Venue: Venue: Taverna/ Koper / Slovenia
Concert date: 04.09.2015
Attendance: 1500
Ticket price: 0,00€ (free entry!)
When you’re in Slovenia and craving some good live rock, the road usually leads to the coast. The seaside is known for throwing great rock parties with a full dose of quality music. The first Friday of September was dedicated to a mini rock festival in Koper called Explosion of Rock.
Explosion of Rock ran for the third year in a row this year. The festival has a noble purpose – promoting young and promising bands from the coast. It’s the product of volunteer work by coastal music enthusiasts who want to give young musical talents the chance to show themselves to a wider audience. This year the local TV station RTV Koper – Capodistria joined the organizers too, and filmed the whole event.
The live party kicked off a few minutes past eight in the evening. After the announcement by the official host, two young guitar talents stepped onto the stage backed by a band: the barely eight-year-old Vid Kavrečič and sixteen-year-old Patrik Mrak. Despite their youth and, as a result, shorter musical mileage, they showed zero hesitation on stage. They played covers of giants like AD/DC, Lenny Kravitz and others with a feel and dedication that very few musicians with decades-long careers in Slovenia can muster. Little Vid especially deserves a shout-out: even though he’s only a few centimeters taller than his guitar, he gave himself over completely to the moment and showed a ton of looseness and stage presence. With Patrik you could notice a bit more teenage shyness, but of course there’s nothing to fault in either of these young talents. Keep it up, guys.
After a lightning-fast changeover, the fairer sex took over the stage. The teenage foursome going by the name Sniz is made up of 3 young girls and a lead guitarist. The girls and the guy have only been playing together for a good year, but judging by how tight they are, you’d think the band had been around for several years. They play punk-rock. The girls flirted with the crowd just enough during the set to make the show easy on the eyes too. The simpler rhythmic and melodic lines gave the girls and the guy no real trouble on their instruments, and the vocals were clear, so we can sum up that the band is on a good path to conquering the Slovenian punk-rock scene. They may just need to loosen up the male member of the crew a bit, so he doesn’t feel awkward looking out at the audience, and their show will become a real treat for the crowd.
After yet another lightning-fast stage changeover – the breaks between sets were truly record-short, and kudos to the sound crew and organizers, who made sure the sound stayed top-notch the whole time anyway – a bunch of young guys called Free The Mouse took the stage. After the opening minutes, when most of them on stage were mostly staring at the floor, the guys loosened up and made contact with the crowd. The alternative lads played a few covers and quite a lot of original material, which is commendable given that their official existence dates back to 2014. Everything ran like clockwork. Once the initial nerves passed, the guys completely let go in their stage performance too. And from there on, there was no stopping them. They jumped in the air, lay on the floor,… and the crowd below the stage, charged up with the energy pouring off the stage, went wild right beneath them. The atmosphere was phenomenal, even for those of us who aren’t exactly into that kind of music.
As part of the festival, Sniz and Free The Mouse were also competing for the chance to record one original song at the Hendrix studio on the coast. I think both deserved a recording day, but in the end only one could be declared the winner, and that was Free The Mouse. So we can expect to hear their professionally produced debut at least on YouTube, if Slovenian radio stations don’t end up spinning it.
At half past ten it was the turn of the ears less accustomed to alternative music – the coast’s master of strings Marty Favento took the stage with his band, with Nick Smajlagič on guitar, Erik Filipčič on bass and Marco Parlante on drums. The routine shows in these lads: with no initial hesitation they spread out across the stage and each showed what they can do on their instrument. Even though the stage at Taverna was pretty big for a four-piece, Marty and Nick commanded it from both sides and the crowd was eating out of their hands. The foursome served up a mix of original songs with a touch of authentic classical music like a well-oiled machine. Apart from Nick’s clumsiness with his fairly frequent knocking over of mics, the stage performance looked perfect. Even though it was an instrumental set, nobody missed vocals for a second. Marty’s fingers glided over the strings as if greased, at unbelievable speed, while the rhythm section followed it all with dedication, a dash of mischief and incredible focus. Marty has an amazing feel for the guitar, and through hard work he’s gotten to the point where his command of the instrument stands up to the world’s guitar-solo giants. His original creations go down easy even with less demanding audiences, which makes Marty’s playing a pleasure to listen to. Even though Marty makes it clear to the crowd who’s boss on stage, he still lets his bandmates prove themselves in their solo spots, which he himself encourages through improvisation. A Marty Favento show always has something to entertain the crowd too, whether it’s the outfit or the funny slogans and mysterious codes surrounding the performance. Marty made his set a feast for both ears and eyes, and we can only hope that neither the Slovenian nor the global music scene overlooks a young talent who has already achieved a lot and still has plenty to show. Since Marty travels across the pond quite often, we only rarely get to see him live in Slovenia, so you guitar lovers absolutely must not miss any show of his.
To close out the festival, Q20 took the stage. The band formed in 2013 and plays classic rock. In early 2015 they released a single titled Sam naprej, which we got to hear live in Koper too. During their set the crowd started drifting off to other spots on the coast, but that spoiled the mood neither for the band on stage nor for the rest of the listeners below. Q20 played a few covers, but mostly stuck to original material, which they’re supposed to release on CD at the end of 2015. In two years together the band has gotten really tight and sounded very confident on stage. True rocker souls like us might have missed some grittier riffs, but for a quality show we’re willing to overlook that. We’ll definitely keep following Q20 on Slovenian stages.
The folks from the coast proved once again that with plenty of will and the right amount of quality musicians you can put together an appealing rock event that draws a serious crowd and delivers a proper party. As long as so many young musical talents keep sprouting on the coast, there’s no need to worry about good live music there. We can only hope that, with the right financial support, Explosion of Rock becomes a traditional seaside send-off to summer.
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