We (Wanda & Nova deViator) didn’t quite know what to expect when we were packing things up for this Maribor gig. The last (and the first) time we played in Maribor, it was at a small low-profile venue called Stolp_3. It was (and still is) run by single guy, who purposefully keeps it without much advertising not wanting to grow, not wanting to be in the spotlight, just throwing gig here and there and hang out with people. Many locals from Maribor don’t even know about Stolp 3.
Anyway, Gustaf/Pekarna is whole different story – as we’ve been told, it’s pretty hard to have a decent crowd at the venue, but believe it or not, the crowd was quite in decent numbers – far from empty, but not too crowded. The event was a three-day-long 24th anniversary of Maribor’s Radio Študent – MARŠ and we played on the second day – Friday.
During our drive we remembered that we played our first duet performance “Une façon d’aimer” in Gustaf for the last time. Will the last Pacification performance be also the last time at this venue? Most probably not, since there’s a long way till autumn: in November we plan to premiere our next project which would include album and a performance/concert. So until then, it’s doubtful we wouldn’t play another gig with Pacification.
We shared the stage with Karmakoma from Krško – a trio that played an interesting blend of post-rock electronics with funk gusto – think of old Faith No More, LCD Sound System, The Prodigy and hints of Death from Above 1979. While their sound guy was no perfection (vocal suffered the most) the music was full of energy, solid structures and wit. We exchanged CDs and other merch and the next day I was blown away by quality of their record – Imagination & Mechanical Metamorphoses – have a listen and support.
The reception of our gig was very very positive, organizer also told us, that we were impatiently expected in Maribor by some fans. Everyone seemed very satisfied, we could have played a second bis/encore, if we would have anything prepared for it.
