Rowan Robertson and Keith St. John – An Acoustic Extravaganza Packed with Rock and Metal Classics!
Rowan Robertson & Keith St. John
Thursday, 10. 9. 2026
Ljubljana / Orto bar / Slovenia
Rowan Robertson and Keith St. John! On the “Wired & Fired” 2026 tour! In Ljubljana. Who the hell are they? Not punk, and not whiny singer-songwriters either. So they’re something that, musically speaking, definitely has no citizenship in Slovenia. The two of them regularly play just about an hour’s drive from Ljubljana in the direction of Klagenfurt, more precisely toward Lake Wörthersee, that is in Velden in Carinthia, at the Bluesiana Rock Cafe club there. So their genre backdrop should be classic rock, blues, old-school metal, hard rock. Getting warmer. Rowan Robertson should have pulled every single Slovenian metalhead into Orto bar that night, the ones whose mouths are always full of how Ronnie James Dio is just the law! Rowan was, after all, Dio’s guitar on the record “Lock Up The Wolves” (1990). Amen. And then there’s the phenomenal vocalist Keith St. John: Montrose, Sweet, Burning Rain, Lynch Mob, Quiet Riot, The Neal Schon Band, Kingdom Come, and the list keeps going. The first is basically a guitarist, the second a singer. Together they form a duo that brought some exceptional rock delicacies to the Orto bar stage in acoustic adaptations that shook the place to its foundations.
But slow down. Orto bar was frighteningly empty that Thursday. By the time the two musicians took the stage, there weren’t even, mark my words, 20 people in the downstairs room. You read that right! Not even a measly 20 visitors were to be seen. That’s how chilling the attitude toward rock and roll in Slovenia is. I could write a second part of the Šentflorjan valley scandal about it. Two such accomplished musicians come to play in Ljubljana, and they’re greeted by an empty club.
On top of that, with rain tearing at the sky all day, the upstairs room at Orto bar was hosting a rock’a billy event with BunkerBillys and Flying Spaghetti, which pulled a bit more attention away from these two truly excellent musicians. Still…
The Englishman Rowan Robertson and the American Keith St. John didn’t rack their brains too much over the situation. Simple as that. They came to Ljubljana to have fun! And they had no intention of spoiling the evening. The repertoire of covers is exceptional, practically endless, and they tweak it on the fly every night.
At nine in the evening they hit the stage. The chiseled Keith with a bottle of water and a thermos of tea, Rowan with a half-warm Union beer. Dressed to dazzle, or let’s say more precisely, sharp as a tack! Especially Keith. And they went at it full throttle. As if Orto bar held 10,000 people and not a good dozen. Keith used the breaks for a bunch of anecdotes about the choice of individual songs that night. Right off the bat he said the two of them were taking us back to the sixties, as they kicked off with My Generation (The Who) as a warm-up. The opening catalyst sparked, and then Keith told the crowd they’d stay in the sixties a little longer, as they tackled a Zeppelin classic, namely the first track off the first LZ record, Good Times Bad Times, which they playfully extended at the end with What is And What Should Never Be, wrapping it up after about a third. They tried it on stage for the first time at Orto bar, just for the fun of it. After that, the thunder got more serious. With two Burning Rain classics back to back (a hard rock outfit in which the crazy Doug Aldrich played alongside Keith). Midnight Train and then Shelter, both from the latest Burning Train album “Face The Music”. You don’t hear that live just like that. Burning Rain are, after all, history. But never say never. Maybe Doug and Keith will find some time to put together another BR record.
The chemistry is really well-oiled. Keith sings brilliantly. Gorgeously. Rowan is outstanding on acoustic guitar. His solos in particular took your breath away with the sheer inventiveness of a guitarist who, with his sparkle and skill, has always played himself a winning poker hand of aces. Then came Hellchild (Lynch Mob), plus one more absolute sweetie of the night, Rock Candy (Montrose), before the first set turned into a hot finale with the Whitesnake classic Love Ain’t No Stranger and then the huge Purple number Smoke On The Water, where Rowan swerved into Space Truckin’ for a few moments in the outro, and Keith tacked on the first verse of the Purple tune Knocking At Your Back Door right at the end. Lucid and cheeky. Brimming with a giant sense of humor. A British-American pairing. What a gap between them, and it’s precisely this contrast between the two figures that fuels their great chemistry!
Then they took a break. About 20 minutes, to be exact, during which they chatted with absolutely everyone, say (and I mean this sincerely, without the slightest sarcasm) the 12-13 visitors at Orto bar. Gorgeous. You simply can’t get closer to musicians like this. Priceless.
The second set followed. Tooth And Nail (Dokken) is the perfect bomb to open it. Then River of Love (Lynch Mob), and on to Is This Love (Whitesnake) – a truly inventive, brilliant adaptation. Then The Rolling Stones with Jumping Jack Flash, which they stretched into Angie (Keith says they’d never played that song on stage before coming to Orto bar). One of the highlights was the long-awaited Dio classic Holy Diver, which two lonely Dio fans demanded right at the start of the show. Rowan stepped into the absolute center of it, stretching it into an excellent extended solo piece. The Led Zeppelin classic that more than surprised with its choice was definitely All Of My Love (Keith steps behind the keyboards, which he also used for both Whitesnake hits). Gorgeous. And in the finale, You Can’t Always Get What You Want – a little number claimed by The Rolling Stones.
A heap of sweets, then. Sweets of rock and roll that Rowan and Keith handled in their own distinctive way shook us properly and knocked the ground out from under our feet. Just like only the best know how. And they played as if there were several thousand people with them. Having fun, enjoying themselves. They threw themselves a great party, which spilled over onto those few heads in a truly eerily “hollowed-out” Orto bar. A sight you dread, one you don’t want to believe, but unfortunately it happens. You experience this too. But. Rowan and Keith will surely be back at Bluesiana soon. And we’re going there the moment it’s possible. Definitely. To share the fascination these two phenomenal musicians are able to create live. The evening was gorgeous, both musicians stayed with us for a beer at the bar after the show, and it was a real honor to share it with them. All thanks go to the owner of the Bluesiana Rock Cafe club, who made it possible for both musicians to visit Slovenia for the first time. The Bluesiana show on 3. 9. 2026 overlapped with the Hollywood Vampires concert in Zagreb, so confirmation of their gig at Orto bar was sent straight from heaven. Keith, Rowan! See you soon.
Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photographer: Aleš Podbrežnik
