Location: Maribor / KGB / Slovenia
Concert date: 18.10.2014
Attendance: 50
Ticket price: €6.00
Active in the eighties (1982-1985), On in njegovi were a fresh-sounding bunch of guys with socially engaged lyrics who took their sound and their ideas from their hometown of Maribor to the Rock Festival in Subotica and the Festival of Acoustic Music in Sivac and Skopje, and came home with awards. They placed high on the Slovenian charts (Džuboks, Stop…..), and then, as they put it themselves, »fell into a long winter sleep, with every member doing his own thing in his own way«
In the winter of 2011, though, Vojko Pavčič (guitarist, vocalist, author of most of the songs), Vili Grdadolnik (guitarist, slide guitarist), Jupa Korošec (drummer), Miro Zavec (harmonica player) and Manč Kovačič (bassist) fired things up again, together with a newly acquired force – Boštjan Zorec (guitarist). They played, refreshed the old repertoire, expanded it, and discovered, just as we listeners notice at their gigs, that their songs are lyrically even more relevant than back when they were written.
On Saturday night at KGB, the audience got an intimate, outstanding flow of sound, rhythm and energy. The show kept sliding from a classic gig format into a jam and back again. We were spared all the eternal, mostly miserable, weepy love themes, and instead got human weaknesses in all kinds of shapes and variations lashed hard.
When lyrics-driven songwriting is built up by the sound coming from the hands and mouths of musicians who are good at what they do – each one individually and all of them together – you get a fusion that no lover of good music can possibly ignore.
The only thing that bugged me was the almost complete absence (apart from a few bright exceptions) of the younger generation. I hope that changes soon, because On in njegovi give voice to plenty of things that bother and hurt, in an honest, one-of-a-kind way.
The photos for this report were contributed by Atelje Dialog.
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