Location: Laško / Slovenia
Concert date: July 17, 2015
Ticket price: free admission
The start of the weekend lined up with day two of the festival in Laško. The most hardcore fans spent the night in the festival campsite, but we decided to catch some precious sleep at home and head back to the scene on Friday evening.
The evening’s live action kicked off on the stages again at 7 p.m. By the time we got there, Manouche had already taken over the Zlatorog stage. The five-piece, who swap vocals and all play extra instruments on top, are already well known to Slovenian audiences. Their catchy dance-gypsy-electric grooves drew a pretty decent crowd to the front, and their set alone made it clear that way more people would be packed in front of the stage today than yesterday. After an hour and a half the warm-up was done, and after a short break I.C.E. took the stage.
I.C.E. have been at it for a whole decade, and at the start of 2015 they put out a new studio album called Tu je raj. The five-piece, fronted by an energetic female singer, served up a few hits from the first album, some newer tracks and a couple of covers. When they ran through classic rock covers, they got the ever-growing crowd in front of the stage singing along too. After an hour and a half they said their goodbyes, and the stage crew started setting up for Belgrade’s S.A.R.S.
S.A.R.S. – short for Sveže Amputirana Ruka Satriania – have been steadily climbing in popularity with listeners across the former Yugoslav republics over their nine years together. In Laško too, an endless sea of fans of the modern Yugo-alternative rock band gathered in front of the stage. S.A.R.S. blend just the right amount of authentic Serbian rhythms into their music to win over a wide range of listeners. Over the years they’ve toured the whole of the former Yugoslavia, and all that stage mileage really shows. Their high-energy set thrilled the festival crowd, while we used their onstage antics as our cue to wander off and check out the other stages.
Today we stopped by the Club stage again, which was hosting Katrina & Band (ex. Katrina and The Waves) when we arrived. We’ve all surely sung along to her Walking On Sunshine at some point, the song that catapulted Katrina onto the world music scene thirty years ago. She looked to be in great form onstage. Her backing band was tightly locked in, the crowd was in a great mood, and Katrina had no trouble conjuring up a whiff of the eighties and nineties. She even grabbed a guitar herself a few times while singing. Of course she didn’t forget her 1997 Eurovision winner – Love Shine A Light – and she saved the cherry on top, Walking On Sunshine, for the last stretch of the show. With her conviction, down-to-earth charm and professionalism she won over the crowd, thanked them for the support, and we slowly made our way back to the Zlatorog stage.
Over at the Zlatorog stage, S.A.R.S were in their final moments, still wowing a seemingly endless crowd, while we treated ourselves to one last beer before the treat of the night – Sweden’s Europe. At half past midnight, with the area in front of the Zlatorog stage literally jam-packed, we finally got our Swedish giants of the ’80s. Europe’s beginnings go back to the late seventies, but their biggest commercial success came after 1985, mostly thanks to the mega-hit The Final Countdown. In the early nineties, like many hard rockers of the ’80s, the band split up for a good decade. In 2003 the lineup that had played together back in the ’80s got back together. Since the reunion they’ve released 5 albums, the latest, War Of Kings, in March 2015. The Laško show was part of the big tour of the same name, promoting the new album.
Europe opened with a punch, with a hit from the latest album and the tour’s title track – War Of Kings. After some initial sound problems, the sound got much better after the first three songs, and even those of us standing fairly close to the stage, though not exactly in the front rows, could hear all the instruments and vocals in an even mix, without the rhythm section booming too much. Frontman Joey Tempest struck his poses right from the start, delighting the photographers in the front rows, and kept the posing up throughout the show. The guy knows he’s still a magnet for the fairer sex, but what matters most is that his voice served him well during the show. The instrumentalists in the background had a bit more trouble locking all the rhythms together – maybe a result of the long wait between soundcheck and the actual show. But the crowd didn’t seem to hold the small slip-ups against them, singing along enthusiastically, especially to the older hits like Superstitious, Carrie, Rock The Night,… Europe successfully alternated new songs with older hits, ballads with livelier tunes, keeping the crowd hyped and ready to sing along the whole time. Tempest even squeezed out a few Slovenian words, greeting the crowd with »Kako ste?« ("How are you?") and saying he likes beer more than flowers. He easily held the endless crowd in front of the stage on his own, as they belted out the familiar songs and admired John Norum’s solos. At the end of Rock The Night two strings on Norum’s guitar snapped – a quick guitar swap followed, the guys played Days Of Rock’n’Roll, and after the calls for an encore, the mega-hit The Final Countdown, where the crowd literally drowned out Tempest. After a final farewell, the guys left the stage at two in the morning.
Day two of Pivo in cvetje, with its lineup and performances, surely let nobody down. But there was one more day to go, so we hurried home to gather our strength for the finale.
Setlist
EUROPE:
1. War Of Kings
2. Hole In My Pocket
3. Superstitious
4. Scream Of Anger
5. Last Look At Eden
6. The Second Day
7. Carrie
8. Firebox
9. Sign Of The Times
10. Praise You
11. Girl From Lebanon
12. Let The Good Times Rock
13. Rock The Night
14. Days Of Rock’n’Roll
15. Final Countdown
Photo Gallery
