Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Ljubljana / Orto bar / Slovenia
Concert date: 26.10.2011
Attendance: 100
Ticket price: 6,00€
When Franci Zabukovec steps on stage, there’s no time for jokes! The Slovenian musician, who belongs to the inner circle of Slovenia’s top guitarists, has a signature knack for multi-dimensional flexibility, effortlessly jumping between different musical spheres and genres. His all-round adaptability to whatever situation he’s handed has always thrown the studio doors wide open for Franci, where, as a busy little ant and a handy girl-Friday, he has been solving problems and having the backs of many musicians. It was no different whenever the need came up to recap the studio work on stage.
After many years of doing favors for plenty of artists who made a name for themselves on the Slovenian “mainstream” music scene, which in itself speaks volumes about the high pedigree and musical prominence that Franci Zabukovec can fully enjoy in our scene today, the man finally decided to pour his own ideas into a first solo studio album. It came out in the first half of this year under the project Zabukowski and the title “K-Metal” (RockLine review HERE), where the letter “K” stands for the magic element “Kryptonite”, and on the album cover Franci is caricatured as a super chocolatey, horned Viking with a thick engraving of a “zzzzzuper” letter “Z” on his chest. Think of him as a kind of younger brother of Superman, whom mom kept secret for a long time after he was born, and who simply ended up as “Zabukowski”.
For the Orto bar gig, Franci put together a crew of six musicians who are already established names on the Slovenian and (also) the world map. That goes especially for drum maestro Roman Rate, with an interesting, perfectly straight-line setup of his drum kit. The rest of the lineup on stage was filled by former Šank Rocker Cveto Polak (Jelen band), who also put out an excellent solo album this year, “Bass Line” (RockLine review HERE). On vocals there’s Sergej Škofljanec (Requiem) – you won’t find a better vocalist in Slovenia today for what the “K-Metal” album demands musically – Sergej must have accidentally, unknowingly and unwittingly swallowed an entire air-raid siren in his early youth, and joining them are keyboardist Miha Gorše and guitarist Aleš Štefančič. The band Zabukowski’s job? Easy as pie! A live presentation of the album “K-Metal”!
Orto bar was nicely packed this time! Young girls shake it up front (and, of course, as the requirements dictate, they handle it with top marks, full of compact curves) while the rest of the curious crowd “of more modest build” cool-headedly squeeze their way forward and onward to the bar. The eminences of Slovenian rock didn’t skip the event either, including the legendary Borut Činč (Buldožer) and Marko Slokar (Requiem), among others. Even the “radio voices” that caress our ears every day, like the one belonging to Jernej Vene from Val 202, showed up. In short, a colorful, full house. And great energy!
After the instrumental intro, the sextet jumps into Zdaj grem sam naprej, a song that instantly captures Zabukovec’s strict focus and determination to test himself as a solo artist on the runway of Slovenian rock, and consequently the point of the album “K-Metal”! A crew of exceptional musical talents delivered a bombastic show, bursting with a generally highly vibrant flux of energy. It kept a good 100 heads standing sharply upright throughout the set. The special guests of the album “K-Metal”, such as the expected appearance of Vojo Djuran in the song Moja dama, were missing this time. Hammering out song after song from “K-metal” was also spiced up by a brand-new original, Don’t Go Away, with verses in English. Triumphant! The execution was led by a baton of extraordinary ease and relaxation, with just the right dose of mischievous lucidity, which Sergej Škofljanec took care of on stage in particular. These guys with enormous concert mileage pulled off the show in a glow of extreme routine and a professional attitude, in a top-notch execution of the material with just the right dose of party-style zingers. They offered exactly what folks come for every Friday night!
When you looked around the venue, it was a real pleasure to see so many smiling faces, which of course speaks in favor of this being an evening of the most authentic delivery of the classic hard rock tradition as we Slovenes make it, with roots reaching back to the golden age of the eighties and to modeling ourselves on the pioneering rock messaging of foreign bands who put rock on its feet in the seventies, from Rainbow, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, Thin Lizzy, Wishbone Ash, etc…
The arrival of Zabukowski on the scene is hugely significant for that segment of Slovenian hard n’ heavy rock music that has perhaps been left slightly forgotten today, yet boasts some of the best original creations by its players in the modern history of Slovenian rock. This is the generation of the classic rock school of great musical talents, and Zabukowski are joining the solid core formed today by this generation of mature musicians who are active in the bands Jelen, Mary Rose, the again-kicking Chateau, and there’s Requiem too. If I look further and mourn the unrepeatable lineup of Martin Krpan, and then, on the flip side, provocatively add the reunion of the active-again Lene kosti, then it’s clear that the generation of these guys, who were already kicking hard in the eighties, is waking up fully once again on the Slovenian scene. In the combinations of today’s lineups, in which they do what they can do and have always done best! No pretending, then! We don’t yet know what will become of Šank Rock, while we simply have to come to terms with the acute slip-ups of Pomaranča, who just can’t get back to sailing with a full wind in their sails. This energy of a rock revival is simply wonderful in our country! A rock awakening! And that gave us the band Zabukowski!
Setlist
1. Uvod – Kryptonite
2. Zdaj grem sam naprej
3. Dej bejbi dej
4. Moj največji problem
5. Moja dama
6. Sanjam
7. Ni vse zlato
8. Fina ženska
9. Don’t Go Away
10. Mavrica
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