Venue: Sub Sub, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Concert date: 08.04.2009
Attendance: 100
Ticket price: 8 €
The Tide, a quintet of versatile musicians who are busy these months recording material for their second studio album, put on a gig for all the music connoisseurs at Ljubljana’s Sub Sub club on Thursday, April 9. Despite big expectations and good promotion, precious few showed up. The bunch of about a hundred souls that claimed the space right below the stage was anything but indifferent. They swayed gently to the “the tide” vibes through all nineteen songs played, which covered just about everything: older, newer, newest, unreleased and “unplugged”. Something for everyone. The guys freshened up Sub Sub’s dry atmosphere with a video projection of some of their clips and other projects made over six years together.
The show kicked off (totally normal by Slovenian standards) a bit before 11 p.m. and settled into the ears of the crowd like balm. The opener “Midnight Shooter”, which they premiered back in February on the show NLP in the Naglas! segment, followed by “Whirl of Time”, the opening track from their firstborn “Love & Trust”, released in 2006, got the crowd going in an instant. True, some folks in the room were coming off months of concert hibernation and struggled at first to shake off the shackles, but the next songs got under their skin. “Stay Out of My Place” and “On Your Way” (the latter was used in the short film Horizont) were followed by the unreleased “You Could Try”, which gave the crowd no “dancing” headaches. Quite the opposite! They welcomed it with open arms. “Bitter Dream” was once again accompanied by a video projection, which, along with frontman Tomaž Štular’s signature “Morrisonesque” pose, was a real feast for the eyes. The latter might seem a touch egocentric, but his immersed performance and total dedication to the songs more than make up for it. “Cosmic” was followed by the first “unplugged” song of the night. “Whisper”, which you can find on the album “Live & Clean”, was reworked into that guise by the guys specifically for the show Izštekani on Val 202 with Jure Longyka in April 2007. Undoubtedly the most energy of the night was coaxed out of the crowd by “Your River Wild”, the song The Tide used to introduce themselves on the music channel MTV Adria. Hot on its heels was “Desire”, also from the debut album. The fever of the Thursday night was cooled down a bit by the unplugged “Pop Soul”, but that didn’t help much. The temperature shot up again with “Carry On” and “Snow”. The latter was recently used by director Miha Knific, with whom the guys shot a few of their video clips, in his film “Lovec oblakov”.
The minutes flew by relentlessly and the night was slowly winding down. But there was still a “treat” waiting for everyone. The crowd got to hear two brand-new, still unreleased songs, “Letters From The Other Side” and “Shine”. Judging by what we heard, the upcoming album will undoubtedly be every bit as successful as “Love & Trust” (2006) and the “unplugged” “Live & Clean” (2008). The Tide put the cherry on top with yet another of their hits, “Do You Worry Now?”, and the women in the crowd especially sang along gently with Tomaž one last time that night.
And so another first-rate gig by Slovenian artists came to an end. It’s just a shame more people didn’t turn up. The listeners clearly have no ear, and not a spare minute, for supporting those who put quality music first and aren’t just in it for the profit.
Photos: Mojca Perdih
Setlist
1. Intro 2. Midnight Shooter 3. Whirl of Time 4. Stay Out of My Place 5. On Your Way 6. You Could Try 7. Bitter Dream 8. Cosmic 9. Whisper 10. Monday Sleeper 11. Your River Wild 12. Intro + Desire 13. Pop Soul 14. Carry On 15. Snow! 16. Letters From The Other Side 17. High Tide 18. Shine 19. Do You Worry Now?
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