Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Medvode / MC Jedro / Slovenia
Concert date: 03.10.2014
Attendance: 150
Ticket price: €0.00 (free entry!)
MC Jedro in Medvode has come alive again. Pure Medvode through and through! Three bands, each stylistically miles from the others, but when it comes to home turf, all of them were founded in Medvode. Great friends. The well-known classic metallers Metalsteel, then another one of Slovenia’s »Bay Area thrash« metal revivalists, Classified, and the sleaze rock n’ roll »vampires« Street Creeps.
The clock hand had swung well past ten when we stepped through the door of the venue’s attic space, and Street Creeps were just wrapping up their set. There was still time to draw a bottom line: Street Creeps had far better sound than a few days earlier at Ortobar, where, alongside Godscard and Battle X, they kicked off this year’s program of the famous polecat duo known as Kadilnica of Death (RockLine report HERE). The verdict is much the same as a few days ago. Street Creeps have taken a noticeable step forward, and they come across as tight, committed and confident. They write and play their own material, which is very good. Given the general trend of a »Scandi sleaze revival invasion« from the North, with Street Creeps Slovenia has actually landed one of the rare bands that boldly ventured into this kind of musical territory, which deserves respect. Potency, arrogance, hooliganism, salted with glitz and kitsch. Where rock n’ roll, metal and punk shake hands.
The author of this humble piece was most curious about Classified that night, since he had never caught them live. This band has a nice chunk of experience under its belt so far – among the bigger events, their set in the middle of this May, when they opened the concert night for the legendary old-school American speed metallers Helstar (RockLine report HERE), is hard to forget – and they are an extremely fired-up quintet. In 2012 the band put out a »Demo« with four original songs (RockLine review HERE), and during the show they proved what real grit is. Wonderfully fired-up and tight, Classified thoroughly boiled the rooms of MC Jedro with their furiously raging thrash, which draws on the elements of old-school Bay Area bands, primarily the sound and work of Testament, Exodus, Heathen and Forbidden. If we run through the names of the members – Kristjan Škofljanec (vocals), Domen Jamnik (guitar), Blaž Orehek (guitar), Tilen Sušnik (bass) – Classified are historically intertwined with Metalsteel in one way or another. They hammered out ten songs in their set, which means they have enough material for a whole studio debut! Great cohesion and compactness. Those are the words that grace a band that delivered a highly potent thrash metal experience that night, with songs like Twisted Mind, Idiocracy, Out of Control and Nation in Flames, among others. Classified are diligently walking the path once plowed in Slovenia by Negligence, so we can count them in the virtuous thrash metal revival movement in Slovenia. Since its relevance has been fading a bit lately, Classified caught the very last train in that respect. A great set from a band that really delivers its live maximum. Judging by their fire, commitment and youthful drive, this is a band that can deliver plenty more gig (and studio) goodies on the scene in the future! By the way, the sound engineer dialed in a great sound for them!
With Metalsteel there are no more games of hide-and-seek. The band came of age back in the days of full-blown teenagerhood, and today counts as one of the most experienced and key bands in Slovenian metal! For this night they prepared a phenomenal set in which everything was subordinated to a single goal: delivering the best »party time« night of all nights. The band hit hellishly hard, with all the ammo at their disposal, and the opening songs, the new New Way of Thinking and Taboo, lifted the event to a high in an instant. The band quickly established an extremely tight form on stage. You can feel the incredible mileage and the grasp of the building blocks of the band’s sound. In all this time of defiance on the scene, Matej Sušnik, Beny Kic and Rok Tomšič have each grown as individuals into excellent musicians. There are real differences between them in their preferences for musical content and how they perceive it, but years of comradeship hold them together, more firmly today than ever before. Sušnik is, one way or another, a wunderkind, the »Slovenian son of Stuart Hamm«, while Beny, partial to »pointy« Jackson guitars, and Rok, partial to the classic brands Stratocaster and Gibson, have each honed their own musical individuality into an extremely interesting contrast, which Metalsteel exploit brilliantly to achieve variety in their own music. Just by looking at their stage »outfit« it’s clear who in Metalsteel is basically a rocker and who is a metalhead. And the effect of the band’s forever reliable tempo mistress Daša must by no means be overlooked!
The first mini surprise came pretty quickly: Trapped in the Nightmare from the second album »Taste the Sin« (2005). The first part was devoted to presenting the current album »This is Your Revelation« (2014, RockLine review HERE), which peaked with the title track, during which two spinning oriental dancers appeared on stage. That answered what the “cat walk” was for in the first place, built as an extra stage extension reaching toward the crowd, which the band otherwise used throughout the show for plenty of communication with the audience. The first »electric« part wrapped up with the opening song of the debut »Usoda«, where the band’s longtime friends in the crowd really came alive and joined in singing the song. »Mi smo tu!« and »Za vas!« boomed through Jedro in one voice, so loudly that the roof of the club’s attic space was properly shaking. No two ways about it. The song Novi svet is a classic that simply cannot be missing from Metalsteel gigs. Next up is the acoustic set with three re-arranged songs: the new Call of the War and the classics Topla je smrt and Usoda.
In the big »electric again« finale the band finished the job and played the rest of the current studio album »This is Your Revelation« live, and wrapped up the regular part of the show with the classic “Taste the Sin” (2005) from the album The Lonely Man’s Revenge, in the middle of which bassist Matej Sušnik stepped up to the front of the stage and the microphone. The band »flipped« the rhythm and riff and carried on the party by playing the Black Sabbath cult classic Heaven And Hell. Here Rok Tomšič jumped into the spotlight with his creamy Stratocaster, while Sušnik showed he has excellent vocals, able to come within an inch of the legendary Ronnie James Dio. Two thirds of the way through Heaven And Hell, Beny and Matej swap places on the mic, and the band ends the show with the closing chorus and outro of The Lonely Man’s Revenge. An encore follows, opened by the »Entertainment« song The Trip, and then comes another quietly anticipated classic, Heavy Metal is Our Religion, where the crowd packed its ranks especially tightly for the closing celebration, and at the band’s call the members of Classifed and Street Creeps also joined Metalsteel on stage to sing the song.
Drawing the bottom line, the Medvode club MC Jedro once again delivered an unforgettable concert event, dedicated to showcasing the Medvode metal and rock scene, which, for a small town scattered along the banks where the Sora and Sava meet, is incredibly colorful and rich. The event was very well attended, and Metalsteel delivered one of the best concerts my eyes have ever seen and my ears have ever heard, and this isn’t a band I’d seen for the first time, or even only three times, before that night. So? They simply played phenomenally. This commitment was surely boosted further by the devoted crowd, who carried the band on their hands all night. At the same time, the contribution of the excellent Classified and the boldly progressing Stret Creeps must not be overlooked. Suma sumarum. Another great concert experience, so it’s only fitting to close this piece with the words: “Long live metal in Medvode!”
Setlist
METALSTEEL:
1. New Way of Thinking
2. Taboo
3. Trapped In The Nightmare
4, Narcissues
5. White Circle
6. New Messiah
7. Entertainment
8. This is Your Revelation
9. Novi svet
—acoustic set—
10. Call of the War
11. Topla je smrt
12. Usoda
——————–
13. Life Story
14. Godfather of Nothingness
15. Man of 1000 Faces
16. Long Time Ago
17. The Lonely Man’s Revenge
—encore—
18. The Trip
19. Heavy Metal is Our Religion
Photo gallery
