Believe it or not, but on May 12, 2008 Tangra Mega Rock promoted one of its most qualitative concerts ever. The participants in the show in Sofia, Bulgaria were the not quite popular to many Shellac and Allroh, the promo campaign was reduced to the minimum, tickets were sold in three shops only, and the audience counted not more than a hundred people... but what a hundred these were! There were no guest lists, nor media lists or whatever – every single fan in the hall had paid to be there. In other words, there were no casual visitors at the Backstage Club on May 12.

The actual part of the evening began a bit after 9:30 p.m. when Allroh appeared on stage – the one-man project by Anne Rolf. The fragile German miss shocked us all by pouring over our heads her heavily hysterical, ultra minimalistic set for guitar, voice and amplifier. It’s true that the bigger part of the audience couldn’t quite understand the audio-art of the lady in white, but whatever – maybe it’s just still to early for such experiments in Bulgaria… who knows… However, there were two compositions that were heartily accepted by the attendants – a pleasant acoustic guitar interlude in the middle of the gloomy riff outpourings of Freulein Rolf, as well as the closing tune of her performance, where Allroh replaced the guitar pick in her right hand with a real white feather...

The 30-minute-long set by the German wonder was followed by a short break, and afterwards the main attraction for the evening emerged on stage - Shellac. The U.S. trio changed the mood at the club drastically, causing total pleasure to appear on the faces of the fans.

The atmosphere was conquered in a maximum tight and professional way by Steve Frank Albini (vocals and guitar), Bob Weston (bass and vocals) and Todd Trainer (drums), who presented songs from their four albums - "At Action Park" (1994), "Terraform" (1998), "1000 Hurts" (2000) Рё "Excellent Italian Greyhound" (2007) - as well as some new experimental stuff.

Actually, the word "experiment" – although fitting to the occasion quite well – isn’t the most suitable description for Shellac’s music and especially its live performance. We were rather turned into recipients of a solid and uncompromising dose of in-the-face, primal, dirty rock’n’roll, combining a bit of pure alternative rock here, some stoner there, as well as surprising tempo changes... Add to it the total devotion of the three band members, their brilliant musicianship, the good sound quality and the absolutely marvelous one hundred fans in front of the stage, and you’ll probably get an idea why there were no dissatisfied guys at the venue around midnight, when the last chords of Steve’s guitar and the final drum strokes faded away...

Words & photos: Nicki Vassilev

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