Author: Urban Bolta
Location: Glavni trg by the fountain / Kranj / Slovenia
Concert date: 27.12.2013
Attendance: 400
Ticket price: 0€ (free entry)
The holiday season: a time for gifts, kind gestures and even kinder words, and of course a time to think of old friends and acquaintances and finally spend an evening together after ages. Maybe even with live music in the background, getting the blood pumping and stirring up distant shared memories? Kranj got its evenings served up on a platter, following exactly that recipe: over the weekend between Christmas and New Year’s, the old town center, on Glavni trg to be precise, first welcomed Orleki from the Zasavje region, and the next day singer-songwriter Adi Smolar.
On the last Friday evening of the old year, just a few minutes past seven, the cheerful sound of Orleki greeted latecomers (me among them) on the square by the fountain, drifting through the mysterious little streets of the old town of the Gorenjska capital. A lot has changed with Orleki since I last saw them. At the end of last year, sad news came out of their camp: longtime trumpeter and one of the founding members Janez Tori had passed away, though he had already been replaced in the band by Jan Adamek before leaving this world. There’s a new face behind the drum kit too, as young Miha took over from Saša Marn. Oh well, things are always lively in a nine-piece outfit, so the occasional lineup shake-up has long since become a fixture over the years with Orleki.
Orleki drew a nice crowd to Glavni trg. And how could they not, when their down-to-earth image is relatable to every Joe Schmoe who can identify with the stories of ordinary, hardworking folks that their songs are about? Orleki rocked Kranj to sleep with a strongly felt, troubadour-style ethno melos with a melancholic tinge. Even though their songs are bouncy and cheerful, they talk about hard life in the Zasavje mining districts and the problems people in the “three valleys” face every day. Frontman Vlado Poredoš stitched the songs together into one logical whole between numbers and, with his modest, likeable personality, instantly won over the mostly mature audience, so it wasn’t hard for him to get them laughing with his comic bits either. »See you tomorrow at ten in the morning in Prešernov gaj«, he kept telling one of the homeless women who danced to the band’s beats down by the stage the entire time. Orleki are just poisonously alluring when it comes to the unconscious grip their sound has, hijacking a listener’s legs in an instant and rocking them into dance steps!
The band played their iron-clad repertoire, which included Lojze gobc, Ko so lipe cvetele and Mala Zagorjanka. Pesem za ačkija, with its gypsy flavor, proved this is a band with a cosmopolitan outlook, but as usual the songs that hit listeners hardest were the ones with the strongest emotional message, like Punca s šohta and Adijo knapi. Despite the wintry temperatures and the frozen fingers that came with them, the musicians held up great! Jure Tori, with his recognizable, slightly hunched stance, ruled the left side of the stage, while the right was completely taken over by the wind section of Kristjan / Jan / Ečo, who add that signature genetic code to the Orleki sound. One of the (many) highlights was the performance of Porno polka, during which Monika, a loyal regular at their gigs, briefly landed in the spotlight as the lines teta vaša Mica je pa prasica / se je dala za 5 jurjev kontrahirat rang out. As always, a pleasantly capitalized hour and a half of the ever-green Orleki, this time in the glow of the New Year-decorated old town of the Gorenjska capital. Could you possibly ask for more?
Photos: Aljaž Anžič – Tuna
Our thanks go to the open city of Kranj for permission to publish the photos.
Photo Gallery
