Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Ljubljana / Orto bar / Slovenia
Concert date: January 30, 2014
Attendance: 60
Ticket price: €0.00 (free admission)
King Foo is a quartet of four exceptionally talented musicians who stand out on the Slovenian music scene, both for what they’ve done in the past and for what they’re doing now. The names: Urška Majdič (vocals), Peter Hudnik (guitar), Matej Sušnik (bass guitar) and Rok Golob (drums).
Given how many layers there are to all four musicians’ playing, it’s only logical that their inner instinct, call it plain old intuition, keeps pushing them to challenge their musical selves and, as a result, to set new goal after new goal on the path of their craft. When it comes to Rok Golob, there’s no point wasting words. Multi-instrumentalist, composer, songwriter, someone who can’t sit still creatively for even a second. And that’s a very good thing. King Foo are a folded-up flyer tailor-made for lovers of gorgeous organic sounds, but the ones calling the shots are a front-and-center, funk-heavy rhythm section, which is only “softened” in the balance of the band’s musical body by the dominant, pop-ready vocals of the charismatic Urška Majdič. Watching Urška on stage, you always wonder why she hasn’t tried going solo yet. She’s got all the basic aces for guaranteed success in that arena.
King Foo mostly play covers of well-known pop rock and rock standards, but original material is also taking shape, admittedly at a snail’s pace, much like the likes of Heaven X, but still. It’s taking shape! And that’s what matters. The song FunkyFoo Ride has been making the rounds since around May 2013, and now King Foo have unleashed the song Hot, using their gig at Orto bar to promote the new single and the video for it.
The band’s trademark is their strictly acoustic approach. Every “missed shot” can be heard, so you have to be really good and really confident on stage when you’re wrestling with acoustics. That also demands more dynamics from the rhythm section than usual! For Sušnik it’s tailor-made, since messing around with seventies disco funk rhythms gives him a superb playground to stretch his fingers even more as he fills the available space with his masterpieces. Rok Golob on drums? A absolute brute! And not without reason. The sound has to be filled, and in this musical setting, full-bodied swings on the drums are very much welcome. And the element that contrasts and balances out the rhythm section’s saturation? Urška’s vocals, of course. Some wittily rearranged standards give her even more room for a plasma-hot stream of improvisational soul acrobatics, with which she sensually dressed up King Foo’s versions of otherwise evergreen acts, including Stevie Wonder, Sting, Kenny Logins, Nirvana, Whitesnake, The Bangles, U2,… Especially standing out was a cheeky “polka-directed” take on Final Countdown by Europe, where Peter showed on guitar what this excellent musician is made of, because getting Norum’s solo from the original onto an acoustic while keeping its recognizable character, and at the same time adding some seriously tasty flourishes straight out of your own head, is no walk in the park. There were also some very effectively reworked versions of well-known hits by Rage Against the Machine, Michael Jackson, The Police, Daft Punk, Pink, Earth, Wind & Fire, AC/DC, Duffy, Oasis,…
The repertoire’s real fun highlights were the two “mash-up” numbers, which effectively fuse leading musical forms! One of them combined Killing in the Name of (Rage Against the Machine) and Mercy (Duffy), the other paired AC/DC (Back in Black) with Oasis (Wonderwall). Here the old Kovinotehna slogan definitely held true: “The impossible is possible!”
In short: there are no limits for King Foo. Given the exceptionally multilayered profiles of the quartet’s four musical talents, it remains an indisputable fact that it’s precisely this wittily cunning yet fully effective, cocky streak of twisting evergreens inside out that throws the doors wide open to many concert stages. Especially on the club scene. Why?
Because King Foo threw an excellent party at Orto bar. The crowd was losing their minds. Sadly, the weather played a bit of a dirty trick. Snow and freezing rain kept many people at home that night, so there were no more than about 60 of us. But let me tell you. With the original material that’s in the works, and which we hope will yield their first studio album as soon as possible, King Foo are definitely a band the Slovenian scene has never had before. On stage they bring some standards back to life in an acoustically seductive funky outfit that you rarely get to hear in everyday life. They limit themselves neither by era nor by genre in their picks, so their live set list keeps surprising, and, an even more important realization, it keeps the body and spirit of the average King Foo concertgoer in a state of full-on erectile kinetics and a brisk mental switch-off. Party guaranteed!
Photo gallery
