Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Ljubljana / Orto bar / Slovenia
Concert date: 12.04.2018
Attendance: 400
Ticket price: €6.00
Adi Smolar is the guy who always brings cheer to people. No point wasting words on that. A seasoned master of entertainment. From head to toe. Over the years, his beloved musical catalog has become part of our everyday lives, and his poetry reflects the life not just of Adi himself, but of whole generations from the Šentflorjan valley. An immensely powerful singer-songwriter when it comes to expression, one of the most prominent in Slovenia, with an endless supply of poems up his sleeve that shake you to your core. Move you. Stir up emotions and passions. And it’s not just the poems, but the way he delivers them, combined with a boundless charisma and, as I said, an incredibly positive energy that finds, even in moments of personal hardship like those our everyday lives paint, a way out and a turn toward bubbling optimism.
It was great to see his name on the lineup of this year’s Orto festival again. A crowd of some 400 people came out to greet the beloved singer-songwriter, singing along in chorus and with gusto for three hours to Adi’s evergreens, and having a boundless time at another show from their seasoned, yet incredibly down-to-earth, preacher.
This time Adi took the stage alone, without the Mestni postopači. Well, not quite alone. He had company in Damir Jazbec, an outstanding harmonica player and part of the Mestni postopači crew, who colorfully painted some of Adi’s songs with his masterful command of the mouth harp.
True to form as a persona with exceptional charisma and likability, Adi didn’t disappoint this time either. Through the marathon evening of his musical sermonizing, the crowd literally ate out of his hand. Adi is especially interesting in the breaks between songs, which he never forgets to fill with plenty of personal reflections woven into the messages of his songs. Before every number he once again delivered an extensive intro, spiced up with his exceptional sense of black humor, which the audience identifies with easily. Adi is simply the voice of the people, the voice of the street, the voice of the little guy. An awakener. It’s great to see young people coming to his shows, especially a crowd that’s barely crossed the threshold of twenty, which means Adi stays forever young too. With such a wellspring of bubbling passion, he charged us with energy and musical vibration for two and a half hours.
It’s incredible what absolute minimalism can do for expressive power. A voice and a guitar. All you need is a stage. But of course, you’ve got to be cut from the right cloth. Like our eternally young and one-of-a-kind singer-songwriter ace, Adi Smolar.
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