Author: Urban Bolta
Photos: Jerneja Jerak
Venue: Orto bar / Ljubljana / Slovenia
Concert date: 01.02.2013
Attendance: 160
Ticket price: €3
Launching a debut is a big deal for any band. When the members hold their music in their hands on a physical medium, powerful emotions are guaranteed to hit them. Emotions that hold all the effort, drops of sweat, countless rehearsals and maybe even the odd internal feud that bands get forged and grow through, right up to the big moment when the first record comes out. It’s the first rung on every musician’s ladder, and once they step up successfully, it starts opening doors to promoters, new gigs, and finally to the ears of music lovers.
On the first day of February, hard rockers Top Stripper celebrated their night at Ljubljana’s Orto bar. They rushed out their debut »High Heels Avenue«, getting it on the market just before the annual glam festival Lipstikk N’ Leathür, where they’ll play in Medvode in mid-February.
Before they took the stage, the start of the night belonged to the guests, the new Ljubljana outfit Retro Kult, born from the ashes of the student rock’n’roll party animals Nova Konzerva. After parting ways with their mastermind Uroš, they closed ranks, formed Retro Kult and started playing in completely different spheres of rock. Their vocabulary is stylistically closer to the hard rock their fathers listened to, far from the rock today’s youth consumes. It confirms that the global trend of young bands exploring and playing by the rules of classic seventies rock has finally reached Slovenian soil too. With the intro Satan from Real by the ancient duo The Louvin Brothers playing, the quintet spread out across the stage and kicked off a full hour-long show of compositionally simple but all the more intense messaging! That Retro Kult rock out under the influence of the Rolling Stones has been clear since the Nova Konzerva days, but with the transformation and new stylistic identity, the Ljubljana crew has moved even closer to the sound of bands like Free, Led Zeppelin and other giants of early-seventies blues-rock. The band shows huge potential in the constant guitar interplay of the duo Deži and Zupi, who fill out the sound beautifully with their crafty trading of parts. Their excursions are also to blame for the band’s constant flirtation with the rich heritage of the blues, and in the longer instrumental passages even with its heavy psychedelic form, as played by bands like Leaf Hound or Sir Lord Baltimore. Among their original material, which grows by another composition every month, Retro Kult slotted in covers of The Four Horsemen and Led Zeppelin, and convinced everyone there that this is a seriously interesting band with everything it takes for a successful future.
By the time it was well past ten p.m., Orto bar had filled up for real. Even though the main act of the night, the local crew Top Stripper, has been working in practical anonymity since forming in 2009, they clearly have a strong base of supporters among their friends and acquaintances. They packed the club’s first floor admirably and backed the band loudly the whole way through what was probably their most important gig so far.
Top Stripper proved to be a welcome shake-up for the Slovenian hard rock scene, because their catchy mix of eighties hard rock and bluesy charm infects the listener lightning fast! The band has found its own formula, adapting the elementary nature of the eighties hard rock school after the most distinctive bands of that era, like Cinderella, The Quireboys, maybe even Thunder, though with a strong dose of Poison’s raunchiness. Top Stripper’s biggest ace is hiding in frontman Jaša! A guy with the stage moves of David Coverdale, he quickly won over the crowd with a great performance, thanks also to his thrilling vocal charisma, presenting himself as a singer with a deep voice but a wide range. Most of the songs were heavily softened by the blues, but two or three originals stepped on the gas and, backed by mighty guitar riffs, summoned the Crüe-style spirit of the Sunset Strip. Still, seductive tunes like Gone With the Train made up most of Top Stripper’s dance-inviting rhetoric. In the first half of the show they ran into a minor mishap when drummer Miha broke a drumhead. Replacing it stopped the show for a good five minutes, so Top Stripper had to work even harder at pampering the audience afterward to squeeze out the maximum effect! Instrumentally, considering how young they are, the aforementioned drummer Miha and guitarist Jure on the right side of the stage stood out. But it’s worth pointing out here that stardom is still a long way off, and the road to it is paved with hard work and thorns, so the overly self-absorbed performance was totally unnecessary. At the end of the set, Top Stripper treated the well-warmed-up crowd to a cover of the ever-punchy Paradise City. The acoustic encore deserves praise too, made up of the original ballad with the hugely infectious melody Daisy Darlin’ and, for the big finale, the Mr. Big classic To be With You.
What to say in closing? The Slovenian hard rock scene has a new name to add to the list. Top Stripper took a big step onto the scene with the release of their debut »High Heels Avenue« and its launch show in a packed Orto bar. They proved that even with barely any room to maneuver in the genre spectrum, you can still tread through untouched snow. Sure, on a global scale that claim is a bit laughable, but on the Slovenian scene at least, Top Stripper bring a unique formula of blues-inspired hard rock, so we can already look forward to the next career steps of this young Ljubljana collective.
Setlist
1. L.A. City
2. Hot Stripper
3. She’s So Fine
4. Crazy Child
5. Sound of The Devil
6. Girls
7. Cryin’ Over Love
8. Love In An Elevator
9. Gone With the Train
10. Paradise City
11. Do You Think it’s Easy
———
12. Daisy Darlin’
13. To Be With You
Photo Gallery
