Venue: Dvorana Stereo / Rijeka / Croatia
Concert date: 29.05.2008
Attendance: 400
Ticket price: 50.00 HRK (approx. 7.00€)
Rock Masters are a crew of legendary Croatian rockers: Tomas Krkać (bass), Slavko Pintarić – Pišta (drums) and, probably the best known of the bunch, Vedran Božić (guitar), who has played in Roboti, MI, Boško Petrović Quintet, Time, Parni Valjak and Supersession Fidri – Sedak. All three also play in Telephone Blues Band, and when Ervin Baučić, a member of the Kazališta Komedija company from Zagreb, joins Rock Masters, you’ve got the foundation for a band that can tackle the repertoire of the mighty Led Zeppelin. Worth mentioning, too, that Božić once had a special honor: way, way back, he was playing a club in Frankfurt, Germany, with his band Roboti, when Jimi Hendrix happened to walk into the place. Roboti invited Mr. Hendrix up on stage. The rest is history.
Dvorana Stereo, right in the heart of Rijeka’s city center, was packed to the rafters. The guys kept us waiting quite a while, only showing up on stage 15 minutes before midnight. There was a surprisingly large number of younger faces in the crowd, alongside the older folks who got to relive the days when the great Led Zeppelin stomped across the rock map with no competition.
It had first been said that the band would play two separate sets, but that didn’t happen. They opened the show in a somewhat unusual way, with Bring It On Home, and of course it couldn’t go without harmonica, which Baučić wailed away on. The moment Božić launched into the main rock riff, the crowd literally lost it. It was direct proof that we’re living in a time when tribute bands can really do a good job. If I may be deliberately a bit wicked, their time is only just coming…
Rock Masters focused the bulk of their repertoire on Led Zeppelin’s albums “I.”, “II.”, “III.” and “IV.”. Why? They’re the easiest to learn, and to play songs from them you don’t need keyboards or any especially complicated sound effects. The guys went on with Good Times, Bad Times, sawed through Communication Breakdown, and there were Ramble On, then Heartbreaker, which flowed into Living Loving Maid (She’s Just A Woman), and from “II.” even Moby Dick wasn’t left out (with a drum solo, of course), then on to Babe I’m Gonna Leave You, Dazed And Confused, Black Dog, How Many More Times, Celebration Day, Since I’ve Been Loving You, the obligatory Stairway To Heaven, and the close of the regular set with a song that needs no introduction. Whole Lotta Love, of course. All in just one hour. Then they came thundering back on stage as fast as they could for the encore, which they kicked off to the crowd’s great delight with Immigrant Song, and wrapped up the night with Rock And Roll.
The guys didn’t beat around the bush. Nor was that what anyone wanted. People came for a serving of raw rock energy, and they got it in the best possible way. Lowering the bar on the performance criteria is not just worthwhile here, it’s only fair. Of course, everyone who came to hunt for tiny details and compare them with the originals wasn’t satisfied. Too bad for them, because most of the hall was literally going nuts as the pulsing rock energy flowed freely while the band jumped from one classic to the next. The audience sang the verses with gusto and responded eagerly to the band’s prompts from the stage. The energy was the real, genuine deal!
The band didn’t need to address the crowd at all during the show. The music covered everything that night. After an hour and 15 minutes, the guys said their goodbyes. The fact that the quartet seemed to be in a bit of a hurry was probably down to the unbearable heat that filled the hall during the show and the high concentration of cigarette smoke, since in Croatia they’re still lucky enough to be able to happily puff away on their smokes at concerts, even indoors.
Baučić was of course forced to lower some of the original vocal lines and adapt them. The highest ones especially. Božić played quite a good chunk of the solos using his exceptional know-how and routine, plus his own improvisational streak. But he stuck to the originals in all the more prominent melodic parts of the solos, which kept the Led Zeppelin repertoire authentic and tight. He approached it decisively, as proven by the A5 string that snapped on his Gibson Les Paul right at the very start of the show. The quartet had learned all the basic motifs excellently and delivered a solid dose of tightness and playing together. A few mistakes crept in during transitions, but the well-oiled rhythm line kept convincingly saving the revival of the Led Zeppelin repertoire throughout. So Rock Masters are something well worth experiencing live. And a must for all of you who miss concerts by the real Led Zeppelin.
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