Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Tolmin / Sotočje / Slovenia
Concert date: 08/17/2018
Attendance: 550
Ticket price: €70.00 (three-day pass)
A year has rolled around, and the second Motörcity Festival has landed in Tolmin. The second! A fresh addition to a Slovenian music scene that keeps growing and maturing, which means it’s shining brighter and brighter on the international stage too. If last year we glumly eyed the modest turnout (mind you, it was the festival’s first year!), this year the attendance picture has visibly improved, and the very first day already hinted at it. The program was kicked off by the excellent Dutch rhythm and blues and soul outfit Sven Hammond. So it’s half past five in the afternoon, and Sven Hammond are already up on the stage named »B.B. King«, set (as always) inside the park grounds, which are slowly taking on more and more of a forest feel. Last September they gave birth to their fifth studio album, »Rapture«, and over an hour-long set they gave it a hearty showcase. They spent the first twenty minutes dressing up their set with instrumental numbers, stretched-out and thoroughly loosened improv jams, led mostly from the organ by Sven Figee, the band’s leader. The Hammond organ was accompanied on stage by an original Leslie amplifier, so Sven clearly isn’t kidding around. Authentic sound guaranteed! In the improvisations, which can demand plenty of sophistication and a delicate touch, he’s joined by the excellent guitarist Tim Eijmaal, who really came into his own in the closing stretch, when he flat-out exploded in one of the longer solo spots. The dark-skinned vocalist Ivan Peroti jumped on stage for the fourth song, the new Ceasar, and before that Sven joked around, saying: »For years we worked as an all-instrumental band. And because that’s what drew crowds to concert venues like the one gathered here today, we decided to take a vocalist on board too! Please welcome Ivan Petofi!«. The latter really did liven up the whole show, and with his playing and with not just superb, polished soul vocals, which stirred up quite a few Stevie Wonder sympathies, he took the concert up another level. Later on the band played, among other things, the song Hero from the album »The Usual Suspect«, plus two new songs, I’ll Wait and Rapture, and wrapped up the set with After Smoke, also taken from »The Usual Suspect«. An excellent warm-up to open with. More than excellent. Remarkably tight, heartfelt, refined, a real blend of warm organic sounds, playful mischief and infectious melodies. Without even a hint of potential »drag«.
Stari pes is a great name for a band that cooks up a rugged, elementally roaring, retro psychedelic, bluesy, funk and rock sound. A Slovenian sextet of a kind we chronically lack. Officially based in Maribor. Two guitars, bass guitar, djembe plus other percussion, drums and (all in one person) vocals and keyboards. So a crew with serious musical mileage, backed by a musical vision that certainly sparks interest. The band, with the studio debut »On the Leash« (2014) and inspired by the prog-psychedelic minestrone of the sixties white blues boom, presented itself entirely with original material, striking a lasting balance between musicality and improvising, though, to be honest, Stari pes can at times be a tough bone to gnaw on for the less demanding listener. The communication and sensing between the guys is well-oiled and shows the crew’s confidence and mileage. Stari pes have substance in them. They sound retro, but they carry a recognizable identity that’s worth nurturing and building on. Polishing. Maybe they could use a more melodic song or two to slip into the repertoire, just to fire up the crowd a bit more, but otherwise it’s seriously interesting stuff. Worth every bit of trying out. Confident, heartfelt and engaged. New material is in the works, and let’s hope it follows the studio debut soon.
Then The New Roses took the stage, German hard rockers based in Wiesbaden. The quartet, represented by Tommy Rough (vocals, guitar), Dizzy Presley (guitar), Stefan Kassner (bass guitar) and Urban Berz (drums), jumped to a higher level of musical activity in 2012, when it settled into that lineup, and since then it has racked up three studio albums, the latest of them, »One More For The Road«, just last year. The New Roses are »flying high«. In a relatively short career they’ve played big festivals and opened for big names of rock and roll and metal too, including Joe Bonamassa, ZZ Top, Roger Chapman, Molly Hachet, Accept and Saxon, and what opens the doors for them is simply their stage excellence. Outstanding dynamics, outstanding preparation. Outstanding professionalism. From head to toe. A compactly crafted, high-energy dose of hard rock. They don’t bring a musical revolution, but everything they take on, even though the riffs often recall older hard rock bands like Gotthard or old Bon Jovi, they pull off with incredibly scorching fire and conviction. The vocals are mildly sharp but explosive, with none of that off-putting »German« accent on the English that German singers tend to pick up. Constantly running around the stage and flirting with the crowd, swapping positions. Polished vocal harmonies, superb solo passages, compactly igniting riffs and infectious, singalong choruses. The band simply enchanted. If you happened to miss their show in Tolmin, you’ve got a shot at a retake at this year’s Harley Davidson festival, which goes down a stone’s throw from Villach, where The New Roses play alongside the legendary The Darkness on the first weekend of this September. The band played the following set: Every Wildheart, Forever Never Comes, Dancing on a Razorblade, It’s a Long Way, Life Ain’t Easy (For a Boy With Long Hair), Devil’s Toys, One More for the Road, Thirsty.
We stayed in the bosom of rock daring, directness and hellishly jagged edges when the sharp-tongued Brits The Brew. took the stage. A band that doesn’t do much complicating, just pure rock rolling, noticeably sprung from the blues tradition, yet hungry for the penetrating power of Led Zeppelin-style guitar phrases. Full sound! A trio. Another confirmation that energy flows, when they’re arranged in a band in the best way, capitalize best in a trio format. The Brew clearly pull that off with ease. In a career of more than a decade they’ve piled up a heap of albums, collected a heap of flattering accolades, played acclaimed and prestigious stages, and the trio has always been made up of Jason Barwick (vocals, guitar) and the rhythm duo of Kurtis Smith (drums) and Tim Smith (bass guitar). Tim is, by the way, Kurtis’s dad. The band, which will release its new studio album, »Art Of Persuasion«, on Napalm Rercords on 10/05/2018, won the crowd over fully, especially with an almost 20-minute psychedelic section, where Barwick »teased« the audience by playing the guitar with a violin bow while Kurtis conjured up a wild drum homage to John Bonham. All that was missing was a theremin. In short. If you’re wired for straight-ahead rock and you don’t love complicating things, just a perfect riff-driven dose of proper adrenaline rush, where things love to squeal, buzz and roar in a big way, then you absolutely must check out this crazy British rock’n’roll trio.
The headliner role on the festival’s first day went to Ted Horowitz, a man known to the worldwide music community by the nickname Popa Chubby. The blues and rock guitarist from the Bronx delivered the most of what the label blues holds in music that day. He opened the concert very tactically. The crowd was his in an instant when he started right off with the The Leaves classic Hey Joe, which the late Jimi Hendrix hugely popularized back in the day. Popa Chubby played the stage in the style of a hard-hitting power blues rock trio. He was backed by the rhythm duo of Anthony Candullo (bass guitar) and Tom Curiano (drums). Blues runs in the guitarist’s blood. He showed himself to be an absolute »feel« guy. Just the vibration of the struck notes, the guitar phrases, the transitions, building a chosen phrase up to a crescendo and returning to the starting point of that same motif. A constant atmospheric undulation. The air charged with emotion and passion. The crowd was in a trance, and there wasn’t a soul who was bored. Cheer and great spirits everywhere. What’s great about Popa Chubby is that he’s no complicator and approaches the blues very pragmatically. He goes at things in a very elemental way, with the influence of masters like Buddy Guy especially noticeable, and Freddie King too, except that Popa can at times be quite loud, almost wildly punkishly furious. But those are only moments. His songs keep »driving« all along. Both in the phrases and in the transitional parts leading into the crafted mid eight passages. Within them lives a finely placed soloing, where every note is placed and laid down with innate sensuality. Both in the half-step bends, where the guitarist masterfully turns the sighs inside out, and in the run of rapidly played lines. The man is on the money throughout. Refined, sophisticated, but also boldly rugged and hewn-from-stone manly. The same goes for the superb vocal performance. He mostly played his own material, but there were also some »covered gems«, such as one of the themes from the soundtrack of the film »The Godfather« and Misirlou (the film »Pulp Fiction«). Popa surprised quite a few people by working in the thunderous metal favorite War Pigs (originally by Black Sabbath), which Chubby played in full and completely breathed his own stamp into. He didn’t stay indifferent to intimate moments either, as the famous Over the Rainbow rang out. Among the original numbers, the standouts were Grown Man Crying Blues, Take Me Back To Amsterdan, I Don’t Want Nobody, 69 Dollars, Two Dogs and, toward the end, Chubby’s Boogie. In short. That’s how you play blues rock. It simply drives and enchants. The guitar and vocal charisma of the man is outstanding even in the moments when he moves from his chair to an added drum kit and trades a drum duel with Curiano. Certainly not as imposing as it once was at Phil Collins and (apparently retired) Genesis concerts, but that bit added extra color and variety to the otherwise very wholesome and positive vibe of the closing stretch of the festival’s first day.
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