Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik
Location: Ljubljana / CUK Kino Šiška / Slovenia
Concert date: 14.05.2015
Attendance: 800
33 years in the game and a new album, the 14th overall, from the legendary Demolition Group of Brežice. The celebration, with a marathon set list at CUK Kino Šiška, drew a great crowd. Around 800 people came out that night to pay tribute to the character and the work of a band that deserves a special place on the Slovenian rock map. Stylistically and sonically nobody sounds like them, so they stand as an absolute alternative rock one-off, loaded with originality and instantly recognizable.
»Zlagano sonce« is the name of the new album, which follows its predecessor »Planet starcev« after four years. It’s an excellent record, exactly what every true fan of the band was hoping for, and it keeps up the tradition of quality and sheer unbreakability of the great preaching combine from Brežice.
The band started rolling out song after song with zero compromise, playing tracks from the new album »Zlagano sonce« in the first part. It was clear right from the opening that everything at a Demolition Group show is exactly where it should be. Besides the commanders, the unbreakable »holy trinity« of vocalist Goran Šalamona, saxophonist Jože Pegam and Matjaž Pegam behind the mixing desk, there’s the fresh blood of young stallions eager to prove themselves: guitarist Matija Lapuh, bassist Tomi Gregel and his brother, drummer Ivica Gregel. A superb rhythm section, full-blooded cannon blows on the snare, often enriched with a tribal onslaught on the toms between simple guitar phrasing, an active, distinctly melodic, precise and warm bass line, hyperplastic sonic masses of guitar phrases, a proven manly, sexist tenor sax doubling the guitar phrases, and of course the signature, one-of-a-kind, unmistakable voice of the piercing Goran Šalamona. Razor-sharp attention, excellent tightness, all of it caught in one uncompromising marathon stampede.
Maybe it was precisely because of the marathon set that the band decided they didn’t want to dehydrate, and so didn’t want too much light on stage. For most of the show the spotlights were aimed at the performers’ backs. Then again, the dim lighting actually goes hand in hand with the gloomy, even apocalyptic atmosphere and the band’s always socially engaged and bitingly topical poetry. In that respect, only the officially accredited photographers drew the short straw in the hall.
Over the course of the show the band strolled through its discography and hit the strongest moments of its career. Toward the end Goran stepped up to the mic alone and read out a pamphlet several pages long, which, with his thundering truthfulness, made every hair on the »enlightened« stand on end. This towering singer in particular left us stunned with his vocal stamina. From the first song to the last, and there were quite a few of them (30 in all), he kept up an incredible punch and power. He never ran out of breath. Hats off. Respect to the whole quintet for an unbelievably committed and deeply felt performance. That the energy in the air was truly crackling was also proven by the crowd, who took in song after song with enthusiasm, joined in actively with Goran, and held out right up to the last beat and the last struck note of the band’s performance.
If you want and are looking for the best that the Slovenian rock underground can offer right now, then go to Demolition Group for advice. The only slightly worrying thing is that Demolition Group remain, in fact, lone socially engaged riders who expose the injustice of the world order to the bone, and phenomenally so. In Slovenia it’s hard to find successors for them among the younger generation of alternative rock bands. Real bands, real successors, simply aren’t there.
»Zlagano sonce« gives the band new wings, new flight, new drive. Plenty of stage appearances will follow, a whole bagful of club thunder. The fantastic evening at CUK Kino Šiška was merely the overture to the hot concert days that this year has in store for Demolition Group! We’ll be following them!
Setlist
1. Kapital
2. Lažje je imeti psa
3. Kaplja
4. Dan brez
5. 99
6. Včasih tko
7. Slab gospodar
8. Da bi bil iskren
9. Tesnoba, strah in cvetoče polje
10. Zato ker smem
11. Zlagano sonce
12. Neovangelij
13. Kriv sem za vse
14. Tau
15. Dan dolgih sanj
16. Gospodar
17. Nimam rad boga
18. Planet starcev
19. Romantika
20. Amerika
21. Daf
22. Gram
23. Ljubiva za svet
24. Dež
25. Bič, luč in upanje
26. Japanci
27. U tvojim očima
28. Mesečina
29. Nujno ni
30. Crackhead
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