Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: MC Velenje / Velenje / Slovenia
Concert date: 28.08.2010
Attendance: 350
Ticket price: €0.00 (free entry)
Ever climbed into your car in the middle of the worst downpour imaginable, a little past eight in the evening, and headed off to a metal gig in Velenje? If it was the last one before the apocalypse, someone might even believe you. That’s what happens when the old-timers Interceptor hit the stage once a year. Yep. The only Interceptor show this year. But not without meaning. They called it a “farewell/christening” gig! Right up to this day the band had been carefully teasing fans of heavy sounds that a change of guitarist was on the way. What that would mean, of course, they wouldn’t spill. Why start dinner with dessert? So Simon Cukjati announced his departure. It’s only fair that this new turning point for Slovenia’s inventors of graveyard metal gets marked the way it should be.
Velenje totally dead at 10 PM. The merciless rain had done its job. The one exception was the youth center by the “Rdeča dvorana”. That’s where the kids had gathered. Entry was free, they’d exhausted the local cinemas’ lineup, parents at home had claimed the TV or the internet, crocheting by the stove has long been out of fashion (like other industrious habits), so you just push yourself out into that fresh Velenje air. Rain or no rain. Warming up the crowd before Interceptor were Šus, in a lineup of guitarist/vocalist, guitarist and drummer. The bassist-less trio raged for a good half hour and showed off their take on music, which isn’t all that far from the evening’s headliners. You can tell the band lacks gigs. Hesitant communication with the crowd and unused stage space, with everyone glued to their own square meter, showed right away that this lineup needs more seasoning on stage. Not exactly a lived-in performance, and it didn’t serve up anything interesting. Neither musically nor in terms of character. Of course, the dose of noisy (mostly semitone-shaped) riff-mongering was enough to wake up a few heads below the stage and get them involved, which is a good send-off for the future.
Epidemic Zone, who were announced before Interceptor, didn’t play. I don’t know the reason, but the longer break let Interceptor prep the stage more thoroughly for their set. Just the theme melody of the partisan TV series “Vrnitev odpisanih” and the quintet is ready. The band split the show into two parts. The first they played with “Cuki”, and they let him go out in a blaze at the end, after the guitarist takes over lead vocals too for the Anthrax cover Got The Time. Five minutes of pause follow, while the band sets up everything needed to present the new guitarist. The stage comes alive, the band kicks into the newer Homo Stupidus, and with them is Eliminator guitarist Tim Draksler! So we got the answer to the most nagging question! This is the renewed Interceptor, who will head into the studio as such to record and release the new album they’ve been promising for so long. Master Čulk reassured the crowd they’d get it next year!
The band plays great on stage. The rhythm section sounds inspiring, and Marc Pader is reliable as ever, never letting a riff down. And our valiant Master? The longer break has clearly done him good, because he came across fresh and rested. He stayed on both feet the whole hour, and sang and growled all the material superbly, including the regular Sepultura cover Inner Self. Čulk is charismatic as ever, confident, and has loads of experience, so he knows exactly when to pull the levers that keep the audience from getting oversaturated with “graveyard metalization”! The material, mixed from all three studio albums and visibly inspired at times by early Sepultura, was hammered out in the domain of a seasoned band under excellent sound, which earned extra plus points for the only concert get-together with Interceptor this year.
In the closing stretch Pader stepped up to the “front” and presented a new song that the band will put on the new album. The track, still in pure instrumental form for now, confirmed that if the band keeps following a new riff like the one Marc showed off (and like the excellent Homo Stupidus already proved), we won’t have to tremble that the creators of “graveyard metal” might fail to justify and confirm their musical presence and status in the Slovenian metal universe with a new studio release! For the big finale Interceptor, as expected, tackle the Epidemic Zone cover Zadnja žrtev. Simon Cukjati returns to the stage one last time, so now there are three guitarists up there. The intro goes to guitarist Pader, as Interceptor “wreck the song into a rolling riff”, and then the stage is “properly” filled one last time with Master’s sinister presence!
Interceptor got the crowd well and truly on its feet. A good 300 heads got a first-class helping of napalm cluster bombs from the thrash metal arsenal of the legendary Slovenian interceptor, and we wish them to come back next time armed with fresh ammo, embodied by the promised new studio album. On this past Saturday night of August, Interceptor also successfully killed the rain, which spared us through the whole show, so the band and the crowd alike squeezed the maximum out of the event. And Tim? Welcome aboard!
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlist
1. Fade 2. Blato 3. Blame 4. Revive 5. Pedofil 6. Paparazzo 7. Got The Time 8. Homo Stupidus 9. Religija 10. Mors Victrix 11. Inner Self 12. Puške namesto kruha 13. New song (instrumental) 14. Zadnja žrtev
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