Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Kranj / Transtation Subart / Slovenia
Concert date: 03.07.2017
Attendance: 100
Ticket price: €15.00 / €18.00
Another report within a few days from the alternative rock underground of the Gorenjska capital, which we might also call the sanctuary of all extreme and anti-commercial genres. We’re talking, of course, about the unbending Trainstation Subart by the railway station in Kranj.
Last Thursday it got seriously hot there when Dirty Rotten Imbeciles tore the place apart. And the embers had barely settled before Brazilian old-school HC veterans, the legendary Ratos De Porao, stormed into Transtation Subart. The quartet, going strong since 1981, is an old friend of Kranj. They last played here in 2009 at Izbruhov bazen.
As is only fitting for an event like this, a local opening act was invited to warm up the show, one that could use a bit of »push up« publicity as it takes its first steps. Especially when it’s a relative unknown on the scene, like the Ljubljana grindcore sound terrorists Glista in this case. The quintet is made up of Matija Majcen (vocals), Gašper Flere (guitar, Panikk), Alojz Rop (guitar), Rok Novak (bass) and Jure Bućan (drums), and sadly they’ll only get a passing mention in this report, because urgent and unavoidable obligations meant we showed up late. We’ll make up for it at the first opportunity.
It’s ten o’clock, give or take a minute. Onto the stage pour the Brazilian worshippers of rat life, Ratos De Porao, from Sao Paulo. Attendance was about half of what it was on Thursday, 29.06.2017, when D.R.I. played here. Still, that didn’t stop, for example, a carload of four fans who drove to Kranj for the show straight from Hungary. Those guys were also the reason the front rows stood completely empty in the opening minutes, since they knocked over anyone who wandered into reach of their »troll-level drunkenness« without suspecting a thing. But that’s part of this kind of party, the folklore you can’t do without, and this Ratos De Porao show wouldn’t have been complete without these quirks and customs. Ratos De Porao went wild. Vocalist João Francisco Benedan, a hulking guy of sizable but incredibly likeable appearance, turned into a proper beast the moment he opened his mouth, blasting out his growls, now grind-style, now death metal. It’s an excellent implementation of the band’s basic HC stance. The only original member of today’s RDP, guitarist João Carlos Molina Esteves, conjured up an excellent, and above all ominously fat, tone with his Gibson Les Paul, one that filled a huge amount of space. Ratos were loud! On top of that, he worked his playing in with all his skill by sticking solos into absolutely every song, which only proved what a skilled and excellent guitarist he is. In one of the breaks, when RDP drowned him out, he mischievously slipped in jazz variations with Latin salsa melos, and it was close to him throwing in some Girl From Ipanema. The rhythm duo of Maurício Alves Fernandez »Boka« (drums) and Paulo Sergio Sangiorgio Júnior »Juninho« (bass) with a white Rickenbacker, sounding almost identical to Motorhead, added those excellent transitional flourishes with which Ratos De Porao garnished their otherwise simple, trivially built riffs based on half-step ideas. At the same time, the music was full of furious thrashing and abandon, the kind that has no patience for beating around the bush or sugarcoating. Raw, aggressive and arrogantly angry attitude all over the place! Tribal rhythms, or let’s rather call them »tribe-like«, creep into the picture too. Brazilian bands have that in their blood, and it gives the band’s stance, rooted in punk and HC, that pinch of fine crossover rhetoric.
The band didn’t skip the biggest and most striking moments of its long career, including tracks from its most prominent albums, such as »Anarkophobia« (1991) – the title track and Mad Society – and »Brasil« (1989), from which they ripped out Bebber Ate Morrer in the last gasps of the show. From the studio debut »Crucificados pelo Sistema«, the title track also rang out in the closing stretch of the concert.
In short, the band may have come across as a bit grotesque on stage, but only because of their incredible commitment, which had guitarist Joao shaking on stage more than once. The Rats truly broke every chain and rein and squeezed out every last atom of strength. No wonder, then, that the show lasted (encore included) just one hour. A short and sweet get-together, then, with the incredibly special craftsmen of HC primitivism, the one and only Ratos De Porao. Let’s hope we run into them again soon.
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