Author: Sandi Sadar Šoba
Venue: Gospodarsko razstavišče, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Concert date: November 6, 2013
Attendance: 2,000 – 3,000
Ticket price: €7 (presale) / €12 (day of the event)
I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong and I’m actually hitting that stage of aging where every event write-up can start with »well, when I was that age …«, but I think this time too we’re looking at the overture to »the biggest all-night exam in a student’s life« – I’m talking about the event called Bruc 2013, of course, which reminded me of the by-now fairly distant year 1996, when I sat down on the university benches myself and got my initiation into student life at a very real event with a similar name. And what’s the difference between the fuzzy-mustached teenagers of today and those of, ufff, I won’t say how many years ago? Mostly that in an age of internet saturation, information reaches the right ears and eyes faster, so you’d expect way more party-hungry youth at these venues than back in my Stone Age, when you grabbed a flyer and rolled over to wherever the fun was promised. Years ago these events drew more people – from 10 thousand to a bit over – and from year to year the recession trend, the decline in both the number of visitors and the number of stages and performers, is visible pretty much everywhere, and at freshers’ parties even more so. There are fewer pow-wows of the young and the slightly less young over a liter of the cheapest wine or beer in public spaces. Less laughter and optimism. Less of that driving energy that makes you hope that once the world passes into younger hands, a change for the better might actually be doable. I don’t want to shatter any illusions, but this year’s attempt at escaping far away from our worries was part of that predictable flow of events and thoughts too – an event that should have been crowned by the solemn oath of young men and women who have only just taken their first bite of the apple of higher education, barely scratching it. The reason may be in the pretty hefty entrance fee (seven euros in presale and twelve on the day of the November switch-off at Gospodarc), which for many a pocket is decidedly too much these days. The musical treats promised across two stages were plentiful. On the smaller stage, the lovers of synthetic sounds and dancing were promised their fix by DJs, masters of mixers and turntables like Gramophonedzie, Sharkastique Tunes a.k.a. Shark, Jaka & Sylvain, Angel Anx, Alex Cvetkov and Daniel Greenx, while on the main stage of the infamous Kocka the more organic fun was provided by Preprosto Črni, Da Phenomena, the fast-tongued master Trkaj, then the always party-ready Big Foot Mama, the Dolenjska poets of broad emotion Dan D, the indestructible Pero Lovšin and Španski Borci, and finally a band that will remind you of that POP TV ad, Muff. So for everyone not held back by a work schedule, an empty wallet, lack of time or family obligations, there were plenty of reasons to head out into the chill of a November night, out of sheer curiosity and a wish to empirically verify whether it’s still possible to have fun and feel relaxed and happy these days – and our site’s crew pointed their steps toward the Gospodarsko razstavišče too.
At half past eight, when the party was supposed to start, the space in front of the Kocka stage was completely empty, and under the boards, above which the sponsors’ ads glittered in the background, there hung a strange feeling that the whole thing would end up closer to a sad procession of a few sober people and numerous drunk teenagers than to a spectacle, which could kill the motivation even of the stage veterans with serious mileage who were called up there to entertain and cheer up the people. Schedules have to be kept, so at almost exactly the appointed time, half past eight, the first to take the stage in front of a completely empty hall (unless you count the bar, the sound engineer and three representatives of the seventh estate) was a young band infected with good music from Styria (with one comely Styrian lady), going by the name Preprosto črni. This young band, who weave elements of soul, funk, pop and old-school rock into their spectrum, was completely unknown to me, and the total vacuum in front of the stage didn’t bring the quintet to its knees. The chemistry between the playful, jazzy keys of Pavle Fužir, the wind-light rhythmic strolls of Jure Kladnik’s bass and Luka Venek’s drums, and the guitar inserts of the somewhat less audible Nejc Robida, topped off by the dominant lady, musical Amazon Lucija Fužir, who holds up more than three walls of the band’s sound structure. They sound tight and well-schooled, and within the contours of Neca Falk (probably because of Lucija’s powerful vocal outshining of the dreamy depressive, with a ringing voice and a good sense of humor and dance) there’s also a layer of the black darkness of Ella Fitzgerald, the raspiness of Ike and Tina, and on top of that something more foreign still pours in. Besides original songs, which sound homely in their own endearing emotional way but don’t burn themselves into memory on the first listen, the stage rang with challenges for SAZAS, like the song from the film Babica gre na jug, I Want All Of You, the always welcome Ray Charles, Tracy Chapman, and best of all, the energy in the empty auditorium was lifted by a well-done, quality version of Mr. Cabdriver, which Lenny Kravitz launched into the world nicely spiced up. The remaining flashes of positivity, light and warmth, love and happiness were, sarcastically speaking, aimed at the invisible crowds who were jostling in front of the stage (if you can believe it). Too bad, because Preprosto črni are a thoroughly likable band who wouldn’t bore you, but they need a bit more time to weave a little more dirt, grit and soul into their compendium of sound, which even pop rock aimed at a more demanding audience needs. The textbook meter they’ve learned is correct and consistent, the music played at a good level, but the spark of passion is missing, the one that would let me say I’d succumbed to their love songs myself.
Because of personal prejudices that crept in I don’t know when, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to what came next. Da Phenomena had stuck with me as a name promising nothing but pop music, a bit of faked Rastafarianism and a heap of tunes I was already sick of from the radio, but it turned out that in five years of absence many crucial and eternally necessary things can happen. The duo of Mate Brodar’s guitar and Anže Langus Petrović’s bass, the two main pillars of the band, took in a third member, Jure Rozman, who sat down behind the drums during the pause and the preparation for the start of the gig, got set, and backed the more massive tandem of Bro’s Strat and Anže’s jazz bass with one hundred percent precision. The percussive sounds of dirtier funk and the more concrete rhythm of the song Pelji me lure a few more curious heads to the front of the stage, apart from some light foot-tapping and reserved following of the parabola of well-played music, which Anže accompanies with slightly sarcastic, snarky remarks about the »crowd« in the hall. Da Phenomena sound punchier live than on the truly super-polished radio versions of love songs that practically reek of fairly linear, thoroughly worn-out standards of dreaminess and sugary rhymes, but what can you do – that’s what sells. On top of that, the guys are funk-dirty to the soul and smudged with the smoke of reggae and Haile Selassie (as much as Sting and his Police resonate with a Jamaican note), and in between there’s room for the danceability of Jamiroquai and Prince as well as the punchy ska note of Rancid with some Hendrix admixtures. Da Phenomena are quality musicians who can squeeze something more than average radio-friendly catchiness out of their hearts, but amid the echo and reverb of the sonically catastrophic Kocka, that lovely dirt doesn’t quite come through. A lovely associative sonic link to Kravitz with the song Do sonca, after a couple of interludes and a funkoid extended version of Punce in fantje, where Bro changes the lyrics to suit the turnout, upgraded with the punkoid mischievous song Nočem te nazaj, which sounds sharper and more uncompromising this time, and Da Phenomena win points, at least on my side, more with a dirty sound than with the glittering kitsch of truly diabetic pop. A balm for the soul were the trips into the unknown with the caressing rhythms of Walking On The Moon by the legendary The Police, even more so the slide into Hendrix’s dreaminess from the era of the albums Are You Expirienced or Axis Bold As Love, and at the end a dose of sweet nineties with Timebomb by the legendary ska punkers Rancid, which keeps Da Phenomena from sounding cheap and aping the more eminent names from across the pond, and makes them come across more like men who have even more power under the surface than they’ve been willing to reveal so far. Then the finale in a more pop-ish way with the song Pejdap. It can only go up from here, and if there hasn’t been any dancing so far, wait for what’s next!
The biggest surprise, as far as party vibes and lyrical intelligence go, was the young fast-tongued 30-year-old wunderkind of Slovenian rap – the indestructible and obedient-to-no-one Trkaj, who gathered a really sizeable crowd in front of the stage. This time Rok shared the stage with two young souls who know how to serve up good music. The opener Fantom iz opere announced a theatrical return after three years of absence, and only a handful of people instead of the expected endless mass of visitors got to feel the kinetic energy of the engine, basically made up of the dynamic, mic-and-stage-seasoned Trkaj and DJ Dey on the turntables, and when the young singer with the mighty soprano stepped on stage in a hoodie, Patricija Selan, felt and heard for the first time by many, the needle of quality was set two or three levels higher on the scale of expectations. Trkaj commands the crowd, and even better, living up to his name, he knows how to knock on the soul and conscience of those gathered, with the realization that times aren’t exactly rosy for anyone and that we’ll have to come together more effectively and actively and get the world off the dead spot. »A salute to the positive energy among us, even if it’s only in a glass,« said the young freestyle rap champion, nicely calling out senseless escapism from reality, after which all we could do was breathe in and out with the charged air of the song Dihi, then after the Unicef-engaged song Some Of Them (Trkaj recorded the latter with a small troop of Slovenian talented rhymesmiths, among them Zlatko, King, B Fine, T-Set …), the evergreen anthem about busy Ljubljana airheads, Ljubljančanke, thundered through Gospodarc. Trkaj doesn’t mince words and sends his criticism to the right addressees, and since the mating ritual without a new Audi or some other car and without a crib is practically impossible with Ljubljana girls anyway, Nov avto was right on the money. The lovely groove continues with the song Vse kar mam. »All I have is my music, my feelings poured onto paper,« confesses the floored Trkaj, who rightfully knocked the socks off many who had come to Bruc more for a dose of malignani (cheap booze) and rock, and got some intelligent use of Slovenian instead. Svet je moj, then Pleš and touching Nirvana, at least with an interlude, in between proof of the intellectual and sonic dominance over Ljubljana’s torpor and the state of sameness, with good support from young Patricija and the splendidly inspired Dey, and on top of it all, with a firm contact of tongue and vocal cords on the microphone membrane, the exceptional Rok. The young orator of positivity and mental revolution put out the record Vse je OK this year, but the lad isn’t offering it in the classic form of the label dance by corporate rules; instead, Rok intends to finance it through voluntary fan donations. Bold and punchy, and at the same time you really wonder how many donations and actual funds the talented artist will actually get in his mailbox ([email protected]). After the fade-out of Armstrong’s ode to the world, What A Wonderful World, Trkaj leaves the stage, and after the short and unconvincing musical game of three girls and one guy, who should have sung just the chorus of any song by that night’s performers to earn their trip to Budapest with Collegium, apart from two miserable versions of Črni tulipan and Voda by Dan D, nothing concrete stays in my memory about the catchiness of the next performers, but that’s a matter of personal view, of course.
The rowdy youngsters on their booze need a bit of motherly care from a big-footed mama, and that every single year, so it’s no wonder that when Big Foot Mama, who play the freshers’ party every year without fail, were announced, the hall filled up to practically the last corner, and the kids started filling the front rows like cattle, not caring whether anyone was standing in front of them or not. The Ljubljana veterans of well-supported party rock kicked off the show with a song that could be meaningful – Slab spomin, but senility from a phalanx made up of the indestructible Gregor Skočir, plus drummer Jože Habula, long-haired Alen Steržaj on bass, and well-tuned guitars in the hands of Daniel Gregorič and former Majke defender Zoran Čalić. The hall didn’t rest from the echo and the clash of BFM sounds with eardrums, and the crowd, as always with BFM, ate out of the stars’ hands. And the latter lit up Iskre, flirted with Mala nimfomanka, took off their Oklep and admitted to being all sorts of things, as Gregor puts it, though Nor sigurno ne … The Big Foots have quite a few hits up their sleeve, and given that the hall showed a pulse and signs of life for the first time, that the youngsters sang happily along with every snap of Skočir’s fingers and there was no shortage of good fun, you’d almost expect a revolt had BFM stuck strictly to the length of their set, which, by the way, they deliberately extended by more than half an hour. So we got at least Užitek na replay, remembered the good old days, or just refreshed a faded memory of last year’s Križanke visit or one of the shows on the tour for the album Izhod. Nekaj sladkega was no no-show either, as the cherry on top of such a long and tiring day, and it’s always important that Važn da zadane Led s severa. As if the Big Foots were writing their own script and shooting their own movie, since nobody dared resist or object to their stage domination, and after the announcement of the last song of the night, in the spirit of the always fashionable black for rockers and metalheads (Črn tulipan), the euphoria peaked and the organizers were a bit embarrassed, since only two scenarios followed – either they’d shorten the remaining sets, or the party would go on till inhumanly late (or early) morning hours. They chose the first option …
After the big-footed mama left, a new generation of freshly minted students took their hesitant oath, vowing to try pretty much everything. Quickly and visibly nervous, the Dolenjska bringers of a sea of emotions then took their positions on stage. The quintet from Dolenjska plans to release a new record soon, but not before next year, and the men of the lineup are taking time this go-round instead of rushing, for a bit more sober reflection and the choice of the right trump cards for continuing the success story, which for some in the hall wasn’t the gig at Bruc. Personally, I’m on the band’s side this time, since facing the hall’s sound was closest to a horror movie or a catastrophic vision of how it would never be good to play good music with good musicians. Some would have vented their anger with even more low-resolution noise. Dan D tackled the Kocka’s roar in a different, less booming way than their predecessors, so after Tokac’s longer dreamy dialogues with the thinned-out audience came the a cappella song Rekli so, and the next one was already the successful but this time, thanks to the echoes, not so crystal-clear Voda, which rocked the audience into a calmer state of concert Zen. The Novo mesto quintet of excellent musicians, who besides Tomislav Jovanović – Tokac on vocals include former Demolition Group member Nikola Sekulović on bass, the exceptional sensualist Boštjan Grubar on keys, Dušan Obradinovič – Obro on drums and Marko Turk – Tučot on guitar, resolved to calm the heart’s revolutions. A slow slide of well-played but really slow songs, like, tellingly, Počasi and Jutranja, was followed in between by a bit of guitar wake-up for all the glued-together guys and gals. AC/DC are a real trump card (You Shook Me All Night Long fit nicely into the context of an all-night party), and so are Divje Jagode (why do I always think right away of the song Motori, which then resounds in the room with the suggestive modulation of the exceptional Turk?). Niet is a good send-off for Ljubljana, but when Dan D, in a whole set of their own exceptional songs (after Roke, Moj problem, the lately topical Google for the disconnected, came the already quite aged but always sweet hit Plešeš …) Lep dan za smrt, I think that something negative and pessimistic has smuggled itself into the story. »Forbidden thoughts are in the air, someone knows our true state. / Don’t you think there are fewer and fewer people? / Dangerous games on the edge of taste, the chosen ones dance above us. / Don’t you think it hurts less and less? / From the local phenomenon …« Dan D ask melancholically, while many teenage boys and girls, worn out by alcohol, excess happiness, euphoria or simply the late hour, began to buckle under the pressure of Time and started gathering in larger numbers by the auditorium doors, and after the fairly contemplative and Zen-calm mood in the hall, following the principle of »as they came, so they went«, louder times began to loom in the company of Španski Borci and the Teflon Pero.
The second-to-last act of the night was followed by only half of Rockline’s crew, since some of us, thanks to the truly inhuman late hour of half past two in the morning, had morning work for survival waiting on our backs. Pero Lovšin, backed in recent years by the accompanying band Španski borci, has played Bruc before, and after a multi-year break, besides the latest record Še en krog, the valiant legend of Ljubljana punk, the face and voice of Pankrti, Sokoli and more engaged revolt, has over time become more commercially tied to the contact with the past, and it was anything but nostalgia that warmed the youth this time – it was a good atmosphere and the embrace of alcohol fumes that fairly wafted from below the stage. When the cherry trees bloomed, Čist nor, Hiša nasprot sonca, then Marija pomagej mi, Bandiera Rossa mustn’t be missing either, of course, and a good party is guaranteed both by the good stage show of the visibly high-spirited Pero and by the tightness of the soldiery of musicians who’ve been backing him in recent years. After the penultimate fade-out of tart, raspy vocals and out-of-tune searching for the right intonation, which is Pero’s trademark anyway, it was time for a sprint, a photo finish and the closing, with the last band, with the telling, softly fuzzy name Muff, and after a troop of male frontmen, the shapely singer Senidah, already seen two years ago, showed off her charm in front of a good 300 attendees. A Ljubljana band you of course associate with the POP TV ad, since their catchy song Naj sije v očeh became the soundtrack to the ad for the biggest commercial television in Slovenia. Catchy pop, which besides the strumming undertones of Tadej Košir’s sweet guitar (brother of Toronto Drug Bust frontman Izak), Grega Robič’s well-measured bass and Doriand Grande’s drums, and the piano cries of Miha Gorše, has as its main trump card the charming and, despite the late hour, cheerful and fresh singer Senidah, whose vocals lean a bit toward Anastacia or Pink. There were covers this time too, and in front of the stage, in the female, slightly muffled tone of the singer’s voice, rang out Bruno Mars (Locked Out Of Heaven), then Rudimental (Waiting All Night), Pink (Funhouse), Lady Gaga (Just Dance), Chaka Khan (Ain’t Nobody), and for the closing act Kings Of Leon (Use Somebody). The question that, despite a perfectly correct performance, is in order: why so much dressing up in borrowed feathers? Anyone with a bit of creativity can stand tall with their own creations, and borrowed stuff is …
Most of the intelligent lines and verses simply got lost in the echo of the grotesquely dysfunctional auditorium, so one rightly wonders why the organizers so stubbornly insist both on renting the same venue and the same sound system, and why the recipe for picking the headliners, despite a decent response, stays the same year after year? Year by year more plucked-thin crowds in front of the stages are no great send-off for an event that mustn’t become an end in itself, which, sadly, has been happening persistently in recent years. The sonic image of the bands is just as important as stage lights and songs, so I’d appeal to those in charge to give some thought to the fact that not everyone agrees with that curtailed stage sound, not everyone who gets a coin or two tossed into their pockets by the Student Organization and a few others. Everything stays at the same level, and the level is even getting worse year by year. That may also be a result of my personal subjective view, my passage into more mature middle age, but then again, maybe there’s even a grain of truth in all of it? Either way – the exhausting marathon of cheap booze, alcohol fumes, forced fun, dismal sound and tried-and-true recipes proved to be an event that can be presented as something megalomaniacal, but by no means perfect. The shortcomings can be found and even fixed in the future. I’m no negativist and I believe in positive turns for the better, but this time I can say that everything we heard and saw was unshaking, without peaks, but with some exceptional extras that gave the evening a punchier sound and flavor. I’d congratulate all the performers for taking on the infamous curse of the Kocka and surviving it, for showing their stage professionalism and making something out of that little bit in a big space, something we can call an event, a happening, whatever it was this time.
Setlist
PREPROSTO ČRNI:
1. Peljem – PREPROSTO ČRNI
2. Stari bar – PREPROSTO ČRNI
3. I want all of you – BABICA GRE NA JUG
4. Pravljica – PREPROSTO ČRNI
7. Halleluyah i love him so – RAY CHARLES
8. Kadar sva sama – PREPROSTO ČRNI
9. Prišla je z vzhoda – PREPROSTO ČRNI
10. Mr.caB driver – LENNY KRAVITZ
11. Give me one reason – TRACY CHAPMAN
12. Ljubimec – PREPROSTO ČRNI
DA PHENOMENA:
1. Guantanamo Bay
2. Pelji me
3. Skupaj sva
4. Do sonca
5. Iznad neba
6. Punce in fantje
7. Nočem te nazaj
8. Nov dan
9. Jočem
10. Timebomb
11. Pejdap
TRKAJ:
1. Fantom iz opere
2. Dihi z mano
3. Some of them
4. Ljubljančanke
5. Nov avto
6. William Tell
7. Vse kar imam
8. Sam
9. Dobro jutro
10. Svet je moj
11. Pleš
12. Nirvana interlude
13. Outro
BIG FOOT MAMA:
1. Slab spomin
2. Iskre
3. Mala nimfomanka
4. Oklep
5. Nor sigurno ne
6. Lepa laž
7. Sam prjatla
8. Pomlad
9. Neki sladkega
10. Užitek na replay
11. Važn da zadane
12. Led s severa
13. Rola se
14. Vrn se k men
15. Črn tulipan
16. Nisem več s tabo
DAN D:
1. Voda
2. Počasi
3. Za naju punca
4. Jutranja
5. Oblaki
6. Lep dan
7. Roke
8. Moj problem
9. Love Song
10. Google
11. Plešeš
12. Čas
PERO LOVŠIN & ŠPANSKI BORCI:
No setlist
MUFF:
1. Locked Out Of Heaven (Bruno Mars)
2. Naj sije v očeh
3. Nov dan
4. Waiting All Night (Rudimental)
5. Funhouse (Pink)
6. Povej mi
7. Just Dance (Lady Gaga)
8. Ain’t Nobody (Chaka Khan)
9. Use Somebody (Kings Of Leon)
Photo Gallery
