Location: Celje / Športna dvorana Golovec / Slovenia
Concert date: 31.03.2012
Attendance: 3000
Ticket price: €20.00
The last day of March slid into evening and it was time to hit the road to Celje. The fairly packed parking lot in front of Golovec hall already hinted at a solid turnout and a big party tonight, even before we got inside. And how better to spend the evening of your birthday than at a nostalgic show by a band I loved going to see and listening to back in my dewy-eyed teenage years – Parni Valjak.
These Croatian legends hardly need a detailed introduction. Apart from a 4-year break in the middle, they’ve been active on the music scene for more than 30 years, and all that time their music and live shows have been thrilling the young and the young at heart alike. Teenagers and older generations both turn up at their gigs, so the band has never stopped being relevant.
The hall was still fairly empty when I walked in, but it filled up quickly and nicely, promising a proper good time. At 8:20 the first sounds of the intro tape boomed from the speakers. The crowd gave the band members a loud welcome as they trickled onto the stage one after another. They took up their instruments and the hall filled with the sound of the first ballad – Stranica dnevnika. Velvety sounds coming from every corner of the stage caressed the audience and carried them along. People in the stands rose to their feet and joined in with loud singing and waving hands in the air. And so it went on with the older hits, which pretty much everyone in the crowd probably knew by heart. After the opening run of older songs came a block of tracks from the latest album, released in 2011 – Stvarno nestvarno. They kicked off with the ballad Kralj iluzija, then Nakon svih godina and the title track of the latest CD – Stvarno nestvarno. The newer numbers didn’t leave the crowd cold either, and it turned out quite a few of us know the new songs from this excellent album too. They continued with the fun Ljubav je droga and the livelier Svijet je danas lud. After that block, Parni Valjak went back to the old hits. The band created a special experience in the hall that’s hard to describe. The crowd felt like part of the band. We were basically their backing vocals. Aki made sure that at the end of almost every song we all sang the chorus together one more time, while the other members got their instruments ready for the next track. The hall was loudest during Jesen u meni, where the audience literally drowned out the vocals. A pleasant surprise followed – an acoustic set of three songs. Of course, that doesn’t mean the mood in the hall mellowed out – quite the opposite – the audience swayed along to the gentle rhythms of the acoustic guitars and still helped Aki out vocally, as his voice on the higher notes had started to give in a bit to years of wear and tear. Despite no longer being in his dewy youth, the frontman happily bounced around the stage, danced, got the crowd involved and clapping along to the rhythm – when it comes to energy on stage, the whole band could set an example for plenty of Slovenian bands.
The acoustic block was followed by 2 more songs from the latest CD, and then the band went back to the older hits. The main part of the show ended with an invitation to their gigs in Maribor and Portorož and with the song Ugasi me.
Right after the last song ended, despite more than two hours of singing along, the crowd started loudly protesting the end of the night and calling the band back on stage. The hall shook like an earthquake, with the audience making itself heard by stomping on the floor too, and before long the legends were back. They thanked the crowd, said they always love coming back to Slovenia, and treated the audience to the ever-present closer U prolazu and the indispensable Sve još miriše na nju. After a good two and a half hours and an unbelievable run of 29 songs, the band said their goodbyes, and we headed home happy.
A top-notch show in every way from Croatian masters of music and stage spectacle. Everything was just right: older hits and newer tracks, ballads and livelier songs. A bunch of real pros on their instruments, backed up by a guest quintet of woodwinds and brass in the background. Definitely a band worth catching live more than once. The next chance comes at the end of June in Portorož.
Setlist
1. Stranica dnevnika
2. Zastave
3. Pokreni se
4. Zagreb ima isti pozivni
5. Ajde igraj
6. Nemirno more
7. Kralj iluzija
8. Nakon svih godina
9. Stvarno nestvarno
10. Ljubav je droga
11. Svijet je danas lud
12. Mir na jastuku
13. Dok si pored mene
14. Pusti nek traje
15. Jesen u meni
16. Prokleta nedelja
17. Dok je tebe
18. Ljubavna
19. Istina
20. Aleluja (Ja još vjerujem u nas)
21. Dođi
22. Molitva
23. Uhvati ritam
24. Sunčanom stranom
25. U ljubav vjerujem
26. Lutka za bal
27. Ugasi me
—encore—
28. U prolazu
29. Sve još miriše na nju
Photo Gallery
