Location: Celje / Dvorana Golovec / Slovenia
Concert date: April 26, 2012
Attendance: 50
Ticket price: €15.00
The pre-holiday mood had well and truly settled in, and our minds had already drifted off to gig mode. This time, back to Dvorana Golovec in Celje for the so-called Rock žur celjskih knezov, which promised a rich lineup of bands, plenty of good music and a loud, rowdy time.
We got to the venue just before seven in the evening. A really early hour for a gig, with bright daylight still outside. The parking lot was practically empty, which already made me think we’d shown up too early after all. A few people were sitting and smoking on the steps by the entrance, and the sound of Last Day Here drifted out of the hall, a band we had obviously missed. Before we got inside the music had already died down, and it looked like Last Day Here had wrapped up their set. Walking into Dvorana Golovec during the break brought another shock – apart from the musicians packing up after their set and the sound engineers, the hall was literally empty! The lonely bartenders at the two makeshift bars were clearly bored out of their minds. Walking around a hall where every step echoed through the emptiness felt downright eerie. Still, the hope that people would show up after all didn’t die, since it really was still early.
I felt really sorry for the bands that played at the start of the party, because staring from the stage into an empty hall certainly isn’t encouraging or pleasant. Even for us in the audience it was a bit awkward wandering back and forth around the hall.
Next up were Shutdown, the second band on the bill. With the first notes they lured back the handful of people who had stepped out for some fresh air during the break. The tiny crowd didn’t faze the band one bit. Shutdown played their set exactly as if there were 1,000 people in front of the stage. The 80s influence, which shows in their image as well as in every second of the show, didn’t fade for a moment. The band was tight and confident on their instruments, backing up their music with plenty of movement around the stage and by getting the crowd going, and the audience joined in. I really hope they finally put out that debut album they’ve been promising for quite a while, so the crowd can sing along on backing vocals too. After a good half hour Shutdown finished their set, the hall emptied out completely again, and Poweršok started getting ready. I only listened to that set from outside, because there was no way we could face another walk around the empty hall. The crowd didn’t grow much as time went on, even though dusk was slowly settling over Celje.
Next to set up on the big stage was Orlek, the large band from the Zasavje region. A name better known to the older generation, they got the young at heart moving closer to the stage too. The eternal entertainers played a confident set, and the crowd took the minor slips in coordination of such a big crew on stage as part of the charm. After dropping a few funny, biting remarks about the turnout, Orlek wrapped up after a little under an hour. The break meant another trip outside, but not for long, since Requiem were already getting ready. We soon went back into the hall and took the front row (honestly, we could hardly have filled any other one). The rest of the crowd trickled in, but despite my best efforts I couldn’t count more than 35 people in front of the stage. With a modest set of old hits and newer songs, Requiem whipped the tiny crowd into a real frenzy, and they backed the band with loud singing. Despite the modest numbers, it sounded like at least a few hundred of us were singing and shouting. There’s nothing to fault in the show either: the band felt the crowd’s heart and showed huge gratitude for such loud support. You could see how much heart the band’s fans have especially at the end of the set, when the audience yelled, sang the choruses, stomped their feet and flat-out demanded an encore. But sadly the time slots were fixed and strictly timed, so with grateful looks from the stage we accepted our fate and let the band pack up in peace. The hall quickly emptied again, and this time there weren’t many people sitting outside either. The first sounds of Legalo Kriminalo rang out from the hall. One last look around the place showed that most of the crowd had drifted away, and after a good four hours of hanging around we decided it was time to leave too. I didn’t stay for Peter Lovšin’s set, but I’d say that despite the disappointment over the small crowd, it was delivered with routine confidence, and the people who stayed surely had a great time.
It’s hard to say what led to such a meager turnout for a »big« party. How much publicity there was around Celje, I don’t know, but I do know that in Krško, which is only a good 50 km away, I didn’t spot a single poster. I did hear about the gig online – on Facebook, to be specific, which is a pretty widespread medium among the younger population. But is that enough? Still, it’s hard to imagine that people in Celje and the surrounding area didn’t know something was going on at Dvorana Golovec. I wonder, is there really only a handful of rock fans left in Celje? Would more people have come if the event had been organized somewhere outdoors? Honestly, €15 doesn’t seem like too much for 7 bands in one go – maybe there were too many acts, the event too long for the hall, …?
We can keep asking questions all day, but the fact is that everyone there was more than happy with the music and the atmosphere on stage. Hats off to the bands – they all did their job the way it should be done despite the meager support and the bitter feeling of looking out from the stage. I hope the poor turnout at this party won’t put organizers around Slovenia off putting on similar events in the future. And I also hope that next time people will show up in droves. Otherwise we’ll really be witnessing a Slovenia where nothing interesting happens anymore.
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