Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Kranj / Transtation SubArt / Slovenia
Concert date: June 29, 2017
Attendance: 230
Ticket price: €22.00
So. Kranj has finally woken up too! Into a hot, muggy summer. With a scorching end to this June, courtesy of unique cross over thrash metal / hc / punk veterans from the USA, or more precisely the city of Houston. That’s Dirty Rotten Imbeciles, or D.R.I. for short.
The crowds came flooding into Kranj’s Trainstation Subart. I can’t remember ever seeing that many people at the venue. Shortly before nine in the evening I barely found a parking spot by the railway station. Barely. Fans from everywhere, especially from neighboring Croatia! Their temperament was largely the »culprit« for the superb energy the crowd generated later during the D.R.I. show. The air crackled with the real thing, with the fiery sparks of a stormy adrenaline rush whizzing around.
The evening kicked off in downright triumphant fashion. Taking the stage were what you could call veterans of the old school of Croatian HC punk, Deafness By nNoise, from the town of Samobor, who owe a lot of their inspiration to the foundations laid, of course, by the New York HC scene. In a good 40 minutes they delivered a superb show and properly fired up the crowd. So much so that after their set some of the most hardcore HC purists even said that Deafness By Noise’s performance was the highlight of the day for them at »the Train«. With a great show, the band won over the crowd in brilliant fashion. They played their set in grand, seasoned style at an extremely high level. Tight as hell. You can feel the mileage and experience of this long-lived lineup. All of it seasoned with the sparkling sense of humor of the jokester vocalist Krmpa. In short. A goofy shot right between the eyes, and it all merged into the climax when D.R.I. bassist Harald Oimoen came tottering onto the stage. He and Krmpa danced a jokey polka, and the band then lifted the show another notch and delivered its peak right at the end with the expected song Alcohol. (Krmpa didn’t forget to hand out a few cans of Staropramen beer to the crowd, either).
A little before ten in the evening, the stars of the night stormed the stage. The one and only Dirty Rotten Imbeciles. In their trademark victorious style. Considering the band just won’t put out a new record (if memory serves, the last one came out in 1995 – okay, I’m lying, the new EP titled “But Wait…There’s More!” finally made it into the world last year), their shows are still worth every sin. They play lightning fast, unbridled, with no compromises. The bristling, extremely charged and lovably fat sound that Spike Cassidy conjured from just one guitar shook the walls and moved the foundations of the venue. On the other side it was complemented by Harald Oimoen’s flinty, heavy, Motörhead-style rattling bass! In the middle, the jokey and likable vocalist Kurt Brecht, and in the back a steam locomotive on drums, the band’s newcomer Walter Ryan (who joined in 2015).
Over two hundred heads were packed in and the energy in the room was outstanding. The band kept the mood exceptionally cheerful throughout, with (as expected) bassist Harald Oimoen taking the role of the resident clown onstage. He kept winning over the crowd with goofy, laugh-inducing grimaces, and somewhere in the middle of the show he didn’t forget to switch on the lights, a string of blinking LED bulbs on his cap. Like a kid, for his age?
The front rows quickly got lost in the chaos of all that high-octane debauchery and the surplus of alcohol derivatives that weighed down heads and the centers responsible for a steady two-legged posture (and walking). An ice rink of spilled beer and sweat, a pile of »gymnasts« and stage »divers«, and many ended up lying down more than once and hanging on to each other. Mosh beyond all limits! The band visibly enjoyed it and played with hellish zeal. As dirty as can be. True to their name. Thrashed-up, hellishly fast riffs with Cassidy’s solo escapades in between, superb, precise rolls and complex transitions from Walter Ryan, the piercing rattle of Harald’s bass guitar, and the authoritative, signature vocals of Kurt Brecht, all orthodox hc madness and thunderous blasphemy. The only question was what kind of »best of« Dirty Rotten Imbeciles would deliver this time! Up came Soup Kitchen, Violent Pacification, Snap, Who Am I?, Stupid, Stupid War, A Coffin, Fun and Games,and three songs from the new EP (Against Me, Anonymity, As Seen on TV), then Mad Man, Couch Slouch, Slumlord I’d Rather Be Sleeping, Nursing Home Blues, Argument Then War, All For Nothing, Manifest Destiny, Acid Rain,….
In short. There wasn’t a hero in the room that night who didn’t walk away with at least a mild concussion. Crowd thrilled, band visibly fulfilled. The right energy in the right place. This is the kind of show that delivers exactly what you came for. 100% honesty! First-rate, authentic, lion-hearted honesty, their very own brand of brazenly arrogant rock’n’roll that flattens everything in front of it and rips heads off. Let’s hope these “forever young” guys with untamed hearts »show up« in our neck of the woods again soon. That good hour with them flew by in the blink of an eye. Way too fast.
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