Author: Sandi Sadar Šoba
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Venue: Zgornji Tuštanj (Moravče) / grad Tuštanj / Slovenia
Concert date: 05.07.2013
Attendance: 150
Ticket price: €18.00
This time, our trip into the universe of musical beauty was really a repeat road movie, set in motion by a genuine, personal encounter with a giant of Slovenian music. On a sultry, draining afternoon we pile into Vlado’s car and roll out of Črnuče toward a castle none of us knows. Nobody in our crew has ever heard of Tuštanj Castle near Moravče, let alone been there. We wonder what the ambience will be like and whether the weather will hold, since the clouds in the distance are threatening a storm. The gorgeous countryside the road winds through on the way to the castle enchants us. On the way we stop to photograph a huge poster with Vlado’s photo announcing his concert. We’re not sure we’re going the right way, but nobody sweats it too much. We pull up at one of the farms and ask for directions. A friendly local smiles, peers curiously into the car and sends us onward. We arrive at the castle, which steals all our attention. Enchanted, we greet the owner and check out the concert setting in the castle courtyard. Black chairs are already waiting for the audience, while the stage by the castle fountain still sits empty, waiting for Vlado Kreslin to claim it. Vlado warms up his black guitar while cables and the rest of the gear snake across the stage. Before everything is even set up, our worries come true: the sky opens and we stare anxiously upward, listen to the thunder and console ourselves that it’ll rain itself out and then calm down. Vlado noodles around with familiar melodies on guitar, the rest of us stare at the raindrops and sway to the rhythm. When he’s had enough, we get chatting and hear plenty of interesting stories. Vlado is full of stories that grab every pair of ears.
The storm slowly crawls away and Vlado gets called to the dress rehearsal with the male choir. The guys take over the stage and sing away cheerfully, and every so often we join in. A sense of timelessness catches us, and suddenly we realize the doors will soon open for the audience. The stage empties out, adorned only with red velvet, a baroque chair, a black guitar, two books, and glasses of red wine and water on an antique little table, while white surfinias and red ivy geraniums bloom all around. In the background, rainbow lights flick on under the arches, heralding magic… And lo, in the moments before the show starts, sunbeams cut through the black sky. The lights glow in every shade imaginable, and the upbeat crowd waits impatiently for the poet in the hat, who will pick up the black guitar and carry their souls off to the world of the rainbow with magical melodies…
We greet Vlado Kreslin with a thunderous round of applause. He tells us it’s his first time playing here, praises the ambience and greets »the lord and lady of the castle«, who have taken their places on the castle balcony. Cesta is the first song, rocking us gently into the feel of Vlado’s music. After it ends he greets the crowd once more and nudges them to join in. The audience doesn’t wait around and sings along to Tvoje jutro. The energy is wonderful – people clap and sing, and at Vlado’s words: »Let’s do the last one again, the one that works like therapy: Sometimes, once in a blue moon, it feels fine to be alive, to feel nothing hurting, to know that the loveliest ray is the one that wakes you when you brush it off your eyes!«, they open their hearts and voices even wider. After a roaring ovation the singer takes us in our minds to a morning by the river Müri – Nekega jutra, ko se zdani carries every listener off into the mist above the waters of the Mura… Vlado cuts through the romantic reverie with a memory of the Beatles that popped into his head at the sight of »the count and countess«: when the British musicians were received by the Queen (who was also sitting on a balcony, with a crowd of people beneath her), John Lennon sarcastically quipped: »Everyone down below, clap; and you up there, rattle your jewelry.« The castle courtyard fills with laughter and applause, and already the first bars of Ena pesem echo through it, which Kreslin sings with tremendous power while the audience gently chimes in on the chorus. Big applause, whistles and cries of delight. A harmonica announces the next number – Abel in Kajn, whose melancholy calms the listeners down, and quite a few of us quietly whisper the chorus: »It didn’t work for us, / we were like Abel and Cain. / Maybe in another world we’ll be fine.« Vlado picks up his poetry collection Pojezije (2009) and, between the lines of verse, thanks the audience: »What would I do without you, dear audience?« Immigrant Song brings the scent of faraway places and the unknown to the crowd, a poetic tale of circus kids who spun Stones records, were in Madagascar, and tomorrow might already be in England… The story about the Jugovićs and the song Kritik get the crowd laughing, and the announcement of the vocal group Grajski oktet draws a roar of applause. Eight guys (1st tenor: Primož Peterka and Simon Birk, 2nd tenor: Rok and Peter Grad, baritone: Ambrož Peterka and Janez Majdič, bass: Miha Klopčič and Robert Brulc) take the left half of the stage and, a little bewildered and bashful, start in on Dekle moje, pojdi z menoj!, which gets some extra color from Rok Grad’s tamburica on top of Vlado’s guitar. It gets more and more energetic from there, and at Vlado’s urging the audience responds very quickly. Every performer is rewarded with loud applause and cheers. The octet backs Kreslin on Daleč je moj rojstni kraj too, and then Vlado leaves the stage and a voice from the choir calls out: »Are we on now?« We in the audience laugh and egg the singers on with applause. The guys show off their excellent chops with the very first folk song (Rezijansko), and with the following ones (Tam, kjer teče bistra Zilja, Žabe and The lion sleeps tonight) they only confirm their skills and thrill the crowd even more. The Carinthian folk song about the Zilja river conjures up a homey countryside mood, the frogs who held a wedding make us laugh and take us back to singing it at our school desks, and the imitation of jungle sounds is a riddle of what’s coming – at the first bars from these exceptional singers we realize with delight that we’re about to hear a song everybody knows from countless cartoons and films. The applause only proves that the singers made a strong impression on us and did a cracking job, which Mr. Kreslin himself confirms, clapping for them offstage and, as they leave, taking off his hat in a bow to the choir. Z Goričkega v Piran gets spiced up by the call of a peacock, and the audience isn’t silent either. »Sad thoughts about everything that’s been, / something about meaning and transience, / and about the fact / that I’m my own biggest problem,« is the verse sung with special energy, and he wraps it up with the line: »From Goričko to Tuštanj!«, which the locals love, and not even the peacock stays indifferent, closing out the number with its call. The gorgeous Preko Mure, preko Drave, about Prekmurje emigrants heading to Canada, America and Brazil, is known to everyone present, and the tale of Vlado’s father, who set off by train to Maribor to buy a guitar because he had a jazz orchestra, introduces Tista črna kitara. The words »Oh God, don’t let me die young…« are the overture to yet another legendary song – Namesto koga roža cveti. We’re all spellbound – staring at the wizard on stage with our mouths hanging open, drinking in his energy and words, getting goosebumps and singing the familiar verses along with him as if in a trance… After a mighty wave of enthusiasm from the crowd, the wizard with the guitar says thanks and asks the audience to sing one for him. We, the listeners, and the peacock sing almost all of Vsi so venci vejli ourselves. »It would be hard to expect more from life. They’re singing Venci to me, and it’s my concert!« are Vlado’s words of delight at the openness of those present. That song is also the intro to a recital of poems from the poetry collection Venci. Through the poems Gostilna Central, Nostalgija, Sodobnik iz 1905, Pleterje and Olimpijada, the author tells the story of Beltinška banda – these poems are pieces of a mosaic of the escapades of the people he performs with today (whether he lived them alongside them or just heard about them). The audience laughs till it cries, and in the end gets rewarded with Od višine se zvrti, which Kreslin and nearly everyone present sing with enormous passion. The wizard leaves the stage, but we, the spellbound, won’t let him go. To never-ending applause he returns to his throne and tells stories about his trips to Ljubljana and on the Niš-ekspres. Prešeren’s Vrba awakens love for one’s home town and homeland, and Vlado closes it with an address: »Oh, Tuštanj!« People are thrilled. He starts reading Daj mi Micka pejneze nazaj from Venci, but breaks off to tell a story about his mom, who refused to sing that song because of the word kupleraj (he jokes that it’s down to Pleterje’s influence) and made up a new word: lumperaj. He recites another poem from Venci, then sings it with the audience and adds a third verse, his father’s. Next he announces the song Jožek moli za mene, which he delivers with unbelievable fire, and carries on with the cheerful Poj mi pesem. He waves Grajski oktet back onto the stage and we realize the magical evening is nearing its end. Vlado steps in among the octet’s singers and together they finish with the little song Ku-ku, which at the end he adapts for the persistent peacock who shared his singing with us all evening. The performers leave the stage, but the magic in the castle atrium doesn’t fade. The stage empties: the black guitar disappears, the chair disappears… But the clapping of the spellbound audience doesn’t die down. The door opens and Vlado comes out with an accordion. We know he’s saying goodbye. Muzikanti, played with a touch of melancholy, walk us out of the castle into the warm evening. Some headed home with joy in their hearts, others waited for Vlado Kreslin to thank him, pose for photos with him and get their Čarobnice and books signed, and the rest of us were simply immensely grateful to have been part of a wonderful concert put on by a great poet, singer and open-hearted human being.
And this repeat experience of Pojezije and all those well-known tunes was even more intense than our first brush with the magic of Kreslinovanje at Ljubljana’s SiTi Teater. Not because the great Vlado gives any less soul on stage alone than usual. His heart and emotions are always fully given, and from a chest full of wisdom and beauty even the most demanding ears, used only to the very best music, can easily feed. With Vlado Kreslin quality is never in question, and his name always guarantees something top-notch, out of the ordinary and, above all, genuine. Just as he is himself when he sits down at the mic, fiddles with his black guitar and tugs his hat over his forehead, and after a few bars of stomping boots the magic flares up all at once. Always, but never the same way. You’re always witnessing something similar, yet in a completely different way. So there’s no room for pretending or faking it. The masks always drop, throats open up and the heart cries out for a replay of the magical dream, always in different shades, but always infused with the enchanting murmur of the Mura and the endless Prekmurje soul, which any person with their heart and ears in the right place soaks up with ease.
Setlist
VLADO KRESLIN:
1. Cesta
2. Tvoje jutro
3. Nekega jutra, ko so zdani
4. Ena pesem
5. Abel in Kajn
6. Dekle moje, pojdi z menoj!
7. Daleč je moj rojstni kraj
8. Z Goričkega v Piran
9. Preko Mure, preko Drave
10. Tista črna kitara
11. Namesto koga roža cveti
12. Vsi so venci vejli
13. Od višine se zvrti
—encore—
14. Vrba
15. Daj mi Micka pejneze nazaj
16. Poj mi pesem
17. Ku-ku
18. Muzikanti
GRAJSKI OKTET:
1. Rezijanska (dance from Resia) – arr. Alojz Srebotnjak
2. Tam, kjer teče bistra Zilja (Carinthian folk song) – arr. Luka Kramolc
3. Žabe – Vinko Vodopivec
4. The lion sleeps tonight – arr. Scott Turnbull
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