Author: Urban Bolta
Location: Max Klub / Velenje / Slovenia
Concert date: December 25, 2013
Attendance: 340
Ticket price: €7
Every good thing comes to an end sooner or later, even rock’n’roll, which we don’t usually split into this world and the next, since it takes in the whole universe. Of course, rock’n’roll hasn’t (yet) met its end, but one of its most sincere promoters south of the Karawanks and north of the Kolpa has called it a day: the Velenje troubadours Res Nullius.
In a career spanning almost a quarter of a century, they never rolled in cash or reached for the stars. They simply followed their primal instinct for musical expression, which is why November’s news that they were saying goodbye after a series of club shows around the country hit that much harder. Why they made the sudden decision, only the band knows. Dnevnik journalist Gregor Bauman didn’t go digging for reasons in his piece from two days ago, and explained why with these words: »I’d rather hold back, because I didn’t want the myth to become fact. We all prefer legends about lonely, hunted gunslingers with a moral code, believers in what they do and bewitched by a cursed name.« After four odysseys in Ljubljana, Dolenjske Toplice and Koper, the star of Res Nullius shone one last time on Christmas Eve, where else but in their hometown of Velenje.
How thin the line between this world and the next can be, four fans of the band found out the hard way after setting off for the Šaleška Valley from central Slovenia. At the entrance to Klub Max, which is part of the far more famous Rdeča dvorana, we bought the last four tickets a few minutes before eight in the evening. Literally the last four. We’d been told there would be no presale, no media accreditation, and that tickets would go on sale at eight p.m. sharp. The organizers didn’t keep their promises, but we still managed to squeeze into the club by the skin of our teeth, where everything was ready for the final concert testament of the local scene’s darlings.
By half past ten the club was already jam-packed with sweaty bodies, from the older generation that has followed the band since its first steps to the folks two decades younger who were only just getting to know the rock stratosphere. Drummer Janez Marin, bassist Boštjan Časl, guitarist Boštjan Senegačnik and, last of all, frontman Zoran Benčič took their places on stage and kicked off with Zadnji ples, entering the final lap of a quarter-century journey. The central figure of the show was, of course, the charismatic Zoki, who with a minimalist approach and a school all his own amplified the band’s lyrics even further and squeezed out every secret of their messages, so tangled on first listen. Zoki used to be known for looking a little too deep into the glass and giving gigs a sour note with his crude outbursts. Since this was the band’s last ride, I was afraid he’d go back to his old habit, but luckily he didn’t! The quartet strung the songs together one after another and gave the crowd not a second of rest on an express ride through mostly the last fifteen years of the band’s output. Even though the band, with both main protagonists out front, stuck to their motto »less is more« and cruised over their instruments at a seemingly laid-back tempo, with no fired-up glances at each other, the packed club happily ate out of their hands. The band held its head high even on its very last day!
Over the years their musical language stayed just as sharp, and with every new album it only honed the identity Res Nullius defined with their debut back in 1993. The middle of the show belonged to songs from their latest album »Prekletih bazar«. V vagonu raztrganih duš, Plešem s krvavimi podplati and Prekletih bazar, with their clever blend of seemingly incompatible tenderness, depression and love, hit just as hard as the long-established anthems of Velenje’s working-class crowd, Rojen leta ’72, Revolver ljubezni and Nekje v Sloveniji. One of the atmospheric peaks of the night was, of course, the danceable Dečko v belem, which captures the core character of the foursome: rock’n’roll to the floor and an adrenaline-fueled leap in the closing part of the track. The hour-and-a-half farewell was spiced up with a standard encore before Res Nullius vanished from the stage for good. No soaking up ovations, no looking back over their shoulder, no pomp. In their own style, then.
Zoran Benčič, Boštjan Senegačnik, Boštjan Časl and Janez Marin (and all the other former members), thank you for a story without which the Slovenian music scene would undoubtedly be poorer.
Since we weren’t accredited for the concert, this report comes with photos of their show at Ljubljana’s Orto bar from earlier this month (report HERE).
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