Author: Urban Bolta
Location: Cvetličarna / Ljubljana / Slovenia
Concert date: June 14, 2013
Attendance: 300
Ticket price: €0.00 (free admission)
As part of Bežigradfest, which brings a different act from one rock’n’roll subgenre or another to the Slovenian capital every day this June, The Drinkers returned to Ljubljana on Friday, June 14. They’re a by now legendary rock band from the Zasavje region. The Drinkers started writing their story twenty years ago, when Sandi Kolenc – Koli and Robert Likar, former guitarist of Niet, founded the band. The Drinkers went down in Slovenian rock’n’roll history as the champions of party rock, full of alcoholic incest, and with their sound in tune with the Slovenian mentality, winning over a loyal fan base was never going to be hard.
A lot has happened in twenty years. Serious health problems tied to an unhealthy lifestyle forced frontman Koli to leave the band, and Maki stepped into his shoes, recording the album »Hajdi« (2007) with them. Maki brought some punk rock spirit into the band, but his arrival also kicked off the years when The Drinkers’ popularity among the Slovenian rock community dipped. There was even a period of silence, before the news hit two years ago that Koli was coming back to The Drinkers. Cleaned up and sober, but still the same iconic guy who lent his voice to so many of the band’s hits during their almost fifteen years together.
It was a little before ten in the evening when the opening track Mat K. cut into the relaxed atmosphere of the Cvetličarna outdoor auditorium, with a tribute riff to Riblja Čorba and Van Halen thrown in along the way. The initially reserved relationship between band and crowd started to heat up over the first few songs, thanks to the late hour and the first beers going down, especially once The Drinkers served up some of their better-known tunes, like I Love Alcohol and Lit’r vina. The invisible barrier came crashing down for good when Koli called on the crowd with a comic address to step a few paces closer: “Don’t be scared of us, we can’t do anything to you: Mutvar’s back is killing him, Likar has wrecked knees, and my ticker’s giving me hell. Come closer!”
The Drinkers are currently in the studio, where they’ll record their first studio album with Koli in over a decade. The Cvetličarna show was therefore a relaxed affair for the band, though they also debuted a few new songs. Huda baba, Debeli avion and Recidiv proved that their ship is still sailing strong in the sea of drink’n’roll.
The Drinkers lineup is made up of the aforementioned Sandi Kolenc on vocals and Robert Likar on guitar, Miro Mutvar on bass, returning member Primož Trebec on keyboards, and on drums none other than Klemen Markelj, who had already played Bežigradfest a week earlier as a live member of the Black Diamond project. The combination of the seasoned, long-serving foursome on one side and Klemen’s youth and technical chops on the other gave the band a reliable delivery of mostly original material. The band left all the reins to Koli, who was the only one working the crowd, and who predictably had them laughing during Kralj hoste with a real, honest-to-god chainsaw! True, endless mugs of beer didn’t go down his throat during the show the way they used to, but Koli still entertained the audience effortlessly the whole time with his charismatic approach. Likar and Mutvar, the band’s grey eminences, seasoned and greased with every hard-won trick in the book, followed the bouncy tempo and visibly enjoyed the show. No strain and a smile on their faces. In keeping with the average Friday night, then.
The biggest hits, true drunken rock anthems Pijemo ga radi, Deset majhnih jagorv, Žeja and Mafalda, were saved by The Drinkers for the final stretch of the show, with which they marked their first twenty years in front of their most loyal followers. When they came back out, they played four more songs, and for the finish, two covers: Kreni prema meni (Partibrejkers) and Rebell Yell (Billy Idol).
“After all the booze I’ve downed, all the rock’n’roll I’ve played, all the nights I’ve partied away – I’m still here”, goes one line from the band that fits The Drinkers like a glove! Twenty years of ups and downs, twenty years of defying the scene, that’s our Drinkers, eternal heroes of drinking songs! May the heavens be kind to them, so that their tunes echo from the stage for at least as many years again!
Setlist
1. Mat K.
2. Lepi in trezni
3. Alkohol je moj idol
4. Gnus
5. Trboule
6. Huda baba
7. I Love Alcohol
8. Lit’r vina
9. Debeli avion
10. Recidiv
11. Rjava podmornica
12. Jawohl
13. Na stol
14. Privat Bog
15. Fa fa fa
16. Kralj hoste
17. Ko to tamo peva
18. Ko boš prišla na Bled
19. Slovenac
20. Pijemo ga radi
21. Deset majhnih jagrov
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22. Žeja
23. Mafalda
24. Kreni prema meni
25. Rebell Yell
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