Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Celje / MC Celje / Slovenia
Concert date: 15.03.2013
Attendance: 80
Ticket price: €3.00
After quite a few months without any rock’n’roll in Celje, a really nice gig finally went down, and it pulled in a decent crowd. Local favorites Šah Mat and Kronika, both well known by now, played, along with an interesting duo from Armenia called Wattican Punk Ballet.
The hall doors opened a little after half past nine in the evening, and local band Šah Mat kicked off the night. The band has been around for a good three years and already has quite a few shows behind them all over Slovenia. Right from the start they hit us with the fast hard rock rhythms of the song Prepusti se. These guys show the crowd no mercy and always serve up an intravenous dose of pure rock’n’roll! At first only a handful of people were in the hall, which is really cozy (and, by my standards, far too underused for alternative music), but it soon filled up. The set itself was incredibly energetic! The guitarist deftly ran his fingers up and down the neck, and even the solos in the style of Deep Purple and Led Zeppelin were pulled off with flying colors by the five-piece! Čedo was in good vocal shape; the only annoying thing was that the bass was too quiet in the mix. At moments the trio drifted off track when it came to locking in the rhythms, but otherwise the hour-long set went smoothly from start to finish. Šah Mat also debuted a brand-new track at this gig, »Na drugo stran«. It’s a song with potential, though they might consider trying out English lyrics. Simply because it would make more of an impact on the concert atmosphere, with the message of the poetry coming through! Given the wealth of original material Šah Mat have diligently produced in a relatively short time since the band formed, it’s high time they put out their first EP.
For a while the atmosphere in the hall changed completely, as a brother and sister, both multi-instrumentalists, took the stage: Karen and Gaya Arutyunyan, Armenians by origin, united under the exotic name Wattican Punk Ballet. They play a blend of psychedelic rock, dance punk and freak pop, and you can feel the influence of their Caucasian roots too! As I mentioned earlier, both of them play several instruments, and it was fascinating to watch them swap instruments between songs. A really interesting experience, but unfortunately it came across as “too demanding” for the crowd. During the set, people preferred to slip out of the hall for another round of beer.
Last up were Kronika, also old friends of the Celje stages. If the previous bands warmed up the crowd, Kronika set it on fire! The guys, who draw inspiration both from bands of the former Yugoslavia and from Slovenian rockers, know exactly what to do to get the crowd eating out of their hands!
They started with the track »Razvajeno dete« and went on with a few excellently played covers: »Iz sve snage«, »A ti još plačeš«, Teške boje«, and so on. They played every song from their current album »V napačnem letu«. A lot of the credit for the incredible energy on stage goes to vocalist Žan, whose stage presence and sense of mischief can get even the most “wooden” person moving. Of course, the other members don’t lag far behind him either. The guys still need to rack up some more mileage, but if they keep going at this pace, we’ll soon be able to put them right alongside their idols!
In the photos: Šah Mat on stage, on 01.03.2013, at MC Jedro in Medvode – you can read the full RockLine report from that concert HERE.
Setlist
ŠAH MAT:
1.Prepusti se
2.Stari časi
3.V slabi družbi
4.Deja Vu,
5.Samosvoj
6.Strela
7.Zakaj me raje ne ustreliš
8.Achilles Last Stand
9.Na drugo stran
10.Šah Mat
KRONIKA:
1.Razvajeno dete
2.V leru
3.Iz sve snage
4.Mi potujemo
5.Mladi, lepi in zadeti
6.Hodim
7.A ti još plačeš
8.Ono što pokušavam sad
9.Bluz
10.Rojen v napačnem letu
11.Plešem s krvavimi podplati
12.Hipnotisana gomila
13.Nirvana
14.Dost mam
15.Hoču da znam
16.Teške boje
17.V žilo
18.Na granici
19.Sama v snu
20.Pistoljero.
Photo gallery
