Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Novo mesto / Lokalpatriot / Slovenia
Concert date: April 17, 2015
Attendance: 12
Ticket price: €3.00
Grega Habič is Slovenia’s best-kept musical secret. No doubt about it. He’s one of the most interesting musicians, D.I.Y. wizards and guitar virtuosos in Slovenia, and I’d even say in the wider European region. If Grega had had better luck with the latitude and longitude of his hometown, he’d probably be living off a professional music career with ease today. Offers would be raining in from everywhere, and the guy wouldn’t have to watch where his last penny is going. His style and technique are so polished and fully realized that it’s not hard to picture Grega Habič in G3 and G4 lineups alongside Joe Satriani and Steve Vai. No joke. And yet…..
With five studio albums under his belt, featuring renowned guests from abroad, the Jesenice-born guitar guru and distinctive musical visionary is still shoved deep into the total underground of the Slovenian music scene. His recent show at the Lokalpatriot club in Novo mesto confirmed it with a seriously sad turnout. Friday night. It’s eleven o’clock, and there are, believe it or not, 12 people in the room (bar staff included). It’s genuinely hard to explain the downward trend in gig attendance on the club scene, though on the other hand the answers are staring us in the face, but we sadly have no time for socially critical, politically engaged »shouting« in this report. Neoliberalism has eaten all our common sense, and people only listen to the music dictated by Big Brother.
Grega Habič Band today is an exceptional musical collective. A quartet. Alongside Grega, there are two of his longtime close collaborators: bassist Klemen Gasar, who used to play guitar for Grega (Klemen is also an excellent guitarist – once a member of Gameover, the Jesenice-based experimental progressive art rock outfit that started out in thrash metal), and the refined drummer Blaž Soklič. The newer name on the team is guitarist Peter Pavičič, who is in charge mainly of building a solid wall of riffs (and upgrading the sonic dynamics) into which Grega’s guitar-solo »mischief« sinks safely.
The band had no choice but to step up to the front of an empty club and start »performing« for a dozen people. Tough in moments like these. The whole thing feels like a public rehearsal. The band gritted their teeth and unloaded a juicy, colorful set made up of songs pulled from Grega Habič’s entire discography. The man blew us away once again with his magical playing, which spans a whole galaxy of genres. Grega can turn into the angriest thrash metal shredder in an instant, and the very next moment shock you with pure jazz variations on the guitar. As a composer, Grega is incredibly productive, creating music with huge originality. He has honed a recognizable guitar sound, and with his soft, supple touch his playing is pure instrumental poetry that you just can’t get enough of. Simple as that. It’s a combination of guitar rock, strong art leanings, and a big dose of »the unexpected« as therapy, or rather the element of surprise. In a single song you can go through cathartic swerves from a funky rhythmic groove to vampiric, metallized escapades, and you can’t overlook the blues elements either. One thing is clear, though. Grega is chasing the perfect melody. He’s an exceptionally musical player and bends his compositions to that. The crew created a tremendous groove and floored us. Once again!
An hour on stage, the sound excellent, and no people to speak of. During the show the guys kept smiling at each other and swapping comments, which showed their astonishment at the glitz and misery of the Slovenian rock scene in 2015!
You lot, the ones whose mouths are full of big talk about music on forums and Facebook, you’ve become prisoners of the virtual world and no longer know how to feel music for real. The only way to get truly authentic contact with music is the live experience. Nothing else comes close. And if that happens in a club where you can eat out of the hands of a top-shelf guitar acrobat and his backing crew like Grega Habič, then that experience is worth its weight in gold. Sadly, in the land of Butale simpletons nobody values that anymore, right, Dolenjska folks?
Setlist
1. Pussy
2. No Lie Can Live Forever
3. Tired of Everything
4, Self Destruct Sequence
5. Beyond Redemption
6. A Little Love Song
7. Devil’s Whisper
8. IO
9. Alyx
10. Sun Over the Clouds
11. Turn the Knife
12. Catharsis
13. Goodbyes
14. Devil Planted the Seed
15. Vodoo Sex Thing
16. Razor’s Edge
17. A World
Photo Gallery
