POP FESTIVAL LJUBLJANA '72 - BOOM

In the course of the 1970s in ex Yugoslavia, series of annual "Boom Pop Festivals" took place. These happened to be the first real "rock" music festivals (in spite of their name!), because prior to that, rock or beat bands had to share the scene with mainstream pop artists ("schlager" or "chanson").

This was the first Boom Festival, held in Ljubljana, and it was released as a double LP. Among the many forgotten and short-lived heavy rock/acid groups like NIRVANA (I wonder if the late Kurt had ever heard of these...), HAD, or GRUPA MARINA SKRGATICA, the big names like INDEXI, TIME and Drago Mlinarec also participated. They were at their creative peak at this time, regarding their prog rock works. Mlinarec had behind him two acclaimed progressive albums, TIME had just released their self-titled debut which remains as icon of Yugo prog rock, while INDEXI released their famous psyche/prog song "Plima" and were just about to change their style drastically into more commerical pop. Therefore, this release is quite an interesting document of the era, for the history of progressive rock in Yugoslavia.

On the performance quality, it is of course quite amateurish and you can even hear TIME and Dado Topic struggling to catch the correct rhythm while playing their prog anthem "Za koji zivot...", while Drago Mlinarec, accompanied with T. Domicelj and I. Kis, sound more in a "protest" Dylan/Guthrie mood than in a performing one.

But, there are two exceptionally good moments: INDEXI playing one of their more progressive titles "Hej ti", showing an amazing instrumental capabilities in doing that; and a phenomenal fusion-like instrumental "Vspominjem se antimaterije" by unjustly overlooked Ljubljana's band MLADI LEVI, who were in the late 1960 pioneers of a soul/r'n'b/brass rock style in ex-Yugoslavia.