Location: Tolmin
Concert date: 05.08.2014
The beach stage was kicked off by local heroes Start At Zero, and I managed to catch them right at the start of their set. Start At Zero had the odd breakdown, but still brought plenty of energy and left a good impression on the crowd, who gave them a warm round of applause after every song. After them, French hardcore punk outfit Bigblast took the stage. In their 40 minutes, Big Blast showed precious little; the bass just about held the foundation under the melodic section, but the guitars went flat more than once and clashed audibly with the vocal lines. Especially at the start, the singer’s unengaging shuffling around the stage and shaky voice put off a few listeners, who preferred to dip their feet in the Soča instead. Towards the end of the set the band somehow found the right vibe and made up for the shaky start.
The polar opposite of the softer, more melodic Bigblast were Wolf x Down, a contrast between the previous singer’s off-key wobble and an Amazon raging on stage. Despite technical problems, the show stayed jam-packed thanks to the menacing Larissa (Wolf X Down). The vocal aggression and arrangements, which lean slightly toward harsher genres, marked the final show on the beach stage, where, despite the blistering heat, the place was teeming with people and stage divers.
The evening’s action, unlike yesterday, didn’t have such a laser focus, especially when it came to everyone waiting for just one band. Already for The Real McKenzies and their special mix of punk rock and bagpipes, the crowd came flooding in in impatient waves, completely given over to the night. The Old Firm Casuals had cancelled their show, so The Real McKenzies, to the great delight of everyone there, stretched their beer-soaked set by almost a full hour. The sound at the mixing desk recovered somewhat from yesterday’s muddiness, offering a nicer, better-defined instrumental backdrop; the clearly defined guitars and booming lows held up both right up by the stage and at the mixing desk. Still, the high sound of the pipes got lost in the more densely arranged parts and ducked under the other instruments. Bravo to The Real McKenzies, because they pulled off their extended set more than confidently (maybe even with the help of some alcoholic supplements).
According to many (judging by the backstage chatter later on), the night hit its peak with H2O. The New York hardcore punk band drove the crowd completely wild the moment they arrived. With no rambling or speeches, H2O hit the jackpot with their almost brotherly approach to the audience. Special mention goes to What Happened, during which around 40 people jumped on stage and sang the song from start to finish together with the band. Rusty Pistachio commented on the whole thing like this:
That’s happened to us at a few shows before, so I’d rather go to the other side while the rest of the guys got swallowed up by the crowd.
The quick question about the “incident” then grew into a short chat about the hardcore punk scene and where H2O fit into it:
We draw a lot of inspiration from DC (Washington), California and New York and their local scenes, so we end up making a mix of all three, like a kind of holy trinity of hardcore punk.
A similar surge of crowd came during Sick Of It All; even harsher and harder-hitting hardcore punk from New York, which finally won the audience over for good. From the first minute to the last, the band served up stage divers and calmer folks at the mixing desk alike with surprisingly heavy guitar power, thanks to Pete Koller. His physical performance up close was reminiscent of martial arts; with the last chord Koller whirled around his own axis and almost knocked over Lou Koller, who happened to be standing near Pete’s monitor. Over the course of the show the sound shifted from balanced instruments toward emphasizing the guitars, but that didn’t bother anyone, at least not those in the front rows. In the chaos the crowd stormed the stage again and joined Sick Of It All; a few people were even brave enough to do their stage diving right off the big side monitors, landing on the crowd on stage, who carried them down to the floor with no trouble.
The conversations after the show all share a common theme: going wild with the bands on stage. Here we can immediately draw parallels between East Coast and West Coast bands. The connection between the crowd and the band counts for the most, and today’s action is proof of exactly that. No matter the look or the taste, what ties everyone here together isn’t love, it’s loyalty to their genre. And that’s where you see the true face of the bands up on stage. Today’s top-class performers didn’t stress any need for violence (of one kind or another), they just wanted to share a message with like-minded people.
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