Author: Urban Bolta
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Krško / MC Krško / Slovenia
Concert date: 09.11.2013
Attendance: 70
Ticket price: 5,00€
A fair bit of water had flowed under the bridge since the May premiere of the superproject Black Diamond at Orto bar in Ljubljana (report HERE) and the quick jump back on stage in early June at Cvetličarna, before the Black Diamond finally shone again! This time the band was invited to Krško, to the local Youth Center, one of the few oases in Posavje where fans of alternative music can get their fix, too.
After the spring launch of the debut and the great response from listeners, I quietly hoped the band’s path would open up faster than it has. But their specific musical direction and professional attitude, which is also dictated by the financial math of gigs, is for now carefully shielding the band from the ears of the wider metal community. Still, even with the slow conquest of listeners on a bumpy road that’s nearly a decade long, there’s of course no danger of the gears starting to rust right now, just after the debut’s release, when they’ve only just started turning properly!
But let’s take it from the top. Grunge outfit Bottomline were billed as the opening act of the night, but because of illness in the band they pulled out at the last minute, so at ten o’clock the stage went to the evening’s only support act, FireSpit from Dolenjska. The guys from Dolenjske Toplice are devotees of the aggressive musical tradition, whether it’s a Pantera-style groove stance or punk-rock brashness, and really both at once. FireSpit walk the thin line between punk and thrash metal, not skimping on decibels, express-train rhythms and angry vocal sneering, so a comparison to the likes of Suicidal Tendencies creeps into your head unbidden. A fun, goofing-around performance, though the ears of most of the people there would probably have been better served by a band closer in genre to the main act of the night.
A little after eleven in the evening, Urban’s bass intro to the single Power of Mind began luring people into the club’s concert hall. Soon the two guitarists and the band’s creative leaders, Igor Manasijevič and Nejc Vidmar, joined in, and that’s where the first sound problems showed up. Not even frontman Žak, nudging the people at the mixing desk throughout the show, managed to fix them. Compared to the rhythm section, the guitars were too weak in the mix, so the monumentality of Black Diamond’s progressive guitar playing couldn’t come alive in all its glory.
Sound remark aside, the presentation of the album »Last Man Standing« was a real treat for every fan of this unique metal collective on the shady side of the Gorjanci hills! The band is made up of strictly professional-grade musicians, so there’s no room for mistakes, even though, for hard-to-overcome logistical reasons, the group rehearses fairly rarely. Despite the complexity of the compositions on songs like Mastermind or Opus 91 – 96, with the rhythm section of Klemen Markelj (drums) and Urban Medič (bass) all the transitions and tempo changes seem child’s-play easy, and that rock-solid rhythmic backbone let guitarists Igor and Nejc concentrate completely on their own parts, which made their performance the most relaxed and impulsive of all three so far. Watching over the crew the whole time, of course, was a frontman of exceptionally charismatic pedigree and mischievous moves, Žanil Tataj Žak (Mary Rose, Divlje Jagode), who once again proved himself a true stage frontman, especially early in the show, when his energy motivated the crowd to the point that, in the second half of the set, they started giving the kinetics back. Žak defied the demanding vocal lines and even improvised on them live in the highest registers, which was best heard in the exit of the chorus of the self-titled track Black Diamond, where his pitch leaps from highs to lows and back also made him shine as an outstanding interpreter. The band shuffled the album’s track order and presented the songs as a mood-swinging mix, so we got constant switching between a more balladic atmosphere on one side and sharper riff rhetoric on the other, and it was in this vein that the show ended, with The Thing That Couldn’t Die and Dreams of Tomorrow. During the anthemic exit of the closing song’s hugely catchy chorus, Žak once again showed off his sensitive approach, though this time too he (sadly) went without backing vocal support from the other members.
Black Diamond have successfully carried their unique formula onto the concert stages of southeastern Slovenia, and their increasingly polished stage presence is slowly but surely cementing them as a live attraction, too. The band says its next gig is coming before the end of the year on home turf in Novo Mesto, where, by their account, a more respectable number of supporters should turn up, so a new sin-worthy live experience is sure not to be missing!
Setlist
1. Power of Mind
2. Mastermind
3. Opus 91 – 96
4. Hold Me Tonight
5. Black Diamond
5. Edge of Sanity
7. Lažne zvezde
8. Tears In Eyes
9. The Thing That Couldn’t Die
10. Dreams of Tomorrow
Photo Gallery
