Author: Rok Klemše
Venue: Cvetličarna VPK, Ljubljana
Concert date: 04/20/2011
Attendance: 700
Ticket price: €15 / €18 on the night
Some gigs are the ones you feel you ought to go to. Others are the ones you wander off to because you’ve got time and cash to burn. And then there are the gigs that carve themselves into your tiny brain, the ones you’d skip only if the world were ending anyway. Any visit from Canadian legends of progressive, cynical punk, that trio of untamed riders of sonic bliss NoMeansNo, belongs in that last category without a shred of doubt. After four years of abstinence, they decided to take the pulse of the Slovenian crowd once more. And since their first live deflowering of the local club scene back in 1989, that crowd has been honestly devoted and loyal to them.
The April show at Ljubljana’s temple of musical sound, the notorious Cvetličarna, followed the same principle. It’s the place where they already proved their greatness four years ago, defending (and successfully so) the colors of the then freshly pressed, still-fragrant record All Roads Lead To Ausfahrt. Not much has changed since. We’ve all got four more years on our backs, while the lads, pardon me, the old men (and elders) from the Canadian province of British Columbia haven’t strapped on a single new studio release since. Unless you count the live records Tour EP 1 & 2 put out last year, of course… But every excuse and reason is good enough to hit the road on another odyssey around the world, and we’re certainly the ones who benefit, right?
The day of total surrender to the invigorating powers of hops kicked off a few hours earlier, outside the doors of the Ljubljana venue. Individual specimens of aging audiophiles lined up for tickets, and among the gray heads, bald with age, there was no shortage of the lusher manes of the young guard of freshly minted alternative fans and the merely curious. The omens were good, since a party is always better when there are too many fanatics under the stage rather than too few, and soon after nine the bosom of the all-purpose VPK hall opened up and the party could begin.
First onto the stage were Ljubljana veterans of old-school punk, Buldogi. Honestly, I’m too young to weave firsthand memories of their early years, since this aging quintet from Kodeljevo hails from the days when punk was young and a bunch of then 14-year-old fanatics from Kodeljevo and Zelena jama threw all their chips on the new musical ideology. The naive glorification of a golden age that was never quite as perfect as remembered mixes nostalgia with a pinch of bitterness, and the realization that thirty years have flashed by like lightning turned the Buldogi performance into a string of memoirs. “Pank ni mrtu, sam neki čudn diši” was the tagline under which, after 27 years of stubborn anonymity, they launched their first full-length this year, a full-blooded, full-fat choleste(rock)rol in its primal design, as they jokingly put it themselves in their own peculiar way. The lineup consists of guitar-and-vocal fanatic RV Maček, the round-faced frontman Damjan Zorc, who longs for the old days (and the old fitness), backing six-stringer Rok Zupan, bassist Janez Fifolt and drummer Blaž Grm, and they took us on a rustic stampede through the punkoid standards of the distant eighties. The first thing to screech out of the speakers is the ironic, cynical tune Mi smo (legende), proving they’ve got a full measure of humor and a taste for clowning around. There are no peaks and no virtuosity, but the quintet has a certain stale charm that makes it easy and enjoyable to follow the thread of the lyrics, the iron backbone of a movement whose first standard-bearers here were Pankrti, Kuzle and a lesser-known but far from dull palette of anarchists from the past. The set carries on with the listenably paced Dvign glavo, then swings the hips to the whistling, tasty little ballad (Mala moja) Globalna štala. Social criticism and relevance in times when the country has completely gone to the dogs are the main fuel for revolt and rebellion, perfectly in tune with Buldogi’s lyrics. Buldogi did a decent job warming up the first few of the most eager concertgoers, nerves and a bit of rust notwithstanding, but instead of chanting and “pogo dancers” they got only a lukewarm applause, which was soon drowned by a fresh dose of fortifying beer after the closing reprise of the first act of the night, the song Legende.
Thirty short minutes for the stage changeover was plenty for the hall to start filling up a bit more intensely. First to walk on was guitarist Tom Holliston, the big celebrant of the day. On the very day of the Ljubljana show, Tom blew out 51 candles on his birthday cake. Last-minute prep and we could surrender to a total parabola of humor, merciless and skillfully played punk, and the systematic dissection by the trio NoMeansNo. The trio from the land of hockey has been spreading devastation and sowing barrages of playful, hard, intelligent punk since way back in 1979, and this time the gentlemen start building a sonic wall of energy racing from one peak to the next with the song No Sex. Rob Wright at the center mic with bass in hand, the gray-haired executioner of drum operas John Wright behind the kit, and the previously mentioned bespectacled Tom Holliston take us straight back to 1982, when the then brand-new lineup released the record Mama and decided to set themselves up, punk-style, in opposition to all the norms of commercial music. “There’s no sex, only fucking!” roars out of the speakers, and the provocative edge of profane clowning announces hardcore from the very first moment, with no needless energy wasted on a long warm-up. NoMeansNo continue the orgy with a return to undoubtedly one of the strongest records in their otherwise watertight and punchy repertoire, the record Why Do They Call Me Mr. Happy? and the gerontophile love psychedelia of the song I Need You. “Woke up dreaming that i was dead / Beside you on the bed / I smoothed my hand across your hip / And lingered with my fingertips / From beyond, from far away / Blessing where the shadows lay / I whispered what i could not say / How you took my breath away” sways and enchants with the hypnotism of an apparent softness that strokes like granite paving stones. The sped-up tempo of The River pours in fresh drive and danceability, and so that it’s not all riding on the shoulders of great moments from decades past, an outstanding scream from the latest record Ausfahrt sneaks in among the old standards, the song Faith. The Wright brothers and their adopted guitar son Tom burn as if they were in their freshest, most potent years, and just three men are more than enough to create thunderous, full and juicy music! A newer ace in the set, not yet tested live over here, was the song Jubilation, after which came surprises in the form of covers of originals. In the shadow of their multiple personalities, NoMeansNo have a talented hockey sub-personality called the Hanson Brothers, and from the excellent record Sudden Death they tear into the fiery Danielle just for the Ljubljana pick-me-up. The show also sees Sudden Death, Jack Off and Comatose (both from Gross Misconduct) sneak in from this truly refined parallel world, and that there’s always something that can knock your socks off is confirmed by the performance of My Slacks, originally a song from the iron repertoire of Show Business Giants. Stampede and simplicity always need to be seasoned with complication, which NoMeansNo always do consciously and deliberately by slipping into new states of total disconnection. After Old, deviance gets woven into the seams of the modern work of art Faceless May. Personally I lean more toward the old commandments, but I have to admit this one was also handled more than excellently. And here the variety and directness of the storytelling comes to the fore. There’s no shortage of words in praise of revolt, romantic mishaps, domestic violence and pure-blooded passion. The sweaty, ecstatic moment from the record Sex Mad, the song Dad, and the obsessed version of the song Obsessed are only the tip of the iceberg. From the truly razor-sharp record Small Parts Isolated And Destroyed NoMeansNo reward us with a really sharp version of Teresa, Give Me That Knife, while I was in total ecstasy during the return to the record Worldhood Of World As Such and the ever-sexy song I’ve Got A Gun. “My Pop is dead, my Mom si shooting methadrine / All that I know is see it on TV screen / kill the fucking starts, that is my fantasy / That fucking phoney geeks don’t mean alot to me / I got no special love for reality / I got no fucking views on foreign policy / I’m gonna go dontown, I’m gonna have some fun / I’m gonna shoot someone / I gotta gun, I’m gonna finally be someone / I gotta gun, I’m gonna cut somebody down / I gotta gun, I’m gonna finallly be someone / I gotta gun, I’m gonna shoot somebody” are words that carry a really strong undertone in context, and NoMeansNo, in the style of true oligarchs of rawness, bring the story of the Ljubljana show to a majestic peak with one last walk onto the stage, this time in hockey jerseys. Thanks to hectoliters of beer, though, it remains a bit lost in the haze of oblivion and overindulgence.
There’s no doubt, though, that this April gig was one of the more important dividing lines in this year’s live scene, at least in the big punk events department. The legends confirmed that you can defy the years with style and stubbornness, and that some dishes, cooled down and aged as they may be, are still always relevant and a lot more than just edible. Then again, every ear has its own painter and every soul its own corners of pure pleasure. For many of those who were at this warm-up for the Brežice show, it was both a joy and a total ecstatic satisfaction: no needless blabbering, no lubricants, no melancholic foreplay! Age notwithstanding, No Means No are the punk elite, and they’ll be a good reason for gig-going disconnection and dance-floor massacres in the future too!
Photos: Nina Grad
Setlist
BULDOGI:
1. Legende
2. Dvign glavo
3. Globalna štala
4. Oda Revežu
5. Suicid
6. Svetilnik stoletja
7. Ta ptič
8. Kolk rabš?
NO MEANS NO:
1. No Sex
2. I Need You
3. The River
4. Faith
5. Jubilation
6. Danielle
7. Old
8. Faceless May
9. Sudden Death
10. The Hawk Killed The Punk
11. My Slacks
12. Jack Off
13. Comatose
14. Dad
15. Theresa, Give Me That Knife
16. Lost
17. Obsessed
18. I’ve Got A Gun
19. Rags And Bones
Photo Gallery
