Author: Urban Bolta
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik, Jernej Vene
Venue: Orto bar / Ljubljana / Slovenia
Concert date: April 17, 2014
Attendance: 200
Ticket price: €10
Since I spent part of the first half of the month chasing around other corners of Europe, I completely forgot that Ljubljana’s Orto bar has been hosting Orto fest since the start of April, the only real club music festival on our turf. It had meanwhile stepped into its second half, so it was high time I finally dropped by myself. The reason couldn’t have been better: a show by the legendary Avtomobili, their first outside their home Primorska region this calendar year.
Why legendary? There aren’t many bands in the Slovenian music scene that have been going nonstop for more than thirty years while constantly adding to their discography. Even though the nineties, when Avtomobili were cranking out radio hits one after another, are long gone, the Nova Gorica musicians remain an original artistic act to this day, and without them the DNA of Slovenian music would undoubtedly be poorer.
The start, shortly after ten in the evening, which is early by Orto bar’s usual club standards, signaled a pleasant, marathon-style night ahead, crowned with a jam-packed club room on the first floor. In the back of the club, where the crush was worst, there wasn’t room for a pin! Avtomobili opened the night with Kaj si hotel, a track from their newer album, and with an effective blend of pop and rock they took the crowd on a two-hour ride with no pit stop! Live, Avtomobili add some extra voltage to their music, mostly thanks to the guitar tone of Boštjan Andrejc, aka Bushi, which makes their show an even more intense experience than spinning one of their records on the couch at home.
Avtomobili’s engine was greased like it hasn’t been in ages! Frontman and singer Marko Vuksanović often complemented the verses with hand gestures through the night, amplifying the mighty lyrical expressiveness that’s one of the band’s signature building blocks. The crystal-clear sound was the precondition for the interplay between the keyboards of the main songwriter, Mirko Vuksanović, and Bushi’s guitar. Already in the first part of the show Avtomobili spun the radio waves several times with well-known songs like Skozi leta, Mraz and Ljubezen ne stanuje tu, and the repertoire, interestingly, also included an eighties track, Prljavi jezik, from the nearly three-decade-old record »Dugo toplo ljeto« (1985). Avtomobili’s musical camaraderie knows no borders! What stood out all night was the dynamic interplay of a quintet of five excellent musicians, where everything is subordinated to total sonic harmony. Despite confidently mastering their own duties, they breathe on stage as one whole, one that doesn’t even need a charismatic superman with all eyes on him. Avtomobili are, first and foremost, a band, honest in their beat as honest as it’s possible to be!
The moods changed colors chameleon-style across the cleverly picked songs: they turned the ballad Sama, with its strongly emotional charge, into the tense storytelling of Novi dan, and then shifted into fifth gear with Argentina, which Marko jokingly introduced as »Brazil«. All that movement was practically begging for dance steps! In the second part, drummer David Morgan stretched out Netopir with a solo, giving his bandmates a few moments of rest in the heated atmosphere, before Avtomobili served up a light touch of that longing so typical of their music with Enkrat v življenju. One of the strongest Slovenian rock ballads, artistically and emotionally, Hvala za pisma, carried thoughts far away with feather-light ease, also thanks to Bushi’s soft guitar touch. During Enakonočje Bushi delivered the instrumental peak of the night with a longer solo excursion, if you can even draw lines between his many lively bits of playing, which he flirted with the audience through the whole evening.
Orto fest, as the new (old) hangout for Nova Gorica’s rock veterans, hit another of this year’s highlights with the Avtomobili show. With the years, Avtomobili don’t lose their stage presence and their always brilliant character, so every encounter with them is, without the slightest gamble, a bullseye.
Setlist
1. Kaj si hotel
2. Drugačno nebo
3. Gorica
4. Prljavi jezik
5. Skozi leta
6. Mraz
7. Nekaj let
8. Ljubezen ne stanuje tu
9. Proti luni
10. Pot domov
11. Sama
12. Navaden dan
13. Argentina
14. April
15. Netopir
16. Enkrat v življenju
17. Gospodar
18. Hvala za pisma
19. V mrzlih dvoranah
21. Enakonočje
22. Bar pozabe
23. Poslušaj
23. Ona nosi uniformu
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