Pogo the old cat

It was a drizzly and cool evening, the fog would come and go, as if we were in Ljubljana's Kodeljevo, in Pere Lovšin's native neighborhood. We pass by the gallery of SKC, everything is full of black and red, blue and green, one of the crowd calls out to me "Arandjelovac!"; in general, I have noticed that in the last few days, unknown people around me are offensively witty, I guess they are driving some evil, some darkness, or something. Anyway, we enter SKC, there is probably a refuge from every possible "Arandjelovan", from the sinister Serbian reality of AD 2007, here we are already on the floor, in front of the hall and around the bar, the iha-haj of Belgrade's middle-aged punk and new wave of Privobor, but also a crowd of young people; uh, it's good, at least judging by the audience it won't be long fair middle aged nostalgia...

At ten past five, here's Mirko Ilic to announce the people we're here for: almost thirty years ago, says Ilic, a well-known critic said that punk had no place in Yugoslavia. Well, Yugoslavia is gone, but punk is still there... Right after that, a quintet of well-behaved beasts in decent age runs out on stage, and something begins that will quickly dispel all my doubts, actually, my slight apprehension that I will attend an unworthy stall, a pampering session money from (in)vain hunters of irretrievably wasted youth'. None of that, for an honest hour and a half, there was actually quite a powerful and well-coordinated dusting (New York's meritorious veteran Ivan Kral fit in perfectly) the only really BIG one in terms of songs, range, duration, subversiveness, "social importance" - on a global scale important, although insufficiently affirmed due to the "language barrier" - a punk band ever born in SFRY. With two encores, with a collective final delirium in the form of the inevitable Bandiere Rose (and in the presence of Rose, huh...), with silence of absolutely serious dimensions, which did not stop throughout the concert. Of course, most of the kids were engaged in silence, and the chilagers (and, by God, the aunts) who were frenzied to the same tunes, became numb and limp. Pankrte a quarter of a century ago, they stood a little to the side and looked approvingly/nostalgically at them, humming and swaying to the beat... Half your throat is cut by the forcing of iced beer, the other half by the roar Bullet se ne more more fence or Total revolution za him ni solution, Janez Kurbini without will self-affirmation, but who cares, fuck your throat, what matters is the "feel for the filling" that these guys didn't come here just to be own cover-band (which is a constant danger in rock'n'roll, perhaps most of all punk "reunions") than people who even today somehow grew with those songs, with the first real Uprising - and not the last, as Goranka says... - in a time that seems so idyllic to us today , which was actually the ominous Beginning of All This. And that rebellion, after all, in the country from which Pero and the team come to us was quite successful, I guess that's why that country is not today Za iron curtain like sad Serbia...

Lovšin speaks little, not that he is restrained (Lovšin, so restrained?!), but that he does not buy the audience with cheap fashions, he moves around the stage like an elegant old cat, but as the concert heats up, so does Pero somehow rejuvenate, in the end already jumps wildly like it's 1980 and the band has just started promoting Dolgzeit. The ratio of songs from the first two (and a half) "real punk" albums, and those from the latter is pretty, um, equal; of course, I would prefer to hear the whole thing Dolgzeit i State pets and the majority Red album, so let's go home sweaty & happy, but my god... However, there is also Bullet, Punca ne self died, Ljubljana je bulana (ta-ram-tam-ta-ra-ram!), and Anarchist i The PI in empty, and beautiful, anthemic Bye Ljubljana – that lover's homage worthy of an irrepressible, noble city rascal! – for the official end, there is even faking Eighth and, which to me was always a damn General Place, something like Should I Accommodation or Should I Go za Kleš, but he also sounds phenomenal tonight...

As a special, exiting gift to the audience, Lovšin & co. early but unrecorded performance Ze-Ka pank, with the key lines, which I'll sing all the way home afterwards, horrifying any belated zemunism:

Ne me fuck,
Ne ga shit,
Ze-ka, ze-ka, ze-ka,
Ze-ka pank!

Of course, our current ZK (Union of Communists) is called differently, its abbreviation may be a few letters longer, but the message is still valid! We leave the oasis of SKC back to the Depression that is once again thickening over Serbia, enriched not only for the great concert, but also for motto, for the only thing that should be said to our new Masters, "stupid and more dangerous than the previous ones", as Lovšin said. So: Don't fuck me! Don't shit him! Hey!