Location: Ljubljana / Orto bar / Slovenia
Date: Thursday, 12.04.2018
Adi Smolar is the guy who always brings cheer to the people. No point wasting words on that. A born party man. From head to toe. His folk-beloved musical catalog has become part of our everyday lives over the years, and his poetry is a reflection of life, not just Adi’s but of whole generations from the Šentflorjan valley. An immensely powerful confessional singer-songwriter, one of the most prominent in Slovenia, with an endless stash of poems up his sleeve that shake you and rattle you. Move you. Stir up emotions and passions. And it’s not just the poems, but the whole approach to delivering them, combined with a playful charisma and, as said, incredibly positive energy that finds, even in moments of personal woes like the ones our daily lives paint, a launching point for a turn toward bubbling optimism.
It was great to see his name on this year’s Orto fest lineup again. A garrison of some 400 people came out to greet the beloved singer-songwriter, and for three hours they sang along in chorus and with gusto to Adi’s evergreens, enjoying every minute of another show from the cheeky yet incredibly down-to-earth preacher.
This time Adi took the stage alone, without the Mestni postopači. Well, not completely alone. He had company in Damir Jazbec, an outstanding harmonica player and otherwise part of the Mestni postopači crew, who colorfully painted some of Adi’s numbers with his masterful command of the mouth harp.
True to form, a man of huge charisma and likability, Adi didn’t disappoint this time either. Over the marathon evening of his musical sermonizing, the crowd was literally eating out of his hand. Adi is especially interesting in the breaks between songs, which he never forgets to stock with plenty of personal reflections woven into the messages of his songs. Before every track he again gave a lengthy intro and seasoned it with his superb sense of black humor, which the audience relates to with ease. Adi is simply the voice of the people, the voice of the street, the voice of the little guy. A wake-up caller. It’s great to see young people coming to his shows, especially a crowd that has only just crossed the threshold of their twenties, which means Adi stays forever young too. With that kind of wellspring of bubbling passion, he kept us charged with energy and musical vibration for two and a half hours.
It’s incredible what absolute minimalism can deliver in expressive power. A voice and a guitar. All you need is a stage. But of course, you have to be made of the right stuff. Like our forever-young and one-of-a-kind singer-songwriter ace, Adi Smolar.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
