Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Kamnik / Mali grad / Slovenia
Concert date: August 12, 2014
Attendance: 400
Ticket price: €0.00 (free entry!)
Neca Falk, the legendary Slovenian artist who created a whole bundle of unforgettable musical evergreens, songs that have marked generations of Slovenian (and once Yugoslav) citizens, has found herself back in the middle of the current Slovenian music scene. Well, with Neca we can say she remains one of the most beloved performers of our time and place, and this year she released a new studio album, »Od daleč«. Without any special fanfare it came together over a stretch of a good two years, with both Boštjans from Katalena and the seasoned bassist Žiga Golob. Neca, who in 1984 built herself a monument with the forever-beloved album »Maček Muri in Muca Maca«, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, this birthday
From celebrating anniversaries to the present! To the album »Od daleč«, which is the current one. In this write-up too. What slipped past us in early June at Ljubljana’s CUK Kino Šiška, we managed to at least partly catch at this year’s Kamfest. It’s almost half past seven in the evening. I’m late to the venue. Blackness all over the sky. Is it going to pour again, like countless times this July and August? If the sun two days ago, when Tomaž Domicelj played at Mali grad (RockLine report HERE!), gave us hope of at least a week of peace from the rain, the weight of the black clouds was once again pressing dangerously down as the winds drove them over us across the Kamnik-Savinja Alps. I rolled up at the venue with a twenty-minute delay in my bag. The quartet of Neca Falk (vocals), Boštjan Narat (guitar), Boštjan Gombač (woodwinds, percussion, other »musical toys«) and Žiga Golob (double bass) was already deep into presenting the newest songs from »Od daleč«. On the sloping lawn of Mali grad, charmingly dotted with jutting rocky »bulges«, where the only thing missing was a sign saying »Don’t pick the mountain flowers«, a good 300 spellbound visitors followed the concert with watchful caution. All ages.
Neca’s excellent voice was once again coaxing out the best it has, and the feeling is that it only ripens with the years, like good old wine. Cabaret swing adorned with jazzy reconciliation and the character contours of Slovenian folk melos made the ideal framework for the heartfelt, confessional note of Neca’s poetry, especially for the newest songs, since »Od daleč« got the lion’s share of attention in the live repertoire. The gathered crowd followed the show devotedly and greeted the quartet’s every move with great warmth. With the setlist weighted so heavily toward new material, including tracks from »Od daleč« such as Ne tvegaj vsega, ker lahko ti uspe, Od daleč, Star klavir, Kar tako, Vem, zakaj, Nepopustljiva, kot sneg, most people were waiting with the greatest impatience for the familiar evergreens. The quartet fired up the audience quite a few times when Z več plati and Kako sva si različna (three ukuleles coexist in the backing, no less) rang out, followed by Balada. In the intro to Balada, the quartet, as countless times before, allowed itself a bit more mischief. With the Gombač-Narat pair on stage, that’s no surprise. The lucid side of Katalena’s gigs carried over to Neca Falk’s concerts too. Both Boštjans really recognized themselves in this song, and Neca sent them up with the line: »You two just go and fight over me, and I’ll sing about a third one!« A few seconds of silence followed, until the devil once again gave Gombač no peace and he had to add, in his trademark theatricality: »Right, Žiga?« and the crowd burst out laughing. The band certainly didn’t skip the universally demanded Vsi ljudje hitijo. The set was over damn fast. The band came back for a quick encore with Uspavanka and delighted the crowd by touching on the Maček Muri classics, then promptly bolted off the stage.
Despite the thunderous demands for one more encore from the inconsolable crowd, the Kamfest program strictly measured out the band’s minutes, because just 15 minutes later Polona Kasal’s performance followed on that very same stage, preventively moved from another location because of the threatening downpour. In other words, »out of the rain, under the eaves«.
Neca remains hypnotic. Her voice and its devoted merging with the music create that »underground« feeling of virginal purity, so once again, in all sincerity, it was completely captivating. For a musician who plugged her trouser pocket with her left hand (where that same left hand stayed for most of the concert), it’s probably all just routine, though Neca was visibly having fun throughout, and it’s surprising that she didn’t take the central position on stage, even though her voice and presentation are the central figures of the show. This time Neca was pushed somewhat off to the side, in fact the closest to the stage was Narat with his chair and acoustic guitar. Concise and sweet! We’ll surely be back for more at the next gig of the one-of-a-kind Neca Falk nearby.
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