Author: Urban Bolta
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Venue: Gromka (Metelkova) / Ljubljana / Slovenia
Concert date: 22.04.2014
Attendance: 150
Ticket price: 12€ (presale) / 15€ (day of show)
At the turn of the seventies into the eighties, modern musical trends from Great Britain, where new wave and punk had already been ruling for quite a while, started seeping into Yugoslavia too, a few years late. One of the hotbeds of all that musical ferment was, of course, Belgrade, where high school kids were forming new bands on the assembly line. Out of it came Idoli, Šarlo akrobata, Električni orgazam, and soon after them Ekatarina velika. Of those bands, only Električni orgazam are still fully alive and kicking today. They built a nice career through the eighties, then slowly faded from the airwaves and the media.
Every now and then they still let rip with some fire, but that’s not enough for a more serious comeback on the scene of the former common country. It all looked like the release of their comeback album »To što vidiš to i jeste« (review HERE) was a step in the right direction, since it was their first album in years to get distribution across the whole Yugoslav melting pot, but the whole thing suddenly fizzled out, and Ljubljana even got left without the promo show that had already been announced. Where did it get stuck back then? I don’t know the answer myself.
And then it hit like a bolt from the blue! Električni orgazam were playing Gromka at Metelkova, a miniature club whose ambience is just right for a band of their caliber. The guys (and the gal) of the support act International Rock’n’roll Circus will have to forgive me, because work obligations meant I only dragged myself to Metelkova well after ten, when the opening band had already finished warming up the crowd.
The main act of the night, Električni orgazam, hit the stage before half past ten, which is early by Metelkova’s usual standards. The band doesn’t play much these days, and you could hear it in the opening stretch of the gig, which sounded a bit like instrumental fabric being laid down over the rhythm section in a not quite coordinated way. Gile’s guitar also fed our ears some slightly unusual sounds at first, but the crowd didn’t mind at all, since screaming distortion has been the basic element of this cult Belgrade collective’s rhetoric throughout their entire history.
Električni orgazam thrilled with their homegrown approach every single second, as their expressive range in the live setting was amplified by a bouncy rock’n’roll rhythm and guitar distortion, which compared to the studio originals gained mostly at the expense of the lower intensity of Đukić’s keyboards. That Električni orgazam once roared across the land as a punk band was audible and visible from a plane! Those punk roots mostly grew out of frontman Srđan Gojković – Gile, a lanky guy from the Iggy Pop mold, in whom the band’s whole history is captured! Gile’s stage approach bets on the “less is more” formula. The gray-haired fella ran the show with minimal gestures and moves, using nothing but his charisma, and he even took a relaxed approach to the vocal duties themselves. But it worked! At times Gile was replaced on vocals by the other original member, keyboardist Ljubomir Đukić – Ljuba, who took over the frontman spot mostly on tracks without keyboard accompaniment but with all the more electric charge, such as Dokolica, Debela Djevojka or Kako bubanj kaže.
The band is immensely proud of their latest album »To što vidiš to i jeste«, and they heavily seasoned the set with its songs, which offer juicier arrangements than the group’s older classics. Pokaži mi (kakav je tvoj grad), with its distinctly funky vibe, had the crowd dancing in no time, and the later Bliži suncu, with its dynamic structure and longer instrumental passages, was seriously convincing too, even though the Orgazams never really bet on longer tracks. The radio hits Bejbe ti nisi tu and Igra rock’n’roll cela Jugoslavija coaxed some singing out of the audience as well, and the crowd got louder as the gig went on. The Serbian five-piece saved a handful of cult new wave bangers from their debut »Električni orgazam« (1981) for the very end. Konobar, Krokodili dolaze and Zlatni papagaj, played after they came back on stage, carried Gromka off one last time that night into the world of early-eighties punk abandon.
For one night, Električni orgazam managed to conjure up the spirit of the Belgrade new wave scene at Metelkova, a sound that has remained the band’s trademark despite a few genre detours over the course of their career. Their shows in an intimate club atmosphere like this one are a real rarity, which made this experience feel even more vivid than my first encounter with them, when they opened for the Rolling Stones in front of an endless sea of people in Belgrade in 2007. Judging by the blissful smiles on the faces of the older fans, who grew up as kids to the distortion of Električni orgazam three decades ago, this nostalgic evening was definitely a bullseye!
Setlist
1. Sex droga nasilje i strah
2. Vudu bluz
3. Vi
4. Dokolica
5. Ne postojim
6. Ti to možeš
7. Pokaži mi (kakav je tvoj grad)
8. Kapetan Esid
9. Da si tako jaka
10. Bejbe ti nisi tu
11. Igra rock’n’roll cela Jugoslavija
12. Ja sam težak ko konj
13. Hajde bejbe (Daj da vidim sad)
14. Bliži suncu
15. Leptir
16. Spojimo se sad
17. Ja želim promene (Baby, baby, baby, baby)
18. Gde god odem
19. Debela devojka
20. Nemaš nikom ništa da daš
21. Kako bubanj kaže
22. Podjimo
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23. Konobar
24. Krokodili dolaze
25. Zlatni papagaj
26. Nebo
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27. Mentalno
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