Author: Urban Bolta
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Laško / Jagoče (Zlatorog stage) / Slovenia
Concert date: July 18, 2014
Attendance: 2000
Ticket price: €20.00
The first day of the Pivo in cvetje festival was in the books, and Laško woke up to a fresh Friday that promised another bagful of proper music parties! Stages were popping up all over town, but the Rockline crew focused mainly on the action at the main stage in front of the village of Jagoče, which is actually the stage farthest from the center of Laško. For many years the main stage of Pivo in cvetje sat right in the middle of town, next to the Savinja river, but now, for the third year running, it’s been set up on a meadow about a 15-minute walk away, with enough space to take in even more people. As the festival went on, it turned out that the crowds didn’t reward the interesting music program with a massive turnout. Plenty of people could be heard grumbling that Pivo in cvetje never used to have paid stages, which has been the norm for the last three years. But the ticket is just a side note to an ever better music program, so for true connoisseurs, and I’m convinced of this, it’s no big deal to dig into their pockets and fork out twenty euros to watch musicians who shape, or once shaped, the face of rock around the world.
The Rockline crew arrived at the grounds in the late afternoon, after sets by the punk rockers Backstage and the wild heavy rock ladies Hellcats – the latter returned to the stage after a turbulent end to last year, when their guitars and the rest of their gear were stolen from their van in the middle of a mini Italian tour. Third on the Pivo in cvetje stage were San Di Ego. They’re a crew of seasoned musicians who still can’t shake the supergroup syndrome, where the band members are better known than the band itself. After the original song Zadnji cent, San Di Ego sailed straight into covers of the biggest rock hits, and along the way they didn’t forget to show off their versatile instrumental chops. Drummer Jure Doles is always interesting to watch because of his combined jazz and classical stick grip, similar to the one used by Mark Zonder (Warlord, ex-Fates Warning), who Rockline met a few days earlier. The good sound only boosted the magic of the superb vocal harmonies, the basic prerequisite for the successfully delivered Queen classics, with which San Die Ego entertained a few hundred souls gathered in front of the stage.
Next up were Happy Ol’ McWeasel, party animals from Styria who popularized the Celtic jig of bouncy punk rock in our parts. Frankly, I’ve never quite understood bands that draw inspiration from the traditions of completely foreign cultures, but as long as people keep buying your product, that’s obviously allowed too. In recent years Happy Ol’ McWeasel have been diligently packing clubs and student parties all over the country, and their frequent gigs and hard work are earning them an ever bigger fan base, which didn’t leave them hanging in Laško either. The bouncy tunes sent a few beer glasses flying, spilling good vibes all over the grounds.
Night was slowly starting to show its teeth when Dan D returned to the Pivo in cvetje stage. The band has come an incredible way in the last ten years. After playing for quite some time and being old acquaintances of the Dolenjska rock underground, it was only with the album »Katere barve je tvoj dan« that they managed to launch themselves into the orbit of Slovenia’s most popular rock bands, where they remain to this day. Dan D keep chasing new challenges, and this summer they took their hugely successful acoustic tour Tiho to castles across Slovenia. But the crowd in Laško came for pure, straight-up fun, so Dan D plugged back in and, with a elemental rocker’s statement, drew by far the biggest crowd in front of the stage up to that point. Tokac, a master of mood swings, managed to share touches of intimacy, so characteristic of this band from Novo mesto, despite the huge capacity of the grounds, with the hits Voda, Moj problem and Plešeš. You could say about Dan d that they’re like wine: they get better with every year!
For years Slovenian concert promoters have relied on the tried-and-true tactic of inviting big music names from the former common country, since they’re still extremely popular. In that sense, just announcing the legendary Croatian band Parni Valjak was a bull’s-eye. Parni Valjak are one of the most experienced bands in our part of the world, so even with a calculated approach they manage to keep the crowd in check for the entire length of the set. What stood out was the absence of longtime guitarist Husa, whose fate isn’t yet known to the public – is his health giving him trouble, or is there some kind of dispute inside the band? The stage action fell even more obviously than usual on the shoulders of the band’s icon Aki Rahimovski, who once again sat down on the edge of the stage during the show and shook hands with the audience in the front row. The beer flowed in rivers (as it should at a festival), and Parni Valjak, riding on their biggest hits Sunčanom stranom, Sve još miriše na nju and Jesen u meni, and even with brief instrumental nods to the legacy of world rock, forced the crowd in front of the stage to sing along. Traditional Yugoslav melos, spiced up with a guitar harmony from the Eagles and the rhythmic jump of Springsteen’s Glory Days, once again proved to be a hot commodity in Slovenia!
It was long past midnight when it was time for the main stars of the evening – the reunited hard rockers from Velenje, Šank Rock, whose breakup as the new year 2011 began left a huge void on the Slovenian hard rock scene. Frankly, their return had been expected ever since the day they split, only its form was undefined until Friday night. The Šank Rockers took the stage with the classic trio of Matjaž Jelen (vocals), Cveto Polak (bass) and Bor Zuljan (guitar), keyboardist Klarič was replaced by Sašo Gačnik, and the bone of contention and least popular figure of the classic Šank Rockers, the guy behind the drum kit, was replaced by the seasoned Roman Ratej.
Expectations were high before the end of the three-year concert fast, just as high as the Šank Rockers’ desire to throw one more genuine rock party at the place that marked them so deeply. The opening track Rockerji already hinted that plenty of room to maneuver would go to the guitar virtuoso Bor Zuljan, standing on the left side of the stage. His solos were the highlights of the songs played, especially given his long absence from the eyes of the wider public, if we don’t count the short promo campaign for his solo record from four years ago. Zuljan has the charisma of the great musicians, so despite his rock-star behavior on stage, his performance didn’t feel off-putting – instead he gave the Šank Rockers back that ingredient of the successful nineties which Roki Petkovič (excellent as well, by the way) couldn’t fill after Zuljan left. The audience was hungry for those evergreen choruses, so while singing the hits Ker te ljubim, Maček and Pravljica o mavričnih ljudeh, Matjaž had strong backing from the loyal fans, who without exception welcomed the return of the Šank Rockers, in the wider (social, interactive) environment too. Given the band’s former track record, it wasn’t hard for the guys from Velenje to fill the repertoire with well-known songs built on an alternating hard rock and ballad skeleton. A minor surprise was the performance of Puščava sna, since the Šank Rockers generally hadn’t played that song in recent years, and to close the first part of the set they served up the playful Le 17.
The second part of the concert was no less bombastic than the first, quite the opposite! The five-piece were joined on stage by the world-renowned guitarist Steve Stevens, who last played on our soil just a few weeks earlier as an indispensable part of Billy Idol’s crew (report here). Not everything went smoothly, though, since some of the technical gear boycotted its basic mission because of the rain, so after Matjaž’s improvised address the band was forced to change its carefully planned program. But these guys are so experienced and so well greased with every kind of salve that nothing throws them off track. Stevens showed off his far-from-modest technique in a played-through Top Gun theme, with the Šank Rockers becoming his backing band, which for the next hour, with Stevens’ guitar singing, strolled through rock classics by Led Zeppelin, AC/DC and, of course, Billy Idol. Given the late hour, the familiar motifs worked like opium for the masses, who enjoyed Stevens’ unsurpassed feel for a guitar phrase, even though the 55-year-old musician comes across as low-energy on stage. That’s just how he is. During preparations for the concert, Stevens also learned a few Šank Rockers songs and paid them a compliment while playing, tossing into the mic the words: »it’s a fucking good rock’n’roll band«! The mutual respect was obvious, and the evening, as a reunion should, ended in the rhythms of the best and greatest Šank Rock songs: Metulj, Jaz nimam noč za spanje and, before the closing fireworks, the festival’s unofficial anthem, Laški pir.
Šank Rock revived the Fairy Tale (for one night at least) that they spent almost thirty years writing. Let’s hope they become hostages to their mutual chemistry and announce a long-term comeback soon. The foundations are already laid!
Setlist
ŠANK ROCK:
1. Rockerji
2. Pridite na žur
3. Ker te ljubim
4. Maček
5. Tih bod in igraj
6. Pravljica o mavričnih ljudeh
7. Lahka dama
8. Delam kar paše mi
9. Želim da si tu
10. Puščava sna
11. Hvala za vse
12. Le 17
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ŠANK ROCK & STEVE STEVENS:
13. Top Gun theme
14. Whole Lotta Love
15. White Wedding
16. Dancing With Myself
17. TV
18. Blue Highway 8solo)
19. Rebell Yell
20. Highway To Hell
21. Hočeš Nočeš (feat. Natalija Verboten)
22. Metulj
23. Jaz nimam noč pa spanje
24. Laški pir
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