Location: Ljubljana / Gospodarsko razstavišče / Slovenia
Date: Thursday, 05/27/2010
This year’s MARS festival, an event watched over by the keen eye of the Dallas record label, got a repeat of last year’s premiere. That’s how it’s taking shape as a fixture of Slovenia’s live offering, and that’s a good thing. Unlike last year, when only local and Croatian acts took the stage, this time the festival gained a new quality. The organizer invited a bigger name on the rock map, one whose body of work earns respect all over the world. Skunk Anansie, back on the global rock scene after eight long years of hibernation, closed ranks again and hit the road to earn their bread, which made them an excellent choice. The band recently released a greatest-hits collection, re-recorded in the studio. That was followed by a comeback tour, the first leg of which the band already played across Europe last November, and this time they squeezed in a few May dates ahead of a string of festival appearances running through this summer.
| MLADE KUZLE: |
But the time between eight in the evening and one at night(!) went by under the banner of acts that are, one way or another, tightly tied to the Dallas label. The first to step onto the stage were four girls. They’re called Mlade Kuzle, and they’re the heirs to the legacy of the Idrija punk rockers Kuzle. The latter surprised absolutely everyone when, after releasing the album “Še pomnite tovariši?” (2010), they decided they would never play live again. So they handed over all the permissions to use and perform their original material to four young women, who started warming up the small crowd that had more or less “wandered” into the venue in broad daylight. The set was a recap of the album “Še pomnite tovariši?”, and the girls rolled out song after song, starting with Moja generacija. The dolled-up teenagers took on the off-the-rack look of today’s alternative bands and smelled more of baking powder than of the arrogant, boozy breath of punk debauchery. But that’s today’s generation. Better that they play rock than that we listen to fast recitals over a backing track. You can tell the girls are new on the scene and haven’t quite mastered big stages yet. They’re very static and pretty dull as a stage presence. Still, the girls showed plenty of nerve in stepping into the originals’ shoes and, with their courage, confidently cruised through the classic catalog of the legends of Idrija punk.
As for the sound, there’s no need to stress that the hall at the Gospodarsko razstavišče is the last place in Ljubljana where a concertgoer would want to hear a gig. The sound is always bad, which goes down to the dreadful acoustics of the space. You can only choose between bad, worse and worst. Even the huge black curtain at the back of the stage failed to save the situation. And the quieter the act is tuned in this hall, the harder it is for a proper sound picture to reach the listeners in the back. When Kuzle were playing, only the front row and a few lost photographer souls could properly hear them, and those folks had their brain centers focused on anything but listening to music. Well, even that was enough. Like I said, most of the crowd was giving its attention to other “priorities” at this point.
| ESKOBARS: |
Around nine o’clock, the newly discovered, cheerful alt-rock hotshots Eskobars came charging onto the stage. Cheerful. That’s how it is these days. You throw in a little salsa, funk the whole thing up and send the horses galloping. The guys turn their notion of rock ‘n’ roll completely toward the joke side, and that’s actually what saves them, because the point of rock is fun! Musically they bring nothing new or special, nothing that would pique the curiosity of those of you looking for more demanding arrangements. This is music from the young generation, for all those who wake up for the first time in their lives around two in the afternoon with a massive hangover. They embody the hedonism and debauchery of our society. Eskobars are built for direct fire, without any particular deviations toward complicating anything. Their approach is clear. Punch, energy and fun! Though the guys are crazy about girls of Germanic descent, which the cheeky Girls From Klagenfurt doesn’t hide, their hats weren’t inherited from Beatsteaks. Nor from the Colombian mafia, for that matter.
| URBAN & 4: |
The jump to a higher level of the festival came with Damir Urban and his backing band. The name Urban & 4 is understandable almost internationally, but for us inhabitants of the former Yugoslavia, the story behind that name reveals more. Damir Urban is the thoroughly upgraded embodiment today of everything this superb musical artist sketched out with the unforgettable and, sadly, long-buried alternative band from Rijeka, Laufer. That things at the festival climbed a few notches in quality from here on isn’t confirmed only by the great qualities of the performer who took the stage; Urban & 4 were also the first band to manage to fill the area in front of the stage. The performance of the material confirmed that there’s a large number of followers of this lineup in the audience. They loudly followed the singer’s lines and gave the band their energy right back with equal commitment. Urban & 4 released the excellent new studio record “Hello!” last year, which further deepened the artistry of Damir Urban’s unique creative being. His low-to-mid-pitched, penetrating, suggestive, warm velvety voice is now dressed in the prestigious attire of refined music arrangements, dictated by Damir Urban’s perfectionism. The art rock that defines his music certainly carries a strong whiff of the post-punk era of the second half of the eighties, which the Urban & 4 lineup has tamed and tailored into a quality puzzle of its own original work. A dulled yet hypnotically tinted guitar mood, writhing through a wound-up sustain of single-note howling melodies, in the vein of Simple Minds, leaves plenty of open space, into which the dynamic pulsing of the bass guitar bites with melodic shape. The rhythms are simple and set up to get you going immediately. A special moment of the set was of course the Laufer classic Moja voda, which “blew the lids off” the heads of the entire hall. It was performed in a half-cabaret staging with Damir (naturally) front and center, accompanied by a piano that we could finally hear, at last, amid the exceptionally bad sound backdrop. The song Dio mene also coaxed more pulsating feedback out of the audience, and the “black charismatic phantom” and his crew wrapped up a content-rich concert full of high ambience after playing the classic Astronaut, from the debut “Otrovna kiša” (1996).
| DAN D: |
Dan D don’t need a big, thick introduction. They’re a firmly rooted quintet of the Slovenian mainstream. Dan D are one of those who managed to pour an alternative approach into rock and bring it closer to Slovenes through their own take on it, to the point that there’s hardly a soul left who doesn’t fancy Dan D. The masses flock to their gigs, and Dan D are racking up one success after another. They adapted the set list to an hour and a quarter of stage time and arranged the songs into a sort of “best of.” What was interesting, though, was the realization that Dan D didn’t get the kind of craziness out of the crowd that Urban & 4 did. That proves Urban’s loyal fan base made it to MARS festival in Ljubljana too, and they simply kept their heads down a bit during Dan D. Hand on heart, Dan D were justified at MARS festival only as a magnet of general popularity, meant to help sell as many tickets as possible. With their musical approach they simply don’t belong ahead of Skunk Anansie. But let’s get back to their performance. The guys play a ton and are phenomenally tight stage performers. Tokac, with the distinctive timbre of voice that was laid in his cradle, doesn’t even need much chatter between songs to stay noticeable on stage. The blond shaggy-haired guy with melancholy looks once again did his job with confidence. Dan D also delivered the best live sound up to that point. We could even hear the keyboards from the stage. And in Dan D’s hands, it would have been a lot more exciting to hear a cover of some other Slovenian acts rather than Niet. Say, the godfathers of Slovenian metal, Leni kosti! The very static stage presence of the band could have used a bit more concert adrenaline fever.
| SKUNK ANANSIE: |
We waited for Skunk Anansie until ten past one in the morning. But the time didn’t matter. Almost the whole crowd finally dragged itself into the hall. Some 2,000 heads. In the front rows, especially the “girls” were screaming deliriously and uncontrollably. Up front it was truly wild. But alternative rockers wouldn’t be anywhere without singer Skin. She’s an out-of-the-ordinary vocalist who inherited the best that a voice placed in rock music can inherit. If Whitney Houston were a punk, she’d be listening to Skunk Anansie. But on top of that, Skin is a completely unhinged stage beast who can hardly stand still. The stage tears her to pieces. The woman snarls furiously, growls, and with her stretchy facial expressions sometimes looks like a real little vampire who’s come to drink blood. Fixed stares of whites of the eyes aimed straight ahead, lurking with bared teeth. Nibbling the ears of her bandmates. All of this is a well-rehearsed and studied part of the stage act, with which Skunk Anansie get the crowd eating out of their hands in an instant.
The quartet basically rolled from song to song without addressing the crowd, and at times you had the feeling that, given the singer’s extraordinary charisma and her authoritative, dominant singing, Skunk Anansie could be renamed “Skin & 3”. Explosiveness. That’s the permanent address of singer Skin, known to her friends as Deborah Dyer!
The audience proved that it hadn’t forgotten Skunk Anansie during the years the band was resting, and especially in the area below the stage and ten meters deep, it fanatically backed the lineup with screaming as well as loudly belting out the lyrics. The band, which is supposed to release a new studio album soon, included on “Smashes And Thrashes”, the record that gave meaning to the tour named “The Gratest Hits Tour”, three brand-new songs. Of those, in the greatest-hits selection at the Ljubljana concert we got to hear Because Of You in the opening part and (a bit unexpectedly, in the encore) Squander.
Alongside Skunk Anansie’s extraordinary stage presence, whose sheer persuasiveness was deepened further by an exceptional show of stage lighting and the play of the spotlights, the band on the other hand less successfully concealed the fact that they’d come only to collect the money. They wrapped up the regular set after just an hour on stage. Later Skin managed a few sentences that smelled of nothing other than heartless buying of the crowd’s affection. “We really like your city” and similar clichés really do feel chewed over. Especially given the most likely fact that by tomorrow Skunk Anansie no longer knew what Slovenia was, where it even lies, or what its capital is. They did end the concert on a seriously impulsive note, though. They pulled it off with ease, since with the form, power and charm that singer Skin’s voice possesses, nobody has to fear failing to win the crowd over completely. In the heartfelt, devoted Secretly, Skin rounded off a spectacular vocal performance with vehemence, one that, despite the short and routine set, could hardly leave anyone in the hall indifferent. An hour and twenty minutes, and the revelry with Skunk Anansie was over.
And so the first day of the two-day MARS festival 2010 tour came to a close. The next day, a recap of the event followed in Croatia (Zagreb). The event was a success. A few criticisms go only to the acoustic characteristics of the venue. But Križanke, which would be ideal for something like this, was taken by the impregnated “heroin look” hero of yuppies, Maksim Mrvica. So, next year Križanke for MARS again. We’ll be patient. In the hope that by next year the festival’s lineup climbs yet another notch higher.
author: Aleš Podbrežnik
photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Setlists:
DAN D
1. Čakamo
2 Rožice
3. Počasi
4. Barve
5. Roke
6. Love Song
7. Sun Sun
8. Lep dan za smrt
9. Sirenia
10. Jutranja
11. Voda
12. Plešeš
13. Moj problem
14. Čas
SKUNK ANANSIE:
1. Intro (Yes, It’s F*cking Political)
2. Selling Jesus
3. Charlie Big Potato
4. Because of You
5. Charity
6. 100 Ways to Be a Good Girl
7. I Can Dream
8. I Don’t Want To Kill You
9. Weak
10. Brazen (Weep)
11. Twisted (Everyday Hurts)
12. Cheap Honesty
13. On My Hotel TV
14. Tear The Place Up
15. The Skank Heads
—encore I.—
16. Hedonism (Just Because You Feel Good)
17. Squander
18. Little Baby Swastikkka
—encore II.—
19. Secretly
