Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Ljubljana / Orto bar / Slovenia
Concert date: 18.04.2018
Attendance: 150
Ticket price: €6.00
A good five years ago, San Di Ego played what was basically their premiere gig, and it was right here at Orto bar. Back then it was in the old club space, upstairs. The place was bursting at the seams, and there was barely any air left. Five years later we meet again at the same spot, only this time the band played on a bigger stage. In those five years San Di Ego have released two studio albums and crisscrossed Slovenian stages up and down the country. They’ve become a proper hard rock band with a clear vision and a backbone, one that every true fan of the genre in Slovenia knows. By arriving on the scene they fill the gap left after Requiem broke up, and with a repertoire confidently and hefty spiced up with covers of the great rock’n’roll classics, they also kind of make up for the currently resting C4.
Just under 150 people showed up at the venue, but they were a fired-up bunch of rock fanatics. There was a solid crop of girls too, who took a deep breath so they could squeeze into the tightest little outfits they could find. The band waited backstage until about half past ten at night, just long enough for the crowd to melt into the ambience and for the booze to start »kicking in«.
No need to waste words: Jure Doles (drums), Sergej Škofljanec (vocals, acoustic guitar, keyboards), Matic Ajdič (guitar) and Martin Rozman (bass guitar) are one hell of a sharp quartet. Sharp and edgy, with serious stage mileage and an incredible wealth of experience. They know each other inside out, and behind them is a colorful history of making music that has left, and keeps leaving, real marks on the Slovenian rock’n’roll map. Into the broad repertoire the band of course crammed, as expected, some of their best original moments from both studio albums, »San Di Ego« and »Doktor za rock’n’roll« (Rockstar, Nisem svetnik, Domina, Izbrisani, Pompin, Zadnji cent, Slike, Doktor za rock’n’roll), and spiced it all up once again with an expanded bundle of covers. And what covers! The Queen medley always and without fail stands out at their gigs. Plain and simple. It’s played and sung so ridiculously well that a performance like that takes the listener’s breath away. It was great to hear Journey’s Any Way You Want It, not to mention the cleverly slipped-in Get the Funk Out (orig. Extreme) inside the song Izbrisani, and so on. Whitesnake, Deep Purple and of course excellent takes on Stayin Alive (orig. Bee Gees) and Touch Me (orig. Samantha Fox). And now another remarkably clever rearrangement of a classic from the old days of seventies pop has joined the list. Dancing Queen by the legendary ABBA. The track fires up in true San Di Ego style, and let’s hope it finds a place on the band’s third studio album.
But really, there’s no point wasting words. Great sound, great crowd, and a band that’s tight as hell. I’d honestly kind of forgotten how good San Di Ego are. As a band and as individuals. All four of them are equals, and when they fuse into one body they become a hell of a rock’n’roll hurricane. Especially once they hit the stage. They never run out of dynamite and they use the stage brilliantly. They’re everywhere at once, and they communicate with the crowd really skillfully. All four of them, though of course the lead goes to frontman Sergej Škofljanec. Sergej was killing it with his vocals again. The charismatic singer didn’t hold back on vocal power and once again he carried that huge voice effortlessly through every high and low, all the way to the extremes. He nailed all the highest notes, even in the toughest moments of the show, like those extremely high ends of the verses in Here I Go Again (orig. Whitesnake). The other three give him tremendous backing. The rhythm section hammers away like mad, and Matic has grown into a top-class guitarist who studied other artists’ originals with real finesse from a sonic standpoint, and then »nailed« them so confidently with his guitar gear.
No debate. A really nice and attractive show. A proper party. For all the praise, it would still have been nice to see at least 50 more heads at the gig, but…. It was a Wednesday, after all. Ahhhh, and of course. Mežkova Julija. It was absolutely in the set. So, another spectacular concert marathon from the doctors of rock’n’roll.
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