Author: Sebastijan Videc
Photos: Jerneja Jerak
Video: Sebastijan Videc
Venue: Orto bar, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Concert date: 16.04.2014
Attendance: 150
Ticket price: 8€
Dublin, 1962. The smell of tobacco fills the O’Donoghue pub in the middle of the city, while in the corner a quartet of youngsters gets ready for their debut gig. Not one of them has a clue that this first show will launch a musical career lasting five decades. The Dubliners are born. 52 years later, Ljubljana, Orto bar. Seven Styrians are crammed onto the tiny stage. The cigarette smoke has been gone for ages, but the positive energy that The Dubliners dished out to their fans all those years with authentic Irish tradition is getting ready to explode once again in the red hall.
Happy Ol’ McWeasel have been on the scene for seven years now, and judging by the energy slicing off the stage, they barely let anyone in the room stand still. They’d just come back from a tour of Germany, France and Switzerland, but clearly had enough juice left for one more unforgettable show. The crowd, hungry for fun and beer, knew what was coming, so even with a solid half-hour delay, there was no impatience in the air. An instrumental Amazing Grace as the intro, then an explosion into Irish Rover, sent the packed hall nearly through the roof, and by the fourth song a mosh pit had opened up, and it came back a good few times. Anyone who’s been to Orto bar knows it’s one of the smaller stages in Slovenia. And anyone who’s seen Happy Ol’ McWeasel live knows the guys are anything but static up there. With all that action on stage, it’s a wonder they didn’t crash into each other more often, but on the other hand it was pretty fun watching them weave around each other and wind up the cables of their instruments. For the cunning weasels, though, that was no problem at all. Tight as they are, they cruised through to the end of the show, literal tangles notwithstanding.
Over a good hour and a half, the guys predictably walked through the material from their only album so far, No Offence. Not that there was anything to complain about, since the music is top-notch, even if at times it recalls America’s Flogging Molly. Punk rock, the foundation of their sound, is heavily disguised in Celtic-Irish melodies, deftly served up by banjo, accordion and viola. Since original songs alone would have been too few for such a long set, they slyly mixed them with covers. So we got a few Dubliners hits as well as Irish folk classics like Wild Rover, Seven Drunken Nights, and the smash as done by Thin Lizzy and Metallica, Whiskey in the Jar. They also played a cover of the aforementioned Flogging Molly, Drunken Lullabies. Since the weasels are working on a new album, they used the occasion to announce it for this fall, and played Good Deeds, which came out as a single last year and is expected on the new record. The main set closed with Danny Boy, which was even used in an episode of the American comedy series The Crazy Ones back in March. After a short break the Styrians came back with Cotton Eyed Joe, an old American country song that we probably all know from the dance version launched exactly two decades ago by Swedish oddballs Rednex. Hairy Grizzly wrapped up an evening that will be ringing in the heads of everyone there for a long time.
Setlist
1. Amazing Grace (intro)
2. Irish Rover
3. Heard Ya Say
4. All For Me Grog
5. Sail Away
6. Dirty Old Town
7. Drunken Sailor
8. Still In The League
9. Murphy’s Law
10. Whiskey In The Jar
11. On Your Own
12. Drunken Lullabies
13. Good Deeds
14. Seven Drunken Nights
15. Foggy Dew
16. No Offence
17. Wild Rover
18. Better Times
19. Danny Boy
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20. Cotton Eyed Joe
21. Hairy Grizzly
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