Demolition Group Shake Up Cerkno Too (2017)

Name: Misþyrming (Owls Woods Graves, Profanation, Gorrch), Ljubljana (Orto bar), Slovenia
Start: 2026-10-20
End: 2026-10-20
Location: Orto bar

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 2 October 2026

Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

Location: Cerkno / Bar Gabrijel / Slovenia
Concert date: December 23, 2017
Attendance: 200
Ticket price: €7.00

The second-to-last weekend of the dying year was seriously buzzing when it comes to gig mayhem in Slovenia. In Cerkno, it was Demolition Group’s turn to play. Not because it was the second-to-last Saturday of the old year, but because bar Gabrijel was celebrating its 22nd anniversary that night. Well, on that very same day Ljubljana’s Orto bar was celebrating its 23rd anniversary, and for the occasion it invited the Vojvodina band Pero Defformero to the club. But let’s get back to Cerkno. You’d be hard pressed to find a better band than Demolition Group to mark the venerable 22nd anniversary of bar Gabrijel. If I may be a little “cheeky,” Demolition Group’s music contains exactly the kind of genre ingredients that usually make up Gabrijel’s program. Jazz, alternative rock, metal… Bar Gabrijel was sold out in advance, which is rare enough, and still a great confirmation of how cherished and respected the legendary Brežice alternative metal, rock and jazz funk band is there.

A little before 9:30 p.m., Demolition Group took the stage in the jam-packed bar Gabrijel. It’s no longer news that the band entered this year with a revamped lineup; of the founding and original members, only the iconic vocalist and poet Goran Šalamon remains in today’s Demolition Group, a cornerstone without whom it’s hard to imagine the band existing at all. The band has been extremely active this year, diligently writing material for a new album. If we heard four new songs in the set at their Tolmin show at the end of May this year, this time in Cerkno we got as many as seven. The band is announcing the release of the new album for May 2018! And live on stage, the new material sounds excellent once again. Expectations for what the band’s new album will bring are sky-high.

As expected, the band delivered another top-notch show. True, the guys had a hard time squeezing onto the small stage of bar Gabrijel, but still. The ambience here is special, and so was the vibe that got created! In the jam-packed room there was hardly an empty corner during the show. Condensation was building up on the windowpanes, that’s how badly everyone needed oxygen during the gig. The band is of course not just a quintet, but precisely a sextet. This time the spotlight also fell on Matjaž Pegam, squeezed behind an extra mixing desk, placed somewhere in the middle of the room, so that the half of the crowd watching the show from behind him could keep an eye on his work the whole time. And it was incredible to watch the sound engineer this time, communing with his delicate fine mechanics, turning knobs and pulling the »faders« up and down. All of it of course showed in the finesse of the band’s sound during the set, and the swells of mood and atmosphere were contrasted and underlined even more. Especially the guitar embellishments in the transitions between songs. Whenever the guitar or the saxophone took off into a solo, Matjaž made sure the two instruments played an integral part in creating the whole sonic picture at those moments. The sonic density was once again unique and one of a kind. That goes for the solid, extremely electrified atmosphere too, where gloomy vistas of a post-apocalypse lined up, a vision of the absurdity of this system, which at its decline is still flailing a bit, but all the levers it still uses to keep itself barely alive are that much more absurd, bizarre, degrading to humans, and of course long outlived and outdated. At odds with the mission of the human being, the individual who is part of nature and its laws, to which they must return as soon as possible if they want to survive. The socially critical bite of this band was once again rousing and awakening! With the excellent rhythmic backbone, again provided by the brilliant Gregel brothers, where you won’t hear a single flub, the phrasing of the guitar and saxophones is backed by an incredibly convincing »groove« vibration of warm, lower-pitched tones, with the melodic bass lines often »crackling« funk-style.

A mighty thundering sound, guaranteed. It leaves no survivors! Excellent tightness, then, excellent execution, and once again top-class creation of a one-of-a-kind musical world that wakes up and comes alive only with Demolition Group. An engaged crowd, extraordinary chemistry between band and audience. Everything once again revolved around the singular vocal figure of Goran Šalamon. His poetry once again shook people up, giving them goosebumps with its truthfulness and authenticity. Goran’s interpretation remains magical. The emotions and passions that run through his vocal exposé come alive in all their authenticity. The frontman’s performance was once again outstanding. His vocal punch is unique and nobody can touch him there. He’s the foundation of the band’s eclecticism, of their one-of-a-kind original sheen. The towering man once again brought the house down with his thunderous vocal character.

An hour and three quarters, encore included! It flew by in an instant. This time Goran talked less between songs than, say, in Tolmin in May, but the bond between band and audience was truly something special. Thanks to the small space, the fusion of crowd and band into one was that much more intense and that much more real. The chemistry between the fans and the magic called music, with its whole wave of unbridled emotion, put the dot on the “i” of the event, which, in all its sonic aesthetics and energy currents, hit its peak right at the end of the show.

The party at Gabrijel wasn’t over after the gig, though, as DJ Bigor jumped in and the endless Saturday night over Cerkno rolled on. And Demolition Group? Well, the feelings after a show are always intense and keep you in their own world for quite a while afterward. The conclusion after the gig was once again the same. Demolition Group are a band that always delivers their concert maximum. And it was no different this time, and the show at bar Gabrijel definitely belonged in the category of those unique ones you simply never forget.

words: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik & Nataša Pišljar