Venue: Cvetličarna MediaPark, Ljubljana
Concert date: 14.11.2007
Attendance: 0
Ticket price: 15,00€ / 18,00€
Way back, in the days of Yugoslavia, when the political and economic pressure cooker was still a few degrees hotter than anything we know in the same region today, a brand-new creative energy was being born in the capital, Belgrade. It was so intense, and so short-lived to match, that it caught the whole united territory off guard. This creative turning point saw the light of day in 1981 under the name Paket Aranžma. It was three young, unestablished bands, each contributing three or four innovative tracks to a record, from a perspective that was unusual at the time and announced the arrival of a whole new era. The sound of the days that were only just coming, barely taking shape on the ashes of yesterday’s battles, flights and falls, also carried a message: this new birth brought its own final end with it, and that end undoubtedly arrived barely a decade later.
Just as time brought the end of the shared, unified country, it also ended the main players of Paket Aranžma, Šarlo Akrobata and (VIS) Idoli. Only Električni Orgazam were left. They’re still here today in a fairly original lineup, and after a long time they’ve brought that once rebellious, now nostalgic spirit of another time, another life, back to Ljubljana. But the songs stayed the same. Almost. Somewhere along that long road, plagued by all sorts of members coming and going and other troubles (and successes) that time brought, it sometimes seems like Električni Orgazam want to please a lot more than they perhaps once did. The edge has gotten blunter, and the directness more palatable and accessible. Then again, nobody sings the Rolling Stones’ praises the way they did thirty-odd years ago either. And Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and the other legends certainly don’t mean today what they once did.
Either way, the band knows exactly what the crowd wants most, so it’s no surprise they focused mainly on tracks from the cult albums Električni Orgazam (1981), Distorzija (1986) and Letim, Sanjam, Dišem (1988). Sound-wise they sat somewhere between Kraftwerk-style electro-pop (they even wove the central melody of The Model, by that same band, into one of their own songs), the post-punk typical of bands from the turn of the seventies into the eighties, and boogie rock with an emphasis on longer instrumental excursions. One of the more interesting moves was including David Bowie’s The Man Who Sold The World, which they recorded for the 1983 covers album Les Chansones Populaires. Among the songs that warmed up the crowd the most were Kapetan Esid in the main set and Igra Rock & Roll Cela Jugoslavija in the single encore. All in all, over a set of almost two hours they played a good number of bigger and smaller hits from their whole career, from the albums mentioned above to their latest studio effort from 2002, titled Harmonajzer.
The show was billed as a kind of best-of, which it largely was. Considering that the hall, though pretty full, held quite a few younger people who were probably still listening to bedtime stories when Električni Orgazam started out, it’s no surprise the music was reworked in an even more pop manner, and so perhaps a bit less appealing to the real fans who grew up with the band. But times are different now than they were twenty-plus years ago, and the new wave of back then isn’t what it used to be. Nostalgia is always painted in more romantic colors than reality, but still, Električni Orgazam were electric to the end, as the name demands, though when it came to the orgasm, there was quite a bit missing.
