Šinobusi – Serbian Ambassadors of the Noblest Stroll Through the Golden Age of Seventies Rock, Live at Loški Pub (2015)

Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

Location: Škofja Loka / Loški Pub / Slovenia
Concert date: 10.04.2015
Attendance: 60
Ticket price: €0.00 (free entry!)

Šinobusi, with a lineup of Milan Korać (vocals, guitar), Nenad Patković (guitar, vocals, backing vocals), Stefan Stefanović »Gile« (harmonica), Predrag Dmitrović (bass guitar) and Đorđe Bubnjević (drums), spent the turn of the first ten days of this April into the second on a mini tour of Slovenia. The band, who’ve played over 40 shows on our soil in the last few years, keeps an incredible freshness, drive, momentum, passion and fire. Based in Novi Sad in Vojvodina, they played three gigs in a row: in Novo mesto (Lokalpatriot), Škofja Loka (Loški pub) and Koper (Snack bar). In a gig-packed April, the most convenient date for a quick hop to one of their shows was therefore the Škofja Loka one. Right now, Loški pub is the only place in the Škofja Loka area offering regular rock’n’roll nights. Rdeča Ostriga is clinically dead, sadly.

The band started the show really late. Almost eleven at night. A nice crowd of young people had gathered at the venue, which was surprising. Or maybe not, considering the decimated nightlife of Škofja Loka, since Loški pub is one of the few refuges where young people can go out and party on Fridays. We slightly older, slightly more mature folks enjoyed it from a cautious distance, while the local oddballs, fully fired up on alcohol, whipped the air into a whirlwind and went through proper mini deliriums right by the stage.  Anyway, we all had something to see and hear.

The band split the show into two separate parts. To sell more drinks. A move that’s catching on more and more with bar owners and becoming an increasingly common approach to organizing gigs. Anyway. Clearly, the smaller the club, the more fiercely Šinobusi dig into the material. Once again they played at full power and with a fully potent charge! In the first half of the show the guys shook through their own material, captured on four released albums, and slipped in two covers:  If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day  by Robert Johnson, and a progressive version of the Rolling Stones song Miss You, which The Rolling Stones really ought to hear. How do you rearrange the music of the Rolling Stones so it becomes interesting even to spoiled music gourmets? Nothing easier. Ask Šinobusi for the recipe.

On stage, the guys weave an extraordinary musical fabric and bond. They’ve got a finely tuned sense for building atmosphere in their songs in the little finger of their left hand, and they express it in the glow of perfect mutual awareness. They’ve played so much together, they’ve racked up so many miles, that given the heap of motif twists crammed with improvised inserts, it feels as if they’re approaching it spontaneously. The unexpected turn of events is right there the whole time. Most of that, of course, comes from the solos, which coexist throughout in a brilliant contemplation of crossfire. No two are ever the same. Nenad always ends up adding some new flourish to the songs. The wild Gile on harmonica wasn’t as »hot« this evening as he can be otherwise. But lately he’s been working on his stage look and has newly grown into Šinobusi’s resident glam guy.  Milan’s extremely deep poetry, which he delivers so feelingly and with such lived-in conviction, remains a chapter of its own in the story of Šinobusi. He and Nenad don’t just trade guitar solos; in the second part of the show Nenad also moved more and more into lead vocals. No need to waste words on the rhythmic kinetics. Every moment hits in the right place. All the beats, all the rhythmic groundwork. It’s definitely a world of its own, these five musicians, who open up a huge amount of extra space in which they draw out, with the greatest pleasure and passion, a heap of solo inserts and brilliant flourishes. Nenad is the true master of that. Admiring how this filigree-fine musician perceives music can be a real honor and a great joy for the listener.  This way the band keeps creating a constantly liberating playground, so they simply can’t get tired of playing the songs. And that’s the main attraction of their concerts. A touch of surprise!  

In the second half the crowd thinned out even more. The »pearls of the Škofja Loka streets« – two rowdies who enjoyed themselves without limits and spun around right next to the stage – chased off the last of the girls and somewhat spoiled the nice view in the room, though on the flip side they at least guaranteed a smidgen of reaction from the laid-back audience, which was huddling closer and closer to the bar. The hour was late.  The band didn’t dial down the intensity. They gave themselves over and dug out the best they know and can do. From start to finish. For the closer, Šinobusi played a brand-new song, Preko polja, pa u brda, announcing that new material is in the works for a new studio album.

It’s interesting that not a single one of the latest gigs had any representatives of Dallas Records, the label that released the album »Nebo do skaja« (2013). I didn’t spot them last year either, when RockLine showed up at the Ljubljana ethno club Zlati zob. It’s also clear that Šinobusi organized their Slovenian shows entirely on their own. Faith and dedication beat everything, even when you don’t have allies where they ought to be. Šinobusi remain a shining example of brotherhood and great camaraderie, which holds them together and drives them forward. Their excellent playing, incredible ease and the effortlessness of their delivery of at times demanding musical figures grab you fully and compactly. They suck you into their world in an instant. Sadly, though, the bulk of the Slovenian blues and rock crowd, forever spinning in the same circles on a few Ljubljana stages, still can’t find the time, the will or the interest to swing by even a single Šinobusi concert and see for themselves the great masters of the retro-sounding, progressive blues-rock tradition, where you hear everything from The Allman Brothers Band (in Loški pub they played Whiping Post) to Wishbone Ash. »Pure magic« is way too small a label to capture the unsuspected quality behind the name and essence of this band. Let’s hope we catch Šinobusi on stage again very soon! 

Setlist

1. Moje ruke sad su ptice
2. Mirna Bačka
3. In the Bottle
4. Kada svrake bulje u mene
5. Potera
6. If I Had Possession Over Judgement Day 
7. U pravcu jablanova  
8. Going Down
9. Greed
10. Skačem visoko
11. Miss You
12. Čamac na Tisi
13. Ja moram da te vidom što pre
14. Prašina
—20-minute break —
15. Iz drugog ugla
16. Naš dan
17. Taxman
18. Diggin’ a Hole
19. Bio sam tu
20. Ko zna
21. Born Under A Bad Sign
22. Sympathy Fot The Devil
23. Bluz novog dana
24. Got My Mojo Working
25. Tobacco Road
26. Super bejbe
27. Whiping Post
28. You Look Like Rain
29. Preko polja, pa u brda  

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