Avtomobili Deliver a Magnificent Launch Show for `Daleč` at Kino Šiška (2016)

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 11 June 2026

Author: Aleš Podbrežnik

Location: Ljubljana / CUK Kino Šiška / Slovenia
Concert date: 13.10.2016
Attendance: 450
Ticket price: €16.00

You could say Avtomobili have truly come a long way. After all these years, with their evergreen songs that remain our everyday companions. They’ve made it to their tenth album, »Daleč«. Backed by serious promo activity (promo videos, singles) and the media support that came with the release of the new album, within a month it has settled comfortably into regular rotation on the airwaves, especially national radio, where the songs Reka and Stopinje v snegu have already made themselves at home.

An Avtomobili gig is always a special experience. Every single one of them. They’re a »people’s« band, and in their musical language, let’s call it art-speak, there’s something for everyone. The combination of poetry that’s powerful in its message and always deeply intuitive and sensual, with a musical aesthetic of unique, one-of-a-kind charisma, where rock, jazz, funk and of course pop join hands in a peculiar habitat, keeps winning for the band. They can’t tell you the recipe, but they stumble onto it, completely spontaneously and intuitively, every time they get together on stage.

A few days ago I was in Nova Gorica, the day before Avtomobili’s show on home turf, at the local Kulturni dom, where the band premiered its newest studio release even before the Kino Šiška gig. Maybe with my personal enthusiasm for the band’s new record and new shows I wasn’t exactly in the right crowd that day, among the hardy locals who, like me, were heading that day toward Mostovna, where everything was set for the show by doom metal pioneers Pentagram. So I got quite a bit of grumbling in return from genre-alienated musical tastes. Funny. Anyway, when it comes to Avtomobili from the Gorica area, it’s a matter of local pride. The locals should put up at least a monument to them. Whatever, we Slovenes apparently find it really hard to be proud of our cultural achievements and identify with them. Weighed down by modesty and low self-esteem. You’d expect at least from the local population a shred of fan logic in support of the home team, even if you don’t necessarily vibe with the music.

Anyway, not to stray too far. We waited a long time for them to come to Ljubljana. They took the Kino Šiška stage at eight in the evening and played a marathon show that clocked in at two hours and twenty minutes. The new songs Stopnje v snegu and Reka opened the night back to back. Already in the early part the excellent Pot domov set off a wave of nostalgic emotion, surrounded by the no less excellent April and Gorica, and the band caught that proper working temperature, or stage chemistry, somewhere between April and the punchier art-rock piece of more recent vintage, Netopir (album »Pozna pomlad«, 2012). Then came the guests. For Sama, a song that demands special vocal sensitivity, Tokac (Dan D) walks on stage, Marko slips backstage, hands Tokac the front line and all the vocals, and Tomislav delivers the song at an exceptional level in his own style. In his own style, of course. Tokac for president. As always, with his lived-in vocal charisma he leaves an exceptional mark in any song.

In the opening stretch, up to about the sixth song, when I was watching the band from up close, you could feel a bit of unease on stage, as if the band was still looking for the right »grip« on performance perfectionism. Mirko on keys radiated some restlessness too, jerking his head around to find contact with his bandmates, which hinted that the band was still »calibrating«. Marko was a bit reserved at first too, at moments even a little shy, but later, especially through the hot-blooded Netopir, he completely let loose. David Morgan again played an extended, breathtaking drum solo outro in Netopir. At this point David keeps building up his solo, which is a little different at every show and always hits the listener right in the gut. That’s jazz. His snare was superbly mixed and boomed through the hall like a cannon — contrasty, expressive, decisive,.. All in all, Avtomobili built a splendid sound picture. They’ve got serious experience on that front. Getting good sound in the »stepped« hall of Kino Šiška, which has quite a few pitfalls in that regard, is no easy thing, and Avtomobili pulled it off with distinction, comparable even to the crystal clarity of the concert sound of Porcupine Tree, who played the same venue way back on 03.11.2009. Everything was clear and distinct. Šuligoj’s warm, organic and highly melodic, cutting bass, Buši’s guitar finesse, where he again reigned in his own world of exceptional guitar ideas and ornaments. Morgan is Morgan, let’s say one of the most polished Slovenian drummers of the new generation. And of course both brothers, without whom none of this would ever have existed or lasted. Marko’s unique vocal charisma, a charming stage figure, the always refined washes of Mirko’s keyboard curtains, which nostalgically evoked the eighties too, while with a sonic warmth close to the good old Hammond they delivered the core of the sound picture, especially in moments when Buši took off into his world of soloing acrobatics, where especially during the pull-off bends (where he was reaching for a half-step or a whole step higher) he dutifully rose onto his toes again, like tennis ace Boris Becker once did while getting ready for his first serve.

In short, songs like Mraz and Argentina gave us goosebumps one after the other, the crowd rewarded every song with enthusiasm (the wildest reactions went to the classics, naturally), and then came the second half of the show, where Avtomobili again gave priority to tracks from »Daleč«. The wind players stepped on stage. A wind trio of trumpet, trombone and saxophone, plus one more special guest, the only representative of the fairer sex, who thoroughly livened up the show. Severa Gjurin! She stayed on stage for three songs. The two of them sang Daleč as a duet with Marko, just like on the album, and then Avtomobili handed Severa the lead vocal on another evergreen that’s become a people’s song, Skozi leta, and on the newest one, Obsedela sva sama. Her heartfelt performance conjured up magic, and her vocal charisma breathed a note of mystique into the songs. Winds have always fit Avtomobili’s music splendidly — well, even the band’s first lineup had a saxophone. The idea of bringing in a wind trio worked and landed superbly. In harmony with the band’s energy. Especially in the highly demanding new ballad Mladost, where the constant coloring of the backing with the trombone is practically an essential building block. With the wind trio alongside, the classics Ljubezen ne stanuje tu and the always interesting Ona nosi uniformu, in its original form inspired by the new wave punk movement, which through the mature artistic metamorphosis of new times has turned into an excellent art rock song that easily takes a touch of jazz, gained a whole new dimension. One of the strongest songs on the new album, Če si rojen, wrapped up its promotion, and that was followed by a string of classics that carried us to the end of the show, led by the fantastic Drugačno nebo, Enkrat v življenju (with its penetrating and always infectious chorus melody), the mystical, dreamy and yearning Enakonočje, and, in the closing stretch, the quietly awaited V mrzlih dvoranah.

The encore, as a matter of course, opened with that missed and sweetest evergreen. That’s the song Gospodar, in which the band again allowed itself plenty of playfulness, especially on the Mirko – Buši axis (an improvised dialogue between guitar and keys), and again there was a bit of fun when the audience wanted to launch into the chorus while the band had to loop back for one more verse before finally heading into it. Instead of the song Nekaj let, which was added to the set list, the band decided to play the excellent new Če si rojen once more, closing this unforgettable and unique evening in magnificent fashion, one that will forever hold a special place in the long career of the one-of-a-kind Avtomobili.

I always »dream« of live releases on occasions like this. Usually over here Križanke gets used for that, or the show Izštekani, even Cankarjev dom. But I can’t recall a release by any Slovenian act that came out of Kino Šiška. Maybe we’ll be the lucky ones this time, but I doubt it. I was already dreaming about this in October 2012, when Avtomobili played Cankarjev dom at the promo show for the release of »Pozna pomlad«. The band does have one live album under its belt, but it’s high time the national music label put out Avtomobili’s first double live CD, maybe accompanied by a DVD, that would reflect the band’s artistic maturing over the last decade, mirror its creative spirit of the present and include, besides the obligatory classics, material from the last two studio records. Both excellent, of course.

So may the new album carry Avtomobili far, far, far… for many more years to come!

photos: Klemen Udovč