Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Ljubljana / SNG Drama / Slovenia
Concert date: 15.12.2013
Attendance: 100
Ticket price: €12.00
Elevators are one of those rare acts on the Slovenian pop music scene that tear unstoppably through stages and studio tape with a cheerfully optimistic laugh of carefree indifference and a sparkling, juicy honesty, riding on the wings of the mischief of childlike playfulness, sarcasm and brilliantly biting humor. We’re chronically short of acts like that on the scene! And that’s exactly what this crew of four top-notch musicians is: an inexhaustible musical body called Elevators! Robi Pikl (Manouche) on guitar and vocals, the great maestro Davor Klarič (ex-Šank rock) sitting behind a fortress of keyboards, the stocky Sergej Ranđelović »RunJoe« (too many projects to list) on drums, and Siddharta bassist Jani Hace. You never run out of superlatives whenever the talk turns to any of these highly distinctive musicians, each armed to the teeth with bubbling talent and a unique individual art statement.
Elevators are a special band. Its members are constantly busy with all kinds of musical sides of their artistic profession and can hardly ever find the time to get into the studio and put together anything new, anything bearing the Elevators artistic signature. The last song, V aorto, came out in the spring of 2011, and we can only hope something new is brewing. Well, the set list didn’t confirm that this time around, but still. Elevators have to put out a new album, they have to strive for it. Their artistic insight is simply too big to even think about anything else.
The flow of energy that sucks you in on the spot and, completely unnoticed, whisks you off into a one-of-a-kind musical world, the world of the Elevators sound, is extraordinary. Hard to put into words. Unlike anything else. Deeply provocative and, for exactly that reason, as refreshing as it gets. And that evening at SNG Drama, we felt that very ingredient of Elevators’ musical magic too. Seven in the evening, outstanding acoustics in the room, the stalls more than half empty, but still. Those who put their money on themselves didn’t (and we didn’t) skip this event. Especially considering the laughably low ticket price! For a handful of euros like that, you get a huge, huge amount of musical magic that fills your body and soul with a positive flow of energy. It even liberates you, if not downright cleanses you.
Elevators built their repertoire from their two studio albums. A superb culmination of jazz, funk, blues and swing figures, along with juicier, almost rock-style approaches, in its pure form couldn’t have worked any better. The connection between the musicians on stage is exceptional. You glance at each member of the quartet and read full-blooded surrender to the joy of music on their faces, the kind that only a free-spirited philosophy of wholehearted openness to the challenge of musical experimentation can offer. And that’s exactly the whole point of any creating in musical art. Of all four hugely charismatic faces in Elevators, the funniest by far is the one on RunJoe! But Robi Pikl isn’t far behind! Especially when he switches between the mic and a tube hooked up to a talk box, he coaxes a thick dose of satire out of the stage. His buddy RunJoe, a born stage performer, meanwhile doesn’t impress merely with the honest radiation of emotion playing inside him as he sails through the Elevators repertoire with his bandmates, but above all with his remarkable skill at thickening the basic rhythmic textures with unpredictable bursts of jazz mischief. When the funny “walrus” steps to the front of the stage in a white Eva sardines promo T-shirt and throws himself into the vocal interpretations with total commitment, using the Ajdovščina dialect, as in Skouči skuoči, or later in Žulejne je krompjir, Še je cejt, and in the obligatory encore track Prva pomoč, the encounter with Elevators reaches an extra level of uniqueness.
There’s plenty of room for individual geniuses to spread their wings fully. And they magnify each other through remarkable togetherness. Not one of the four building blocks takes the lead, they all express themselves as equals the whole way through. Klarič placed a few space prog-rock tunes into the room, and there are even meaningful parallels with symphonic prog rockers like Camel, while where rock heaviness comes to the fore (Riff, V aorto), his Hammond sound brings the tones close to bands like Uriah Heep, Nektar, and Deep Purple too.
The way solo acrobatics get passed around the whole quartet is superb. It brings into the concert experience that unique element of shock therapy we call unpredictability, even spontaneity in how things unfold. Pikl and Hace occasionally also lean on “memorizing” phrases, which help build up the band’s layered shared soundscape. The bridge that makes the music accessible to a wider audience is the numbers where Elevators develop, and just as effectively sustain, a mix of compact listenability built on the clear rhythmic engraving of funk springs and impulses of more broadly palatable Latin rhythms (Brasilica, Hišni ljubimec). This is where Robi Pikl’s cheeky vocal comes in, which can even stir up a grotesque imitation of Michael Jackson! The man strapped into a Gibson ES 335 guitar, B.B. King’s Lucille series, never runs out of ingenuity when the numbers roll in where he switches his vocal between the talk box effect on the guitar and normal singing into the mic (UFO Race).
Here’s the soft, delicately driven “Pat Metheny-style” I.E., and a little further into the set, the hard-hitting experimental jazz colorfest Marvin rings out. Surprises follow at every step of the concert and in the band’s completely unique story in the repertoire. In short, this quartet simply never runs out of shockingly effective therapy based on a multifaceted musical leaflet of strong character and great artistic expressive punch. At every step it freely takes in its vocabulary of great art quirks. A concert charged with fully effective chemistry flew by in a flash! Simply put. Good things just damn well pass quickly. So Elevators remain manna for music gourmets, who at the same time subtly knock on the doors of the wider masses too, since they masterfully know how to repackage juicy improvisational figures into a compactly crafted form of leading motifs. The quartet’s art-quirk component is exceptional, and every experience with the band is a new and different story that never stops fascinating in the concert setting! Again and again!
Še tole. Elevators would, for instance, have been the ideal company for the show by Simon Phillips and his Protocol II. on 01.11.2013 at Ljubljana’s Cvetličarna!
Setlist
1. Mladi metri
2. Brasilica
3. Smiles
4. I.E.
5. Orao javi se
6. Bob Miller
7. Skuoči, skuoči
8. Hišni ljubimec
9. Polna luna
10. Marvin
11. Rowad
12. UFO Race
13. V aorto
14. Žulejne je Krmpjir
15. Še je cejt
—encore—
16. Prva pomoč
17. Riff
Photo gallery
