Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Venue: Orto bar / Ljubljana / Slovenia
Concert date: 13.04.2009
Attendance: 30
Ticket price: €9.00
The Društvo mrtvih pesnikov DMP show at Ortofest 2009, with the band celebrating its 21st anniversary this year, came as if made to order to liven up Easter Monday, a day you’d otherwise be obliged to spend stuffing yourself with hard-boiled eggs, ham baked in dough and wine. So I wouldn’t bloat from all that goodness, I tucked my tail between my legs and bolted into the dead calm of an evening that only Ljubljana nightlife can boast. And the destination that saves you from that embarrassment is, as always, the trusty Orto Bar. This April, in the tenth jubilee year in a row that Ortofest has counted, Orto Bar surely remains one of the liveliest spots in the capital.
This time it was DMP who rang out in there. Unfortunately, the timing was a bit unlucky, as they landed in a completely empty room. Barely 20 to 30 people. For a rock band with rich musical experience, plenty of miles on the clock, and ups and downs over a career that has left its mark on the Slovenian music scene, that’s surely an unwelcome situation.
The band had no more time to wait around in case Orto might fill up at least a little more. “Welcome to the private party!” Alan Vitezič, the band’s vocalist, guitarist and keyboardist, greeted those present, unmistakably describing the emptiness yawning deep beneath the stage, and the guys got down to business.
During the show the guys heavily showcased their new studio album “Vojna in mir” (2008). The very mature new release was presented live through the songs Naftalin, Sveče, Superheroj, Slana, Kisik and Trampolin, which shared a good dose of bounciness and relaxed, direct rock attitude. The recipe of short, punchy tricks with high singability, no overcomplicating and a smooth rock ride captured the band’s current spirit. They keep faithfully to their traditional sweet-melancholic confessions, but with a view toward maturing and leveling up, which is especially expressed in the deeper, personally confessional verses compared to the poetry of their older albums. On this occasion I’d like to single out the calmer parts, like Komu stoji and especially the ballad Kje (with Alan on keys), which conjured up a darker mood that felt particularly good as a counterweight to the otherwise light, bouncy folded set of the band’s repertoire. Especially when they added the obligatory hits Me že na da bi te and Rabm, which woke up even the handful of people in the completely empty Orto, as well as older numbers 25, Čutm te and the closing Ti si vse. The band also did a short jam, where Alan wandered off backstage to “cool down” his head, while the remaining trio had plenty of fun rock-restructuring the folk-song-turned-classic Lepa Anka.
The sound conjured up by the lads from Novo mesto, in the lineup of the quartet Alan Vitezič, Jernej Zoran (guitar), Tomaž Koncilija (bass, backing vocals) and Marko Zajc (drums, backing vocals), was nicely calibrated, at a proper rock level of relaxed noise, but it noticeably lacked that real rock n’ roll “oomph”, just as much as the crowd in front of the stage was lacking. The guys undoubtedly felt it, and after an hour and 15 minutes they took their leave of the handful of people present, leaving the stage without the obligatory encore and leaving the impression of a meeting with plenty of reserve. At least another 30 curious heads should have been there backing them up! The bare minimum.
Regardless of the fact that DMP are a sort of fixture of the Slovenian music scene, and don’t particularly want to astonish the Slovenian music public, which has gotten used to the familiar DMP standard, it might be worth thinking about how, going forward, to spice up the show on the staging side so that it sparks more interest and lets even more energy flow in both directions, rather than offering only that basic platform of entertainment, the routine of a quality (tight, well-rehearsed) stage performance of original material.
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
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