How you usually celebrate a second birthday? With some drinks, candles and a cake. But how does a rock radio celebrate two years? With mГЎstika, cigarettes and a dish of folk rhythms. Two years, three bands and a thousand guests.

The Balkans are one family. It appears so. There’s no EU, there’s “FUCC the I.N.S.”. Who dares to argue? “If we were even slightly drunk, we would…”, eh? Just ask the people who filled the Black Box Club in Sofia, Bulgaria to the edge of scatter and drowning in condensation of exhaled oxygen. People that sat down at the same table and drank, smoked and sang together more than three hours. People who welcomed every song with rousing screams, moshpit and sweaty dances. The party was lead by two generally loved Bulgarian bands and an international rabble for a cultural shock for the unprepared.

A thousand had tickets, dozens more believed they could buy it at the venue in spite the information that it was sold out. Even if they had brought bribe in the form of spirituous alcoholics. The lucky 1000 “kralimarkovtsi” welcomed their favorite Balkandji shortly after 8:30 p.m. and the party began. It is difficult to open a large party and to bear the weight of the first testing of the sound apparatuses and in principle whimsical audience, but for the native heroes there wasn’t place for worry. Still with their appearance on stage they brought out loud salute from the crowd and gave away their hearty performance of hymns like “Gaze” and “Nine Years”. Not a warm-up, but a blast! And the sound in the well-tried in rock and metal music club did not mislead the visitors once again.

The minutes for rest, adjustment and a sip of beer/air/smoke passed so quickly that like out of nowhere the agro-alco trio Cherno Feredje emerged and off the stage they darted extolled drinks, genitals, and annals-outgoing outlets. There is no person in Bulgaria who has not sung on student parties songs for lamias, bridges, mastics or has not sworn enthusiastically with the rhymes of the two Toshos and Nia. They, on the other hand, brought the audience in the coziness of the club concerts, praised tens of urban legends with erotic-alcoholic nature and provoked the first serious mosh among the crowd. This was only the beginning...

Less than a cigarette later the degree of the spirits rose above the one of the grandpa’s brandy... Two Bosnians, two Americans, a Japanese and a Bulgarian, and a sonar bacchanalia pounding with the rhythm of a thousand and more hearts made the whole club dance, sing and go crazy. Who could stand still when the loudspeakers deafened even the thoughts with the rebellious-native rhythms of Kultur Shock, and the people around you were pushing into each other in a savage wish to scream their lungs out? One of the most devoted and sincere bands that has ever played in front of the Bulgarian audience captivated for the second time the spectators and drew them involved, committed and dancing to their musical hodge-podge of punk, Eastern European folklore and metal.

The show of Kultur Shock is a birthday, funeral, wedding and “kurban” all together. For two hours they sang, played and greeted the Balkan soul. Love and temper, smiles and dances, alcohol and smoke and the heavy music of the band were the main dish at the second birthday party of Tangra Mega Rock. No matter if you drink or smoke, if “Hashishi” or “Mastika” are the main meal in your party menu, you cannot stay indifferent to the boiling performance of the band. Their songs are so rhythmic and hot that in no time many of the presenting people took off their clothes and plunged into the amorphous living mass of sweaty bodies, hairs and beards, beer and Jack, pulsating in unison with the rhythm of Kultur Shock.

Raised fists, twisting waists, jumps and even nimble bends of a graceful chick standing on the left bar shook the walls and heated up the atmosphere in Black Box. All these and the rhythms of the six mariachi troubadours. The Gypsy epic punks “Tutti Frutti” and “Romana” stirred with the eastern-folk sludge-metal of “Zumbul” and “Da Ye”, combining the smashing heaviness of Black Sabbath and the slow Balkan horos and the dances in the crowd merged from wild leaps and uncontainable moshing to powerful headbanging, clatter with feet and metalized horos with warshoes and sneakers.

The songs passed and the temper was rising more and more, and if anybody says that he/she has felt boredom or a wish to leave, he/she is a liar and owes us a bottle of brandy. Neither the band nor the frenzied crowd wanted the party to end and that is why the musicians returned three times for extemporaneous encores. So we became witnesses of the acappella beauty of “Zora”, the pure zingarism “Chai Shukarie” and direct transmissions out of space on the guitar of Mario and the bass of Masashi, and the amazing audience did not stop to eagerly call back the band again and again… and again.

Like on every nice birthday party with close people (even if often strangers), the guests were leaving smiling, intoxicated and drown in happy fatigue. Thank you for the presence! Cheers and see you soon!

Words:В Ivaylo AlexandrovВ 

Photos:В Victor AlexandrovВ 

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