Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Nina Grad
Venue: Cankarjev dom, Ljubljana
Concert date: 02.11.2013
Attendance: 1500
Why shouldn’t Magnifico try out Cankarjev dom too? New music for the film »Montevideo, bog te video«, about the Yugoslav national football team’s trip to faraway Montevideo. A musical story delivered in a way that belongs in solemn halls like Cankarjev dom. And in command is none other than the most illustrious Magnifico himself.
You could say that in this respect Magnifico has gone at it pretty diligently, following his slightly older colleague Goran Bregović. He simply knows how to repackage Balkan melos and rhythm the way Slovenian souls love it. He does it with ease. And has for years. And Magnifico knows exactly which corner of our hearts to knock on to really set it ablaze. The man’s simply got it. Huge charisma, a pure, confessional vision he keeps fruitfully striving for. And? He’s got a talent that isn’t laid in just anyone’s cradle. A huge talent.
If you think about it »at first blush«, it’s hard to picture Magnifico behind the walls of Cankarjev dom’s spotless culture. Magnifico is very folksy at heart, very down-to-earth. He’s as brilliantly and ingeniously goofy as few others. Slovenia is simply desperately short of entertainers like him.
But let’s take a step back. To the start of the »Montevideo, bog te video« story. This isn’t Robert Pešut’s first adventure into creating a musical backdrop for film. He’s already done it for the film »Stereotip« and the series »Prepisani«, but for it all to ignite, as the very title hints, in the new challenge too, »a meeting with God in Montevideo«, you first have to be able to guarantee authenticity again, a genuine interpretation of the original idea. For that, teaming up with the Serbian military orchestra Stanislav Binički was the obvious pick. Finding the middle ground between the famous provocation of Magnifico’s mischievous mind and the discipline of orchestration is a special challenge. This time the stage was truly packed. At the back a whole orchestra, led by conductor Igor Mitrovič, and up front, left and right of Magnifico, lined up: his faithful brother Schatzi on drums, the passionate trumpeter Ivan Pavlovič, then saxophonist Matej Kuželj, violinist Matija Krečič, Eskobars guitarist Teo Collori and Benč’s bassist Jan Gregorka.
They’d rehearsed the whole thing superbly. But of course Magnifico soon made sure, with his famous quips and brilliant humoresques, that we weren’t sentenced to a deadly serious séance demanding strict silence, otherwise the musicians could lose all their concentration. So no worries that Magnifico would suddenly sit down at the piano that evening and play Rachmaninoff. »If the white men counted Indians, we count Gypsies over here« (Zum zum kolo). Well, that level is already a lot more familiar, isn’t it? Quite a few moments spun by that called for that Yugo-nostalgia, that unique and unrepeatable sentiment echoed by times long past. The whole thing readily drifted toward »old-town chanson-singing« or, on the other side, teased with a mix of Latin and čoček rhythms, cunningly infused with the typical lead melodies of repackaged »balkanesques« and »Mexican« melos. The end of the first, »more serious part« was announced by the long-since-folk-classic Ubiču te, where the crowd for the first time burst into rowdy sing-along in the verses and clapping. That »flash« then swung a roughly 15-minute, one-of-a-kind musical experience into a state of brisk alertness. An experience with the magical Luz Casal. The Spaniard, who rose to fame in the film »High Heels« by the famous Spanish director Pedro Almodovar, quite literally shook us with her tremulously fragile voice. With her »girlish alarm clock« she deeply moved a packed Gallus Hall. The enchanting Casal anchored herself deep in us with her primal and unique vocal stamp, through her own Piensa en mi (her big hit), then Madrugadas, repackaged into a Spanish version – otherwise well known to most as Pukni zoro – and the song Al Viento, which is much closer to Slovenes in the form of Pastirče mlado.
The »serious« part of the show, insofar as you can talk about »seriousness« with Magnifico at all, was behind us. What followed was the expected, full-blooded stroll through the bag of Magnifico’s superbly re-arranged standards, and of course he served up all his main evergreen hits. With the orchestra’s support and the color shadings of an accompaniment originally generated by the perfection of an organic sonic landscape – that is, the acoustics – these »folk-ified classics« worked in a totally unique way in this new, never-before-tested light. In this respect the concert hangout branched out into a gradual build-up with a closing crescendo in a big finale, where Magnifico and the whole gang met with thunderous standing ovations that boomed, calling the musicians back on stage.
The audience got two more »weighty« encores, with the new Veliki voz winning them over most, which Magnifico dedicated to his grandfather Dušan – a Salonika Front fighter – while Zum zum kolo and Ubiču te had to be repeated, since it turned out he hadn’t managed to rehearse more reworkings of his originals with the Stanislav Binički orchestra.
Anyway. The man pulled off a real coup. Convincingly and in the grand style of his famous audacity, he has finally conquered Slovenia’s temple of culture too!
Setlist
1. Ljubav u C-duru
2. Srpska posla
3. Zum zum kolo
4. Pinja kolada
5. iThink
6. Evo me narode
7. Cha cha del Rio Drina
8. Dali si videla dušo
9. Mexico
10. Ubiću te
11. Piensa en mi (with Luz Casal)
12. Madrugadas (with Luz Casal)
13. Al Viento (with Luz Casal)
14. Bum bum
15. Samo malo
16. Marija Ana
17. Silvija
18. Gdo je čefur
19, Gospod, težko sem ponižen
20. In ko enkrat bom umrl
21. Hir aj kam, hir aj go
22. Halo gospodična
—encore—
23. Veliki voz
24. Pukni zoro
25. Zum zum kolo
26. Ubiću te
Photo gallery
