Author: Urban Bolta
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Mali Grad / Kamnik (Kamfest) / Slovenia
Concert date: 10.08.2014
Attendance: 300
Ticket price: free admission
Anyone who has ever wandered through Kamnik’s old town on some random summer evening will tell you it’s a little town with a gorgeous backdrop. Tucked under the foothills of the Kamnik-Savinja Alps, Kamnik gets a cool breeze off the Kamniška Bistrica, and a walk through the well-preserved medieval center always makes for a rich experience. Every August the town’s picturesque charm gets a serious boost when the ten-day Kamfest festival kicks off, bringing a colorful mix of culture and entertainment to the streets for every generation. A fixture of Kamfest is the evening concerts in the lovely setting of the old town castle. As the festival’s official promo text for Sunday’s show put it, after Peter Lovšin, Vlado Kreslin, Jani Kovačič and the sadly late Tomaž Pengov, this year it was time for Kamfest to host one more homegrown singer-songwriter legend: Tomaž Domicelj.
These days Domicelj’s appearances are more the exception than the rule, so, hoping for another great evening of live music, the Rockline crew made its way to the town on the Bistrica too. We were settling into the evening buzz with a glass of the beloved hop beverage when, a few minutes before half past eight, the tune of Tomaž’s long-since-folk-classic Kam so šle vse rožice began calling people up to Mali Grad.
Tomaž took a few hundred listeners on an almost two-hour odyssey through his own songs and covers, in that unmistakable confessional style, soaked in mischief and his very particular brand of Tomaž humor. With a 12-string guitar in his hands, a harmonica around his neck and a glass of beer at his side, the 66-year-old musician, in great spirits, entertained the crowd and, in the long speeches between songs, fired off venomous little barbs in every direction, pulling no punches. When a nearby church bell started ringing for ages, he decided on the spot to play the revolutionary Ko pravica spi.
Tomaž Domicelj is a music legend with a slew of songs that have become folk classics, so there was no way a listener wouldn’t find something in his repertoire. In front of the stage, a dozen or so kids were dancing and playing, while back by the castle wall the older generation was mouthing along to the songs. Total looseness from the performer wasn’t always welcome, though! Tomaž forgot a verse or two a few times, but he wriggled out of both Učilna zidana and Jamajka, turning the slip-ups to his advantage with another dose of humor. »If you’ve got dentures, you play a C on this harmonica«, went one of the many, sadly unpredictable, Domicelj lines while swapping harmonicas mid-show.
It’s no secret that the famous Ljubljana »Letnik 48« grew up listening to singer-songwriter giants Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen. He paid tribute to the latter with a cover, Vzemi me na kraj sveta (Dance Me to the End of Love in the original), while the Dylan-style harmonica work is an indispensable part of Tomaž’s artistic identity, which, thanks to the solo setup (no backing musicians), was laid completely bare. Listeners with a better ear for music didn’t miss that the sound of Tomaž’s guitar came across muddled and boomy. During Danes bo srečen dan, Tomaž picked up a six-string guitar and then played a run of Jamajka, Špricer Blues and Na planini je živel, during which the crowd’s singing rolled down from the castle hill into the lower parts of Kamnik. Right at the end of the show, as he served up Irena lahko noč before saying goodbye to the Kamnik crowd, he showed off some vocal maneuvering coming out of the song, proving that even in the autumn of his life, and after a two-hour set, his strength is still going strong.
One of Slovenia’s biggest singer-songwriter authorities brought a slice of our music history to Kamfest with a pleasant stroll through a decades-old legacy, and there’s even more coming in the days ahead: Neca Falk, Borghesia and, of course, Laibach are still to hit the Kamfest stage. Y’all are welcome!
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