Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Ljubljana / Cirkus / Slovenia
Concert date: 29.09.2016
Attendance: 350
Ticket price: 0,00€
A year has flown by and it’s time for another Metal Witch. Even though the event kicked off late, we managed to show up even later, and Marko Brecelj was just wrapping up his set as we walked in. Damn it. Looks like that one face-off in Kranj in August 2014 will stay our only one – RockLine report HERE. It must have been absolutely wild. Marko strolled past us in his infamous knee-high socks for kowtowing to Popovič, or rather his brand-new »outfit«, with which he still mocks the »leaders« of this »country« (and himself, of course) with unbelievable skill. We definitely owe this grey-haired genius one, so next time we’re catching his show for sure.
So the first band of the festival hit the stage in a blast of distortion: the sturdy melodic deathcore crew from Velenje, Inmate. These days they’ve seriously shaken up the lineup. Only two original members are left, Jure on drums and Andrej on guitar. The band now has not one but two vocalists. The first is an old acquaintance from Last Day Here and a longtime good friend of Inmate, Marko Duplišak; the second is Aleksander Kolar. The new Inmate lineup is rounded out by the seasoned bassist Miha Oblišar, who has already done time in plenty of Slovenian bands over his career, and guitarist David Vodopivec. This band is a guarantee of quality. Always has been. Both as songwriters and as performers. And that goes for this new, revamped and refreshed version too. Aleksander and Marko complemented each other brilliantly on stage with the vocal contrast of their extreme singing, while the band built a solid, crystal-clear wall of sound behind their melodic deathcore. Inmate also showed off new material that will feature on their upcoming record, led by the new single Endless Desires. As always: tight and with big balls. Unbridled and furious!
Since Lene kosti weren’t there, at least one (now former) member of the band still made it onto the stage. That’s Jan Tehovnik, who brought his Pyroxene to Cirkus instead. Pyroxene also played their own material, which will soon get its official home on their first EP, something the band plans to record shortly. Pyroxene are retro-sounding metalheads. The tone coming from both guitarists’ gear has that vibe, and so do the guitar phrases themselves. Over it all hovers a siren of a voice, which Jan Tehovnik wails out with total conviction. High and commanding. Jan really did drag the boys through the whole set. You can tell the band has been gigging regularly lately and getting better, and more confident, with every show. Sadly there were a few audible slip-ups, especially during the Judas Priest cover The Reaper. The band woke the crowd up early on with a Black Sabbath cover, Electric Funeral, and later with (maybe too predictable) Breaking the Law (Judas Priest), which we’d have happily missed, since every band in a kindergarten plays it. Anyway, bottom line: a nice and thoroughly decent show from Pyroxene, but the hottest question right now? How the band’s first EP is going to sound, of course. Good luck, boys.
After Pyroxene, Necrotik from Dolenjska took over the stage. The wild hardcore crew from Novo mesto got the crowd on its feet way above everyone else so far, and the crowd was eating out of their hands. A concert brimming with energy. Tight as hell! The band put out its first EP, »Wake Up«, at the end of May, and they played Evil Against Evil (the opener) from it, then Devil Wears Your Skin, Wake Up, Dirty Little Whore,… The band spiced up its destructive tornado with a cover of the Sepultura classic Roots Bloody Roots, which turned out to be a real jackpot. They wove a snippet of the Pulp Fiction soundtrack (Misirlou) into the song, the crowd went absolutely nuts, people started a crazy circle pit right there on the floor, and quite a few heads tried out stage diving during the set. Bottom line: Necrotik squeezed the last atoms of energy out of most of the audience. Why?
Up next, in a shortened time slot, came Warm Up Bones from Borovnica. This band has maybe stayed a bit under the radar of the music scene so far, even though they’re incredibly experienced and well known around the Borovnica-Podpeč corner of Slovenia! Mostly for playing a ton of all kinds of covers. And playing them in great style. A superbly tight quartet who stuck strictly to their own material at this show. Warm Up Bones delivered a sound that was clean as a whistle. By far the best sound of all the acts up to that point. Even though they played for half an hour at most, and in front of a decimated crowd, they played brilliantly. The four of them complement each other wonderfully. The vocals are genuine, determined, powerful and expressive, with excellent guitar solos fantastically woven into sharp, melodic hard rock/heavy metal riffs, which (and this is no lie) somehow fill the spot on the scene that Pomaranča would be filling today if they had kept developing normally (all the way to now). In short, keep a close eye on Warm Up Bones in the future!
And finally, very, very late on stage, we got Metropolis. This is a band devoted to playing the life and work of the one-of-a-kind rock’n’roll punks Motörhead. And has been for a long time. The main man is, of course, still Hotschko! The very same Hotschko who, back in the early nineties, tuned the Floyd Rose on the electric guitar of this report’s author, back when he still lived under the illusion that he could play, and only over time figured out he’d be better off writing about music than playing guitar. Anyway, the man has been grinding his Rickenbacker for Metropolis since 1994, and he relentlessly chews up microphones with his Lemmy-style vocals until thick shavings fly off them. More recently he was joined by the experienced guitarist Marko Čulajević, or »Čule« to his friends, whom we know all too well from the Ljubljana rock’n’roll veterans Sausagues, while Hotschko’s loyal buddy BDM stays on drums. So. Sound: great. Performance: also great. Especially thanks to Hotschko’s extremely piercing Lemmy voice, which has far more power and eruptive force than the iron chancellor’s vocals did in his final years, when the rock icon visibly faded from show to show. In short, Hotschko studied Lemmy’s stage moves well too, and he even put on a black shirt, just like the iron chancellor of rock’n’roll usually wore at gigs. All that was missing were two warts on the right cheek, the hat and the leather boots. The mic was of course turned downward too. The band played two originals, and otherwise thrilled the dozen or so survivors in Cirkus with more than decent versions of Motörhead originals (the exception being a botched No Class). Before the song Metropolis, Čule and Hotschko linked pinkies, as is the custom for Motörhead fans. There were a few surprises, songs Motörhead hadn’t played in ages, like I’ll Be Your Sister, Love Me Like A Reptile, Stone Dead Forever and Built For Speed. And then a ton of mandatory standards, like Going to Brasil, Just Cause You Have the Power, Dead Men Tell No Tales, Dancing On You Grave, Stay Clean, Iron Horse, Shoot you In the Back, Over the Top, Iron Fist and, of course, Ace of Spades to close. Only Overkill was missing from the encore, which we never got. At two in the morning there were maybe twenty survivors left in the place (not counting bartenders and tech crew). Metropolis are an awesome Motörhead tribute band. It’s a shame they play so rarely. Great party. And it would have been even better at a “normal” evening hour in front of a bigger crowd! Let’s hope they lock in some new gigs soon. Ever since the real Motörhead are gone, we’re even hungrier for Motörhead music!
Metal Witch 2016 was a nice success. With one and the same problem as always. Once again there weren’t enough people. Free entry, the first 100 visitors got a voucher for a free first beer, and after that beers were just two euros each. Ridiculous, and sadly, sad once again. It didn’t bring the crowds in. There’s one thing, though. The draft beer gave us a headache the next morning. Which is not good. So here’s a hint for next year, if you don’t want the draft beer to give you a headache too. Across the intersection there’s »Tramvaj«, which is open all night and where you can get a nicely chilled Nikšičko beer in a can, also for 2,00€. And that definitely won’t give you a headache.
Setlist
Inmate:
1. intro
2. Tomorrow Never Comes
3. Die Before Dying
4. Golden Cage
5. Home
6. Victorious
7. Endless Desires
8. 432 + Paradox
9. Unbreakable
10. Demon Crazy
11. Tree of Life
12. Overcome
Pyroxene
1. Cleansed In Fire
2. Quarantine
3. Electric Funeral
4. Choose Your Poison
5. Bullets Fly
6. Things I Was
7. DKP
8. Breaking the Law
9. Helium 3
10. The Reaper
11. Fireborn
12. Res me imaš!
Necrotik:
1. Evil Against Evil
2. Hang Them High
3. Wake Up
4. My Apostasy
5. C.O.A.V.C.
6. Balkan Idiocracy
7. I Am Free
8. My Zombies
9. Devil Wears Your Skin
10. Roots Bloody Roots
11. Dirty Little Whore
Warm Up Bones:
1. Politične svinje
2. Ceste so raj
3. Feljušvar
4. Mrtvaški ples
5. To ime
6. Zelena punca
7. Rock’n’roll Republika
8. Sva šla midva
Metropolis:
1. Stay Clean
2. Reason
3. I’ll Be Your Sister
4. Midnight Riders
5. Metropolis
6. Stone Dead Forever
7. Over the top
8. Iron Horse
9. Dead Men Tell No Tells
10. Built For Speed
11. Going to Brasil
12. Shoot You In The Back
13. Rock Around,
14. Bomber
15. Love Me Like A Reptile
16. Just Cos You Got The Power
17. No Class
18. Iron Fist
19. Dancing On Your Grave
20. Ace Of Spades
Photo gallery
