Veterans Are One More Reason for Intense Stage Flights (2013)

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 11 June 2026

Author: Sandi Sadar Šoba
Photos: Jerneja Jerak

Location: Orto bar, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Concert date: 01.03.2013
Attendance: 60 – 100
Ticket price: €4

Punk was and remains one of those musical chapters that makes room for political activism and a revolutionary spirit just as much as for fuck-it-all partying and taking the piss out of supposedly deadly serious stuff. You don’t have to look for proof in encyclopedias or in the dusty junk room of the past, but empirically – below the stages of joints like Orto, where, on the initiative of the fired-up organizers from the Dirty Skunks camp, both the spirit and the substance of the nineties are being revived, tailored to the taste and recession-gutted pockets of millennial youth. Drunk in public is a gorgeous name that promises a bit of boozy unwinding, as well as what the uncles from California shook up the youth with two decades ago through their look and their message – uncles who knew how to stand on the boards, and still do. NOFX, SNFU, Lagwagon and similar names, which everybody mentioned and listened to daily back then, were an adrenaline-fueled alternative to smoke-filled grunge pessimism, metal aloofness and the pop-flavored posing of gold-toothed ghetto rappers. Twenty years later the recipe is still pretty much the same, but on the heads and inside the heads of those frontline fighters of the day, it’s not just the hair colors that have changed, but also the reasons they keep making music. Slovenia is no different here from the folks across the ocean, there’s just way less money and way less high-quality produced music. Remember bands like Dreamwalk, Multiball, Leaf Fat and Backstage? They were the standard-bearers of Slovenia’s belated answer to the fashion commandment of sunny California, and I have to admit that many of them have, over the years, carved themselves into damn good musicians, seasoned entertainers and, above all, people who, at least judging by what you saw and heard, stayed in your (more or less) fond memory in the medium term, if not the long term.

Precisely because good stuff needs to be consumed often, and good stuff supposedly rarely gives you a headache, I was pretty happy about the announcement that Backstage were returning to Slovenian stages after a rather long break, and even happier about the news that Orto would be shaken up by the soldiery of Golliwog from Ribnica, who’d been in what we might call semi-voluntary cryosleep for a while. With the latter, the package includes not just music but plenty of political engagement, activist subversion and other substance that’s still so badly needed these days! So the decision was easy – the first Friday of March had to kick off with a gig in the temple of Ljubljana’s club enlightenment – Orto bar. Since there was quite a lot on the bill, with three bands sharing the stage this time, shortly after Orto’s front doors opened, a little after nine in the evening, a bunch of not-yet-too-seasoned garage artists from Prekmurje took the stage. Hand In Mine are a still fairly unknown five-piece from around Murska Sobota, trying to serve up their blend of post-HC and melodic HC in that by now rather irritating generic way, where it makes no difference whether your player is spinning the architecturally perfect sound of a somewhat out-of-ideas Architects, the party-minded Aussies Parkway Drive, the benign-sounding We Came As Romans or the hard-hitting echelon of Suicide Silence, because the recipe is damn similar – guitar riffs, lots of rhythmic breakdowns and world-weary screams of tortured throatiness, where the lyrics aren’t even that important, since you can’t understand them on first listen anyway. Kidding! I have complete respect for all these guys, but it’s interesting to see how the local imitators go about this kind of aesthetic. Hand In Mine are guitarist Timi Aiden, drummer Edi Hajdinjak, and bassist and former guitarist Simon Breznik, with the rhythmic work this time backed up by the new, not yet full-fledged guitarist Zoran Fijavž, who was taking the stage with the guys for the first time. The energetic and ideological heart of the band is vocalist Jan Jurkovič, a youngster from Murska Sobota who resembles a rejuvenated and, for now, still blank-slate version of the sadly late Mitch Lucker, the guttural muscleman of Suicide Silence. Does the guy sound like him too, and is the band able to fill the shoes they’ve so ambitiously set out for themselves? All beginnings are hard, and Hand In Mine had the tough task of shifting straight into top gear in front of a completely empty room. Even more seasoned tomcats barely pull that off, but Hand In Mine tackled the job bravely. The song Sea Of Inspiration was supposed to break the ice, but the doubts were confirmed. Whether from nerves or lack of stage experience, Hand In Mine plowed virgin soil in a rather scattered, rhythmically confused and visibly forced way. The guitars sound out of tune, pale and chewed over a million times already, the drums hesitant and indecisive, and the bass – entirely fused and in tune with that sonic picture. Jan stepped off the stage and sought direct contact and genuine feedback from the cynical handful of individuals right below it, while the audience stayed at a safe distance that the calls for contact and some livening up couldn’t bridge, not even the slightly uncomfortable and clumsy appeals of the band’s first orator. You can’t judge a book by its cover, and you can’t judge a band by its haircuts, because if that were the case I’d have written the guys off in the first second as yet another one-day emo fad, yet beneath a ton of poorly articulated live imagery hides at least a pinch of substance that could enrich the Slovenian music scene. I’m not claiming there’s much revolutionary wisdom or much-needed uniqueness in leaning sonically on the post-HC tradition of melodic screaming! The listenability of monotonously repeating patterns could also be debated – during Precious Distance (which captured the spirit of the below-the-stage stalagmites who only rarely clapped at the end of songs, let alone launched into some below-the-stage dancing with a bit more guttural backup), Clean, Motionless and Something More I had the feeling that the music kept circling around the same center, the same three chords, the same moves and the same ineffective claustrophobic closedness of trendy commandments. For the sake of the youngsters’ self-confidence and mental health, I hope they’ll inject a bit more of their own balls, courage and determination into their collective soul, and above all drive out of their current musical craftsmanship all that black-and-white seriousness and the oath of allegiance to “correctness”, that formalist unimaginativeness tied to a single fence.

I expected a lot more from what followed, and as the second act, the veterans in years, stage mileage and studio experience soon took over the stage – Ljubljana’s party-starters Backstage. These guys, part of our stage scene since 2001, are easiest to describe as the Slovenian answer to the phalanxes of entertainers, easygoing types and bon vivants from the circle around Fat Wreck Chords. If you’re looking for a homegrown counterpart to the notorious NOFX, you’ll find plenty of it while listening to the records Backstage, Trends Are Changing or the album Independent, but more than the sound, what matters and counts is the live stage picture. And that’s all about total fun and letting off steam. The strong aces are clear – besides being a talented bartender who may well have served you a beer at Irish, Mitja Uhan is also a musical jack-of-all-trades and the driver of dynamics in Backstage, since besides the bass he handles vocals too. Mičo is, in other words, the Slovenian Fat Mike, and in place of dreadlocked Eric Melvin, the left side of the stage is taken by the always good-humored guitarist and vocal comrade-in-arms Andrej Ogris. On drums, far more confident than in the overture, sits Luka Virens, and the spot of the currently injured guitarist Tomaž Pišlar is filled, without any weirdness, by a talented member of Lombardo and Taking Over Mars, the gifted guitarist Alex Mladenov. Backstage radiate completely different energy at first glance. Hungry to perform and above all for pure adrenaline, they start their set with the opening punch of their latest record Independent, the song Trust. The pleasant surprise is that Backstage prove right from the start that they have more edge and quality live than on the polished record, and below the stage the old fans, and especially the female fans, who have morphed from teenagers into ladies with the status of legal adults in every country, immediately start to rampage. Despite the somewhat higher average age, that doesn’t mean any less movement or crowd dynamics. Quite the opposite, nothing was missing down there – from singing and dancing to hip-swaying and the first attempts at a more restrained pogo, drawn in by the fun skate-punk simplicity. A melodic gem from the record Trends Are Changing takes care of the jump into the past, and the easygoing little number Believe In Me shifts things into a higher gear. The guys on stage sound coherent, and even after the strap tears off Andrej’s supposedly “fat” guitar, the vibe doesn’t spoil. These guys are jokers, and they prove their seasoning by Mičo presenting a minor hiccup as something completely natural, and Backstage soon launch into full tempo with the song Independent. The new, temporarily borrowed blood in the form of the talented Alex turns out to be the right choice, as the band’s punching power remains unspoiled, and Mič isn’t even knocked out by a plush heart thrown straight at his crotch. Love occasionally hits you in the balls too, and the continuation sounded anything but neutered. Besides lyrics in “Amerikanščina”, Backstage can also plow hard when armed with homegrown Slovenian lyrics, and the song Nov dan, nov svet serves up the easygoing lyricism of a musically schooled Generation X, in a way that may have made you laugh with Zablujena generacija. And there’s no shortage of that in the forecast for the future either. I may be wrong. It’s also possible that something has slipped my rather leaky memory, but it’s precisely the songs V mislih si and Ulice brez luči that point to Backstage having in their bag, which is supposed to open soon for the ears and wallets of a music-hungry crowd too, quite a few unheard aces so far! The present, the future and the (recent) past can all quite naturally and beautifully shake hands along the whole front. And besides aces from their own records, there’s room for borrowing from colleagues in the trade, though not in the genre. The audience gets fired up and sent into their first airborne flights this evening by a solid and bold rendition of the Avsenik brothers’ Na Roblek, during which the fun and ear-to-ear smiling Andrej also proves himself as a seasoned squeezer of the accordion’s bellows! The association with Eric Melvin comes back to the foreground, doesn’t it? After the truly worldly cynical and naive pamphlet of the song Dougcajt (Mič adds, among other things, a previously unwritten verse that when his darling is naked next to him, he’s still bored …), and a few more interludes, the listeners – including my sister-in-law – get shot into a state of ecstasy by yet another borrowed number from the jokers of Blink 182, the song Dammit. Mark Hoppus, the always unserious Tom DeLonge and the always precise Travis Barker get a Slovenian stage homage, and I have to admit that this one, from the fingers of the Ljubljana talents, doesn’t sound lame or pointless at all. Beer flows in streams, and the toasts from the crowd with bottles raised toward the stage are a sign of approval, not threats. After the song Someday, the only one defending the colors of the debut, the concert comes to a successful end, and the guys quite rightfully head backstage for their dose of relaxation, hops and a liter or two of oxygen, which they undoubtedly missed on the stage of a jam-packed Orto.

And then it was time for the grand finale. The Ribnica anarcho-punk activists Golliwog, with their anti-globalist, anti-corporate call for revolt, justice and veganism, are real musical loners in the Slovenian music sky, and it’s precisely because of this fullness and unfeigned sincerity that they won me over already on festival stages. After Punk Rock Holiday and No Border Jam I sniffed around a bit more intensively after these slightly less fresh lads and lass (the band has been on the scene since 1998), and I didn’t regret it. The hard-hitting record More Than Meets D.I.Y. was followed this year by a studio sequel, the record Plague Allegiance, and the recipe remains the same – a nonconformist stance that has no intention of submitting to the demand for a new world order of the fourth reich and democratic totalitarianism, fighting against the conspiracies of the age we live in in an intelligent and intellectual way, backed by an HC sound and never mainstream-style alliteration on the subject of punk. The band named itself after a black hero from a children’s book from the early 20th century, whom various racist organizations later portrayed as a symbol of racial segregation. Florence Kate Upton gave birth to the character at the end of the 19th century, and if the demeaning tone of racism still had any place in the world back then, it certainly doesn’t belong in an era in which we’re all supposedly equal. The offensive dolls with stereotypical features of Black people were labeled politically incorrect, although you can still find them today in better-stocked souvenir shops. Golliwog thus show all the irony and idiocy of the human race through changes in time, which is what the band wants to point out, while stressing that they’re against racism, nationalism, sexism and all forms of violence, exploitation and oppression of the weak. That part says everything or nothing, because their onslaught onto the stage is a chapter in itself. Vocalist Saša, strapped into a Les Paul, bassist Matej, who reminds you of the organizer Črt, guitarist Vid and punchy drummer Rok are champions of a thick-sounding, noisy and unpolished fast HC expression. The hyper-energetic opening stampede of Wonderful Toys hits as hard as NOFX could and knew how to in their early days. Even more so when the comely singer steps up to the mic and a not-at-all-soft or ball-less oratory of messages begins! The Devil Came From Texas creeps in among the toys thrown out at the start like a usurper par excellence, and the sweat starts pouring in streams. The melody, punch and sharpness do hide a little behind the rough sound and the hunt for the right heartbeat on Orto’s stage, but it’s obvious that the chemistry between Ribnica and Ljubljana is instant! The pogo turns into an evidently mightier circle-pit chaos, and after calls for an official stage-diving contest, where the main prize is a free copy of the latest record, numerous representatives (no fewer women among them) launch into risky leaps into the crowd. Mask Of Sanity is angry and guttural, Golliwog plow on without mercy, and the tempo doesn’t ease the steel grip by an inch. Fun is guaranteed, and so are injuries. After a few really extreme jumps into the audience, one of the fired-up young women’s fall later proves fatal for her ankle, but the help, the lifts and the unbridled synergy of absolutely everyone at the evening weave an organic web of anti-corporate rage, fun and a desire for total discharge. That NOFX are key alongside SNFU, Dead Kennedys, Black Flag, The Exploited, Misfits and D.R.I. is shown by the song Sixpack, and even more by the exceptionally raw rendition of Linolleum. Golliwog settle scores with antiheroes, the obscure scumbags of our age and all the fashion fads, pouring such a hearty dose of message, slogans and good music into your ears. Any one of the songs can be a reference, but more than individual musical loners, what matters is that Golliwog are able to breathe with their own lungs and think with their own heads regardless of all the consequences. »People, I beg you, think for yourselves – and stop eating animals!« may be the motto that led some die-hard carnivores, who can’t accept the egalitarianism of humans and animals alike, to revolt, during which they later shook out over beer their pointless and groundless arguments, according to which “they love animals, but even more on plates”. And let there be no mistake: they wouldn’t eat polar foxes, but apparently there’s even a humane form of animal holocaust. Despite the agitation and inflamed passions, only one thing is clear – Golliwog are a band you won’t stay indifferent to! And in the spirit of positive exhilaration and adrenaline fever, all I can admit is that the net result of the evening was really positive, and the winners were above all the tomcats with the longer stage mileage.

Drunk In Public is thus a franchise that promises more intense letting-off-steam and reviving memories of the past. There are still enough names on the Slovenian scene capable of serving up high-quality punk or HC, and besides the veterans there are more and more young enthusiasts. The latter still have to build a name for themselves, and besides formal reputation, they need even more substance, balls and stage excursions into the slightly less familiar. Unpredictability or predictability, melody or the disharmony of noise – regardless of the color, length or shape of the hairdo, all that matters is that something potent, intelligent and sincere can ferment beneath the scalp, and that’s exactly what it takes for music to survive the test of time. Golliwog and Backstage have already survived this stage, while Hand In Mine still have a lot of work ahead. Still, all we can do is hope that their enthusiasm won’t buckle even after somewhat more direct criticism. Sometimes it’s better, instead of a sparrow in the hand, to dream and long for pigeons or albatrosses on the roof. I’m counting on miracles in advance, and after the first March excursion into an ocean of drunken punkoidness, all I can say is: »Thumbs up, Orto! I hope your enthusiasm doesn’t fade and let go of you that easily!«