Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Ljubljana / HD Club / Slovenia
Concert date: 11/24/2016
Attendance: 25
Ticket price: €0.00 (free entry!)
On 11/24/2016, quite a few concerts took place in Ljubljana, its surroundings, and across Slovenia in general. Over in Villach, Carinthia, Austria, Canadian blues-rock guitar ace Pat Travers played the same day. As for RockLine, we stayed put in Ljubljana that day. A weekly break from all those adventurous Italian – Austrian travel odysseys really didn’t hurt. This time our crew got stuck in the Šiška industrial zone – in Stegne. That’s where HD Club is, which comes to life every now and then. If at the end of October you could barely move in that very same club at the launch of Siddharta’s triple vinyl release »Infra – Ultra«, this time the story was completely different. When the members of Carina finally took the stage at ten in the evening, the scene counted a good twenty people at most, mostly friends and acquaintances.
Carina showed up that night as a sextet! The band is made up of seasoned musicians who, in their brightest days, worked in one way or another within Sokoli, Otroci Socializma, Berlinski zid, Neodvisni sindikat and VIA Ofenziva. They left a lasting mark on the Slovenian punk rock scene, and Carina is made up of thunderous vocalist Marin Rosić, guitarist and Dnevnik journalist Borut Mehle »Meho«, Slovenian veteran bassist Dare Hočevar, seasoned Roman Dečman »Romzi« (drums), and backing vocalists Barbi and Nadka.
In just over an hour, the band »rattled off« originals like Max, Lahka brez, Gibam, Mir, Prazne flaše, Mesto, Oči, Kvart, Nš člouk, Lublanca-Sava, Fukat-Lizat, Kurčenje, Golovc, Suzana, Vodmatski fant, Banana, Uročeni smo, Čekić, Prvi november, Krog, Bog and, in their own style, also played the (expected) covers of the originals Narodna pjesma (Paraf) and Osmijeh (Grupa 220).
Carina are a seriously interesting punk rock band with their own groove, which, compared to similar bands from Slovenia, counts among the more musical and rhythmically powerful rock strongholds (every now and then a funk moment even slips into the solid rhythmic kinetics). Still, besides the empty venue, the picture was also spoiled by the sound, where the mix was literally »swallowed up«. All you could clearly hear was Romzi’s cannon-like »snare«, furiously ripping through the club air, while it was also nice to pick out Dare’s melodically busy bass guitar throughout, while the vocals and Mehle’s guitar stayed somewhat muffled, even smothered, the whole time.
So the band played a decent little hour. Confident, very nicely tight. There’s no shortage of self-irony in the poetry, and the rebellious note is forged with a recognizable character, led by the main role of the tragicomic Slovenceljn and his escapades. Carina remain a super fun band. They play “stripped-down”, ruffled rock’n’roll that kicks straight in the balls and the forehead. It knows no kitsch, no polish, but hits directly, honestly and from the heart. The band is superbly hardened from head to toe. Seasoned musicians know how to serve the point of rock’n’roll. Sadly, though, audiences no longer pick up on that today. They simply left the band (once again) in the lurch. Poor attendance is yet another warning that worry is growing about the disappearing magic of rock’n’roll. It fades with the generation that created that magic. The scene was mostly made up of »Abrahamites« again, with no young people anywhere in sight. Apparently the youth decided it’s enough that their parents play the rebels for them their whole lives.
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