Author: Urban Bolta
Venue: Gala Hala / Metelkova / Ljubljana
Concert date: 31.07.2009
Attendance: 200
Ticket price: 15 €
James Rivera has gone from talk to action. What am I on about? At the end of May, Kranj’s Bazen hosted the American speed metallers Helstar, fronted by James Rivera. At that gig he showered our little homeland with praise and promised to be back as soon as possible. And since a promise is a debt, James has now returned to Slovenia, this time with a completely different project. Courtesy of the Dihurčki, James came not just to the sunny side of the Alps but, for the first time ever, to Europe, bringing a project called Sabbath Judas Sabbath with Metalsteel backing him. As the name suggests, it’s a tribute to the two most influential heavy metal bands, Judas Priest and Black Sabbath, who shaped the genre with countless releases in the seventies and started writing a new chapter in the book of rock’n’roll. Even though both Judas Priest and Black Sabbath have four decades of activity behind them, you can still catch both live today. But since that chance is pretty rare and comes with its own time and money hurdles, we youngsters gave ourselves over for one night to a very decent stand-in for those heavy forefathers. So on the first day of August, Metelkova offered a chance to relive the best of what Sabbath and Priest left us, through the eyes of Metalsteel with James Rivera on vocals. The evening also brought two warm-up acts: Scepsis opened, followed by Shutdown, who are already well known to Rockline.
SCEPSIS:
A little after half past eight in the evening, a short four-piece lineup called Scepsis took the stage of the totally empty Gala Hala. The moment the racket finally started up inside, the stream of the most devoted metalheads from all over Metelkova redirected into Gala, which was treated to a proper death-thrash blast! Scepsis were put together by members of two of Carinthia’s leading metal bands, the thrashers Thraw and the somewhat more death-metal-leaning Wartune. It’s a side project dedicated exclusively to playing covers, and to the full-on war in front of the stage that these well-known axe-slingers set off. Some 50 fired-up heads got old-school tracks that heated an already boiling room even further. Vocalist Tilen, who also handles the bass, showed himself in a perfect light; he’s got frontman moves in him that don’t come out as much in Wartune, where he only plays bass. Tilen’s brother Domen and Wartune guitarist Domen make up the killer guitar duo in Scepsis, while Thraw drummer Bubba deftly wields the sticks. The energy the guys radiated from the stage spread like fire among the longhairs down below, who danced to the beats of Pantera, Slayer, Death, Sepultura and other creators of timeless classics. Old school to the grave! The Carinthians were a decent half-hour warm-up before the program moved on to some somewhat gentler heavy melodies.
SHUTDOWN:
The heavy metallers from Nova Gorica, who played Rockline Fest II in May, tore it up in Primorska just the day before the gig I’m describing, together with Pomaranča and a few other bands, and this time they brought their vision of hard’n’heavy roll to Ljubljana. In the music of these Primorska lads you can feel a deep tinge of eighties hard rock, which they’ve kneaded thoroughly, and the result is a blend of that genre with heavy metal, with distinctly melodic guitars, whose sound is squeezed out by Dominjo on lead and Murva on rhythm. The stage show rests on the shoulders of vocalist Egzi, whose hairdo could almost make you mistake him for Dee Snider (Twisted Sister). So there’s also a bit of flirting with the glam style at Shutdown, and not just from Egzi but from the other members too. The guy varies his voice slightly throughout the songs, and those highest registers, which are practically obligatory in heavy metal, are still out of his reach. The band is rounded out by bassist Dafo and drummer Pejc, who once again did their job with distinction. Besides their own songs, the cream of which so far is Valkira and Križarji, always played at the peak of their set, they also covered Judas Priest classics Diamonds and Rust and Living After Midnight. They flubbed the chorus on the latter a bit, but that didn’t spoil a great performance and the plus points they earned with me.
A small minus goes to the “thirsty” metalheads who – I’m not talking about everyone, but a good chunk of them – preferred sipping their favorite brand of beer outside the entrance to the hall rather than cheering from the front of the stage and backing a promising young hope of Slovenian heavy music.
SABBATH JUDAS SABBATH:
After the warm-up of two opening bands, the time finally came for the main event, the reason we’d all gathered on a lovely Saturday evening. At exactly a quarter to eleven, Beny, Matej, Rok and Daša marched onto the stage, took their positions, each grabbed their instrument, and the show of the night was underway. We waited with interest to see how James Rivera had conceived the whole “Sabbath Judas Sabbath” project. How much Priest would there be, how much Sabbath? Would he pick only the biggest classics, or would he also include some of the lesser-known works? Ozzy, Dio, Martin – would he pay tribute to all the important Black Sabbath vocalists? You could smell countless questions like these in the air, and we got our answers over the next two hours.
The moment the sound of Metalsteel’s instruments filled the room, it was clear they’d kicked off with a Judas Priest tune. From the opening bars you could always tell which of the two giants you were hearing: the slow, morbid, doomy Black Sabbath against the recognizable, often livelier and much faster Judas Priest riffs. There was no need to wonder long; it was crystal clear the opener was Judas Rising, which the metal gods already honored with the opening slot on the album Angel of Retribution (2005). After a few opening moments of the song, James Rivera himself joined the locals on stage, a short gentleman with long curly hair and a smile on his face, and he started his own work too. And how! Even the highest vocal registers pose no problem at all for Rivera; you could even compare him to Rob Halford in his prime! Judas Rising was followed by Night Crawler, a gem from the much younger Painkiller (1990), and then, for the second time that night, Diamonds and Rust, when a minor mishap occurred. Daša’s bass drum broke, but since solidarity among metalheads is no stranger, one of the two earlier bands, or rather its drummer, helped fix the problem. In the meantime Beny and Rok proved themselves as improv-league performers (read: hosts), and James provided a few laughs. Just as the crowd fell into a magical Judas Priest dream, the first Sabbath jewel – Turn Up the Night, written during Dio’s tenure – cut in, once the drum trouble was sorted.
James Rivera kept shifting the rhythm of his vocals a bit throughout, dictating it to suit the song being played. On the J. Priest numbers he always sang insanely high, as if you were listening to Halford’s vocal rebirth, while on the B. Sabbath classics he brought his delivery down quite a bit, though he was still a light-year above the rumbling Ozzy Osbourne line. Metalsteel vocalist Beny devoted himself purely to guitar this time, a job he’d already done in the band for a few years when Alex handled vocals, before they later parted ways. He naturally gave up the standard center stage, where Beny usually reigns, to James Rivera and moved off to the left; to Rivera’s right, Metalsteel’s other guitarist Rok tortured his strings, somewhere in the second line behind the striking trio Matej worked the bass, and way in the back, of course, Daša pounded her darlings (the drums, naturally!). What a superb backing band Metalsteel were – Rivera’s heart must have been melting with joy! They played the whole show without a single slip, with unbelievable tightness – the guys and the girl must have put in miles of rehearsals and a hundred and one drops of sweat for this night! Hats off for that! Even the band’s weakest point, drummer Daša, did a very solid job.
The crowd went wild, joined in, and clapped to cheer and encourage the players on stage. The energy flowed both ways. James embraced Slovenia, and our crowd embraced James. This time too he showered our little country with praise, and he warmed everyone’s soul by admitting that Cocta is better than Coca-Cola. Hehe, how right he is. Thanks to its homey feel, Gala Hala is a place where a band has no trouble breathing as one with the crowd, and a single spark in the form of a well-known song is enough to set the party off. Sadly, that also brings out some less pleasant moments, when metal faces everyone knows from our gig circles jump onto the stage and, with stunt-show antics, quite obviously disturb Rivera’s singing. Neither Metalsteel nor Rivera were happy about such moments.
Those of us at the Saturday heavy night heard interpretations of The Green Manalishi, Metal Gods (on the chorus of the latter, the Metalsteel guitarists lent Rivera their voices), Hell Bent For Leather, and the obligatory Hellion and Electric Eye. In a mixed, ever-changing order, “Sabbath Judas Sabbath” also served up Neon Night, N.I.B., Heaven and Hell, Children of the Sea, War Pigs. Even a slightly closer dissection of the songs played shows clearly that, given the length of Ozzy’s and Dio’s tenures in Black Sabbath, the “Dio years” songs dominated. Let me remind you, Ronnie James Dio appeared on only two studio albums – Heaven and Hell (1980) and Mob Rules (1981). Right at the end, in the encore, came a celebratory moment for Metalsteel! Together with Rivera they played their anthem Heavy Metal is Our Religion, which they can certainly count as a great honor!
Not just the last song, the whole concert was without a doubt a great experience for the heavy metallers from Medvode, a step up in their career and fresh motivation for further work. Rivera promised to tour the old continent with this same lineup, where he’ll be able to pass on plenty of his experience from a rich career to the Medvode guys.
The setlist was varied; most people were happy with the selection, some just weren’t. Every attendee can fire off five songs they wanted to hear but didn’t get, because fortune wasn’t on their side. But is it even possible to cram all the hits of two bands that ruled heavy metal into a mere hundred and twenty minutes? I think that’s impossible..
Photos: Miha Mally
Setlist
1. Judas Rising 2. Night Crawler 3. Diamonds & Rust 4. Turn Up The Night 5. N.I.B. 6. Children of the Sea 7. Green Manalishi (with the two pronged crown) 8. Neon Knights 9. The Lonely Man`s Revenge 10. Die Young 11. Beyond The Realms of Death 12. War Pigs 13. Metal Gods 14. Heaven & Hell 15. Hell Bent For Leather 16. The Hellion/Electric Eye 17. Sabbath Bloody Sabbath 18. Heavy Metal is Our Religion (Metalsteel song)
Photo gallery
