Location: Izola / Mestni stadion / Slovenia
Date: Tuesday, 06.07.2004
“I woke up this morning”,… nah, no, that wasn’t Ten Years After! Yep, I got up this morning and first of all patted myself down to check that all my body parts were still where they belong. Izola was on fire yesterday, man, what a night! And now I’m sitting in front of a blank sheet of paper, head in my hands, trying to relive the whole thing!
At 18:00 Requiem took the stage, with both Kavašs (Marči and Vanek) in the lineup, the legendary musicians who “committed” the metal band Lene kosti, plus Requiem boss and guitarist Marko Slokar and the outstanding Sergej Škofljanec. It’s a hard rock outfit leaning on the legacy of rock veterans like Black Sabbath (especially the Tony Martin and Dio eras) and later Rainbow too, which some of their lead phrases don’t try to hide. Sergej sang fantastically. Great, superior stuff. It’s a wonder that with all his vocal talent Sergej hasn’t landed in some young, up-and-coming metal band. Requiem played a solid set and delivered a good party, and a few metalheads spun hard on their own axis in the front row, while the stadium as a whole still yawned with a big empty space. Oh, and during the Requiem show, which we later found out was actually a soundcheck turned into a concert (time was chasing them mercilessly), the legendary Status Quo guitarist Rick Parfitt strolled across the stadium lawn and generously handed out a few autographs to everyone who recognized him in the 3 minutes Rick spent on his walk across the grass.
Around 19:00 Cheap Trick started sweating it out on stage. My knowledge is patchy, and it’s funny that until the show I could name exactly one song by this legendary band. That’s Mighty Wings, which Cheap Trick contributed to the soundtrack of Top Gun in 1985 (of course they didn’t play it in Izola). So it’ll be hard for me to be relevant. The sound, though, literally wrecked them. Bassist Tom Petersson was the first to come out on stage, and at a glance he brought to mind a “seriously pissed-off” Keith Richards. The bass guitar was way too loud and everything in my pants was shaking and rattling like crazy. The guitars were a blur, and singer Robin Zander was very hard to hear. In short, right up front Cheap Trick sounded dreadful; only toward the end did the sound sort itself out somehow and you could make out some melody. Brutal, Requiem had the same bad luck with the sound. Still, Cheap Trick are theatrical tightrope walkers. A pile of cheeky gestures, humorous remarks, even outrageous stunts, all of which goes first and foremost for the enigmatic guitarist Rick Nielsen. Wearing a cap and busy with guitar models you can’t figure out how he can even lift, strap on, let alone play (the one with the checkerboard body and five-neck… er, five-pronged neck stays unforgettable). Raw stage magic of a musical performance. Nielsen swapped guitars between every song. During the show he “polluted” the stadium with tons of picks, tossing them into the crowd by the handful and having a blast watching people scramble for the precious bits of plastic. Quite a few cardboard frisbees stuffed with batches of Rick’s picks flew into the audience. With this “cheap trick” (I’m deriving this from the band’s name), he successfully steered the crowd’s attention away from the bad sound. Meanwhile he addressed the audience in his own wisecracking style: “The next song was a hit in every country except,…Slovenia of course!” And: “Ah, where are we? In Slovenia? Well, by tomorrow I’ll surely have forgotten that!” He found himself hugely funny. At one point he raised a red Fender Telecaster in the air and bragged: “All thanks to Rick Parfitt from Status Quo, who lent me this Telecaster for this song!” And he held the guitar up, declaring: “You know, this guitar is called a Fender Telecaster!” His theater was more like strutting around than playing music, but that’s just Nielsen. Cheap Trick got “punished” by the heat, which really wore them down through the late-afternoon scorching sun. Nielsen dealt with this unwelcome temptation by wearing sunglasses. Cheap Trick didn’t deliver what you’d expect. Simply because of the dismal sound that went with their show. Shame.
And then around 20:30 Status Quo hit the stage. The kings of boogie with one of the indispensable guitar duos of the genre, Parfitt/Rossi! Many came to Izola first and foremost for them. The stage was decked out with a fantastic sound rig “in white” (a fortress of white Marshall speakers in the back), including a white Hammond organ. They opened the show with Caroline and the crowd was in the air right away. The sound was excellent. “I will take this off, cuz it’s bloody hot in here!”, moaned the otherwise proper English gentleman, frontman, singer, rhythm and lead guitarist Francis Rossi, shedding some excess clothing, and the band carried on with Something About You Babe I Like. The stadium filled up properly and the view back and forth was gorgeous, hands were in the air everywhere, the crowd was having a blast and swaying energetically, and incredibly positive energy flooded the stadium. 75 minutes flew by. There were quite a few tourists in the crowd who had the rare luck of fitting this (for Slovenia) exceptional event into their holiday on the way to the southern Mediterranean. The band made the most of its time slot and the songs just kept rolling one after another. How tight and compact Status Quo sound!!! Pure perfection, an outstanding show, outstanding playing, no sugary stuff anywhere. Just primal boogie rock ‘n’ roll energy. It’s incredible how real the Status guys are in what they do. Great, unforgettable fun laced with a full measure of first-class boogie rock’n roll. Let’s hope someone has the guts to bring Status Quo to Slovenia as headliners too. The other firecrackers were 4500 Times, Hold You Back, Break The Rules, Rain, Mystery Medley (an extended version of Mystery Song), Big Fat Mama, Roll Over Lay Down and of course the unforgettable Down Down, Whatever You Want and Rockin’ All Over The World, during which last two the crowd completely lost it. For the encore they fired off “a tribute to medley” (a string of songs) Rock n Roll Music/Carol/Bye Bye Johnny. I hope somebody can contribute a complete and more accurate setlist (one, two, three songs are missing). There were no songs from their latest excellent studio record “Heavy Traffic” (2002) in the setlist; as consolation, they played The Oriental from it over the speakers after the show. It was all over too fast. Definitely too fast. Status Quo shook our bones good and proper. And of course it must all hit even more energetically and magically on their headlining tours.
And to close, the great Deep Purple. At 22:30! Reborn with the recruitment of the exceptional Don Airey on keyboards and with the fantastic album “Bananas” (2003), which caught quite a bit of the magic and spark of the seventies and in this “post-Blackmore” era is the most convincing so far. Gillan was practically barefoot on stage. Silver Tongue, “oh yeah” and here they are. Next a jump to Woman From Tokyo, the sound improved by the third song, I’ve Got Your Number from the “Bananas” album, which the crowd knew incredibly well. And then a jump back to 1971 and Strange Kind Of Woman, the first peak. After it came the excellent song Bananas with a phenomenal duel between Airey and Morse. Next up was a real treat, Knocking At Your Backdoor (“Perfect Strangers”, 1984), and the surprise Demon’s Eye (“Fireball”, 1971), which gave me goosebumps, followed by the excellent instrumental Contact Lost, a solo spot for Steve Morse, who in a few minutes rounded up nearly every musical element, and I got these incredible chills. First he played around with a heap of multi delay effects, spun off a few hefty rock riffs and headed toward pure classical melodies, and in general it all felt especially magnificent when the whole band joined him on stage for a jam (Gillan with a tambourine), then a solo by Airey, who among other things worked in a part of Pictures On An Exhibition by Mussorgsky (at least that’s how it sounded to my humble ear) and then a switch to a sub-Alpine polka,…..party, party,…he ended his solo spot with an extremely atmospheric part over his Hammond fortress, it’s incredible what these organs create, and bang (!), the band suddenly charged ahead with Perfect Strangers. Most of the crowd, visibly flagging by this point, especially after the earlier encounter with Status Quo, squeezed out the last atoms of strength and roared along with the band. Still, Purple saved the main course for the end. A trio from their most notorious record “Machine Head” (1972). Starting with Space Truckin’, which wasn’t stretched out to some 25 minutes of jamming like at their gigs 30 years ago, but included only a modest Morse solo. Then the pressure built with Highway Star, and it blew up with Smoke On The Water (here the workhorse on drums, “little Ian”, really came into his own with the incredible depth and fullness of sound he conjured from his toms), and people neighed with especially happy abandon at this totemic song. Still, you could feel that we were starting to run out of breath and strength, because getting through Status Quo beforehand is no joke. It wouldn’t have been strange at all if Status Quo and Deep Purple had swapped headliner roles.
The encore began relaxed, like balm for the ears with the ancient Hush, and when Glover then started playing the motif of Hit The Road Jack, the crowd simply drowned him out with the “oh-ohs” of the main Black Night motif. Deep Purple understood the crowd’s gesture immediately and switched incredibly tightly to Black Night, closing their show at 00:15, 07.07.2004. The sound was excellent, the band in great spirits, the chemistry working phenomenally. The band hits incredibly convincingly after all these years. Pure stage perfection. Giants of rock, thank you for the unforgettable magic. Just one minor remark. Purple left out at least two songs from the current tour’s setlist (I think the ballad When A Blind Man Cries and the notorious Lazy), and the repertoire seemed a bit too short to me (only 15 songs). Otherwise, all thanks and credit to the organizer, the show was a great success and let’s hope it wasn’t the last of its kind.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Bojan Horvat
p.s.: Compiled and edited from the author’s “patchy write-up” posted on the RockOnNet forum, in the first ten days of July, way back in 2004.
Cheap Trick setlist:
1. Drone (intro)
2. Hello There
3. Big Eyes
4. If You Want My Love…
5. Ain’t That A Shame
6. I Want You To Want Me
7. She’s Tight
8. Voices
9. Dream Police
10. The Flame
11. That 70’s song
12. Surrender
13. Scent Of A Woman
Status Quo setlist :
1. Caroline
2. Something ’bout you baby I like
3. Break The Rules
4. 4500 Times/Rain
5. Hold You Back
6. Medley:
– Mystery Song – Rolling Home – Again And Again
7. Gerdundula
8. Roll Over Lay Down
9. Down Down
10. Whatever You Want
11. Rockin All Over The World
—encore—
12.Medley:
– Rock n Roll Music – Carol – Bye Bye Johnny
Deep Purple setlist:
1. Silver Tongue
2. Woman From Tokyo
3. I’ve Got Your Number
4. Strange Kind Of Woman
5. Bananas
6. Knocking At Your Backdoor
7. Demon’s Eye
8. Steve Morse solo (incl.Contact Lost)
9. Don Airey solo (incl. Pictures On An Exhibition)
10. Perfect Strangers
11. Space Truckin’
12. Highway Star
13. Smoke On The Water
—encore— 14. Hush
15. Black Night (incl. Hit The Road Jack)
