One more Main stage band, warm up show band and couple of Beach stage headliners left to be announced and the line-up of this year´s Punk Rock Holiday is going to be awesome.
Besides Nofx, Propagandhi, The Descendents, Less Than Jake, Sick Of It All, Ignite, Pulley and many others, Pennywise is just added to the bill! Everyone who reads this zine knows that PRH is our favorite festival and definitely the place to be every year, so while you still can, grab a ticket and see you there!
Unterhund is a beautiful club in Ormož, Slovenia, under half an hour drive from our hometown. It is situated in the basement of an old town castle and the settings around and in the club are just awesome. It is functioning since the 90-ies and the gigs there are always great. When I heard that Boston hardcore legends Slapshot will play there, it was a must see gig.
When we arrived there the parking of the club was nicely filled with people from all around, meaning Slovenia, Croatia, Hungary, Austria and I heard that even some people got there all the way from Bosnia. When I entered the club, said hello to some people that I don˙t see very often, the gig was about to start, early since tomorrow is a working day.
CC from Zagreb were the support and their set was about to start. They play fast and ferocious hardcore punk with shouted angry vocals and energetic performance. I listened to their e.p, Wasteland, but never saw them play live and I was not disappointed. They had misfortune because one of their guitarists had technical problems with his guitar, so they had to continue their set with only one guitar, but it was great nonetheless.
The vocalist Lea said that it was their first gig after a pause, due to some line up changes, as I understood the guy from Trophy Jump plays drums now and they have a new second guitarist. Their set lasted about a little more than half an hour and I definitely want to see them perform live again, because I loved it tonight.
After a little stage setup, the guys from Slapshot just walked in, stepped on the stage and opened fire with Told You So. Led by legendary singer Jack Kelly better known as Choke, these Boston hardcore legends delivered their set of old hits coupled with some songs from their current new album Make America Hate Again.
They delivered hits like Watch Me Bleed, No Friend Of Mine, No Time Left, Chip On My Shoulder but I was eager to hear what will Choke say between the songs, because I watched Slapshot play Punk Rock Holiday in 2017.and he didn˙t disappoint there delivering his portion of sarcastic and funny remarks between the songs. The crowd went nuts when Craig Silverman said in Slovenian: Mi nismo metalcore band, mi nismo beatdown band, mi smo hardcore band iz Bostona and Choke asked the crowd do they love breakdowns, then concluded that if they do, they came to the wrong place haha, Slapshot plays old school fast hardcore and then they played the awesome anthem Old Tyme Hardcore. Bassist Ryan Packer was also really in good mood and he kept smiling all the way through the gig.
Choke was also in unusually good mood smiling and joking with kids in front of the stage. Little by little the band finished their set in little under one hour time with Hang Up Your Boots and Step On It with all of us singing along, moshing, pogoing and I love hardcore energy that flowed from the band to us and back again. We shouted for more, so they played one more and then finished the gig. We were a bit tired after long weekend and gigs on Saturday and Sunday but fortunately we didn˙t have to travel long to get home and have some sleep prior to Monday and back to job. This was my second time seeing Slapshot play live and I loved it. Give me more!
DAK Bambucha is an association based in Varaždin, Croatia, whose goal is to promote underground and alternative culture and events. They organized tons of gigs in last two years and hosted many Croatian bands and foreign bands that came touring through our part of the country.
The burning problem for the town of Varaždin is that there is no club or alternative space where the gigs and other events could be held. By the way, Varaždin is beautiful baroque town in the north-northwest of Croatia and in the last 25 years of me being part of this scene, there was always a great scene there with bands like Ateisti, Potres mozga, Apfuken, Corpse Grinder, Directed crew and many others coming to mind immediately when I think of the 90-ies. I sang in band called Corewar in the second half of the 90-ies and I remember with smile superb gigs in Gracija, BKD Željezničar and Rogoz, not only with my band, but every Varaždin and Čakovec band played there at least once a month.
The 2000-s somehow brought status quo, Gajba crew tried to do something with couple of festivals on Drava river but in my opinion everything somehow stagnated until some new kids arrived on the scene backed by few of the older kids that survived in the scene from the 90-ies.
Nowadays, Varaždin again has a healthy and small, but compact scene with bands like BKD, Senf, Gemišt, Fajrunt, One Step Away(okay half of the band hehe) and Mališa Bahat being the most active ones right now. What I love about the scene here is that every kid comes to gig, no matter being punk, skinhead or metal oriented and they somehow all hold each others backs.
DAK Bambucha was formed to help organize gigs, but the burning problem remains the place. In the Summer, the guys kept the scene alive by organizing DIY gigs in the backyards of the members´houses, the old farm house and similar. They did a couple of gigs in the caffe bars, but the owners of the bars were not to keen on punk hardcore gigs. So, the problem remains and the city mayor and politicians have absolutely no hearing for some freaks trying to revive and keep the flame of the scene burning.
So, how can this problem be solved? In my opinion it is about being loud, agitating, sharing, promoting, the hard work will in time be rewarded with some club or a space of some kind for organizing things.
This was not going to be gig report, but I have to write this one. Yesterday night the guys organized another nice successfull gig in nearby village called Sračinec in the Dom kulture(free translation from Croatian being Culture house) with four awesome bands playing. First, melodic punks Fajrunt from Varaždin warmed the crowd with their awesome songs from their two albums, backed with couple of covers by Mikrofonija and Ateisti. Bakterije from my hometown Čakovec were next. The kids went mad and the pogoed, moshed and singalongs were in order on the slippery tiles of the floor but everyone who fell down was quickly picked up by the other kids in the pit. Bakterije played the set of their hits from the first two albums mixed with three new songs from the forthcoming new album and the new stuff blew my head away live. The guests from Pula Antitodor led by legendary frontman Todor who is already 40 years in the scene were next. They changed their lineup again and I saw that they have a new drummer and the guy is really young, someone told me he is 17, but he plays his drum set better than many other older colleagues in the scene. Antitodor set was mixed with material from all four of their albums, with one Kud Idijoti cover thrown in and the kids enjoyed it from the first to the last minute. The last band to close the evening were Partleki from my hometown, in fact the two guys from Bakterije plus legendary ex Motorno Ulje frontman Lazar on bass and vocals. Partleki finished the great gig triumphantly with their set of punk covers of famous children songs haha.
So, what is the point and the conclusion of this feature? Help, solidify the ranks, agitate, share, everyone can do their part and we can all enjoy it all the way while doing the hard work for the scene. Remember, there is no global scene without your own local scene.
KRAYKULLA-WEBZINE 