As we were nearing Slovenia, I tried a facebook message to a bar – Caffe Galeria – in Piran that has live music. I’d messaged once already, in English, with a bit of a wordy intro, links to a few videos and some vague dates. No reply, but now we’d got more exact dates, I thought it worth a follow up. I used Google translate and sent a shorter message in Slovenian. Within seconds, I got about 10 replies straight back, in Slovenian. Frantically copying and pasting and translating and replying, it looked positive. At last, I had a gig!
Huge thanks (Hvala!) to Adi, the bar owner at Caffe Galeria, for taking a chance and having me on at short notice. It’s a great music bar right by the harbour. Good beer, nice crowd (locals and tourists), and top cakes too, according to Bev. I played 2 sets, a mix of my own songs and covers of vintage blues (e.g. Big Bill Broonzy, Blind Bake, B.B. King), acoustic soul (Otis Redding, Bill Withers) and well known classics (The Animals, Fleetwood Mac, Chuck Berry). Went down well. First real run out for my little BOSS acoustic amp, and it sounded great.
The next day we walked the 5km in from the campsite in Portorese to see Piran properly. What an amazing place! The old town is a maze of narrow cobbled streets – I love it. Pics to follow in our round-up of Slovenia.