggressive heavy metal sound, whose rawness would have felt right at home on the early records of German thrash giants Destruction or Kreator, quickly broke down the wall between band and crowd and, for the guys themselves, unused to performing, released the handbrake they’d subconsciously carried onto the stage. The driving force of the action was Luka, a seemingly perfectly ordinary dude who happens to have vocal charisma to spare, so during the original Belgrade 41 he practically spat a war-time tongue of fire from his throat! The sheer share of original songs proved that the band has been creating far from the public eye for quite a while, though it will take more miles on the road to bring tighter chemistry and more onstage spontaneity, which, to be honest, hardly any band has at the start of its journey.
It’s long been known that Panikk, despite the youth of the band and its members, are a real live beast, which they proved once again at Orto bar on the occasion of the reissue of their debut »Unbearable Conditions« (review HERE)! Considering how long the band has been around, their enviable stage mileage shows at every step, and the creative effort poured into their output and into performing their own material from a few years back has lately finally hit solid ground. The central stage figure was, of course, red-haired frontman Gapa, who with a mix of a modest, almost humble approach on one hand and charismatic moves on the other radiated a genuine love of making music. Though the guitars weren’t as sharply defined as when listening to the studio recordings on the couch at home, and consequently the four walls of Orto bar soaked up a bit of the riff punch, the earthquake was undoubtedly registered by the seismological institute on the other side of town! To the riff backbone of the Gapa / Nejc duo, bassist Rok and drummer Grega added the frame with confident performances; it’s precisely the lineup’s familiarity with each other, having stuck to the same members for a long time, that accounts for a tight, if still deliciously raw-sounding show. Panikk spiced up their originals with a tribute to their idols Vio-lence, and before we in the crowd could even catch our breath, the clock on their hour-long set had already run out. Panikk are built for playing live down to their very core, so no wonder everyone, us included, left the venue with a big smile on their face!
Setlist
BIG BAD WOLF:
1. Born To Raise Hell
2. Belgrade 41
3. Blitzkrieg
4. Cider Hammer
5. Four Horsemen
6. Ocean Of Madness
7. Faith No More
9. Big bad Wolf
10. R ‘n’ Roll Love
Photo gallery
