Location: Ljubljana / Orto bar / Slovenia
Date: Friday, 5 November 2021
And so came that magical day — the second of this year for your humble correspondent — when some miracle had him heading out to an actual metal show. As it turned out, it was also the last club night at Orto bar. Why exactly? We all know — or more precisely, we don’t. We don’t know a damn thing. But rather than spoil a good memory, let’s dive straight into reliving the feelings from one of the rare concert nights this year that conjured up some genuine nostalgia. Like the beginning of March 2020 was just yesterday. So Iron Median showed up at Orto bar. As the name suggests, a band dedicated to the music and persona of the iconic Iron Maiden. A tribute act. I caught them sometime way back, more than ten years ago, when Sergej Škofljanec was still doing vocals — the band’s had a new singer for a good while now, which isn’t even news anymore. SkyEye vocalist Jan Leščanec is honestly the ideal replacement for Škofljanec in this role. The rest of the crew: Big Foot Mama bassist Alen Steržaj, guitarists Rock Tomšič (Metalsteel) and Matjaž Tozon, and Dekadent drummer Tine Horvat.
The band slipped onto the stage just after nine. Straight into it, no messing around — The Number of the Beast, and the whole of Orto bar got the green light to go wild. A solid turnout, a proper crowd, and — crucially — heads seriously fired up but not boiling over. Plenty of familiar faces, the old crew, seasoned concert veterans — but also plenty of young distortion-lovers, which gives you hope. The quintet is sharp as hell in execution. No question about it. On every level. From stage presence to the performance itself. Most eyes were naturally on Leščanec. He’s studied Dickinson to the last hair — the stage gestures, not to even get started on his singing approach. Especially when he shifts his vocal power from the mid-range up into the higher and highest registers. The power the guy develops is exceptional. Same goes for the execution — there’s honestly nothing to fault it on. A voice like that is the foundation you need to pull off a Golden-Era Iron Maiden setlist. Of the classic albums, only »Killers« was completely absent from the set; the band also steered clear of No Prayer for the Dying, which was somewhat expected. The setlist itself was predictably a kind of ‘best of’ from the band’s classic days. It also included: The Trooper, Where Eagles Dare, The Clairvoyant, The Evil That Man Do, Hellowed Be Thy Name, Two Minutes To Midnight, Can I Play With Madness, Wasted Years, Running Free (»Live After Death« version), Fear of the Dark (which closed the regular set)… Bear in mind I’ve probably got the order mixed up, and a track or two may well have slipped out of memory on me.
Then came the encore. Up to the encore, you could have told yourself: “predictable setlist.” But only up to the encore — when Leščanec told the crowd that the following tale reaches back 356 years before our time. It was Alexander the Great! I’ll say it: one of the most brilliant compositional moments in Iron Maiden’s history — if not the most brilliant. Especially when the track grinds its way through the multi-part solos inside that mighty, extended, magical mid-eight passage — which Tozon and Tomšič had, once again, studied down to the last note. Eight and a half minutes that genuinely conjure up something enormous. Eight and a half of those minutes that make »Somewhere In Time« the favorite album for so many Iron Maiden fans. For an Iron Maiden devotee of my stripe, that’s absolutely the case. With the only millennial Iron Maiden track The Wicker Man, the band steered the crowd toward the big finale — closed out by the inevitable Iron Maiden and, for the final crescendo, the always-reliable battering ram that is Run To the Hills.
Great sound. A tight and precise rhythm section, anchored by the wiry tall Steržaj, who was wildly and untamedly digging into that jangling, clanging bass, with both guitarists tracking the originals (solos included) down to the last detail — same goes for the three-part harmonies. Early on Matjaž had a few issues — like he was tuned too low — but he did a quick self-correction and from there things ran exactly as they should.
Eddie won the day. At first glance he looks like a deranged scarecrow and the product of the sickest human imagination — the kind that would even convince the crows to carry all the stolen corn back to the field. Iron Maiden were thus ‘posthumously resurrected’ at Orto bar with a supremely well-executed approximation. Iron Median conjured up a piece of the great heavy metal story for the crowd and delivered an experience that at least for a while helped patch up the wounds inflicted by the ongoing trauma of society’s complete breakdown. Heads up! A new spark was lit at Orto bar!
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Edita Klemen
