It appeared like a glimpse of a dream and then vanished into oblivion - the Hamburg date on Laibach's schedule, when they annouced this tour on their site. Luckily for me I discovered that if I traveled to Denmark I could conveniently combine their show in Copenhagen with a certain colossal festival on the same weekend, even if it meant sneaking away from there and missing a couple of great bands on its second (of three) days. Still a much better plan than... not to see Laibach at all, right? Jawoll!
So I came to the Pumpehuset having already seen three great personal support acts (sorry DJ something playing kajal boomer hits in the foyer, you couldn't compete with those) and was really anxious for the show to start, not only because I'm obviously a fan, but also because I hoped that I could at least catch one last show at the festival after all this.
The usual spiel of Laibach is to play their recent album in full, then take an exactly timed fifteen minute break and continue with an often very different second half plus encores.
For this tour however the Slovenes switched the order, because "Opus Dei" obviously isn't new material, but their best known hit album. So it made of course sense to build up towards the more popular classics.
The usual spiel of Laibach is to play their recent album in full, then take an exactly timed fifteen minute break and continue with an often very different second half plus encores.
For this tour however the Slovenes switched the order, because "Opus Dei" obviously isn't new material, but their best known hit album. So it made of course sense to build up towards the more popular classics.
I: Pre and Past Opus
At the beginning just four persons (on synths, guitar and drums) entered the stage of the big hall, fittingly playing the "Nova Akropola" opener "Vier Personen" in its
The most obvious member of course remains iconic frontman Milan Fras, who appeared during "Država", while joining not much later the female vocalist once again was Marina Mårtensson, who despite the high testosterone level of the album honoured tonight would get many moments to shine.
The first act continued with more material from the early days, before it simultanously jumped forwards and backwards in time with the inclusion of "Smrt In Pogin" from the fantastic 2023 "Sketches Of The Red Districts" album.
It was quite an interesting selection balancing the obscure and the accessible, as Bob Dylan's "Ballad Of A Thin Man" celebrated a comeback into the setlist and finally DAF's "Alle gegen Alle" indicated that yes, this was indeed going to be a night of fucking hits!
I N T E R M I S S I O N
Oh drummer boy, this felt so long...
Oh drummer boy, this felt so long...
II: Opus Dei
Laibach are not your ordinary kind of aging Rock'n'Roll band. So using the release of a remastered version of "Opus Dei" as an opportunity for the mainstream move of doing this tour already felt like a novelty. What you should not have expected however was the band scraping together the original cast from back in the Eighties and playing exact replicas of the the eight songs' studio versions. (They didn't even always do that back in the day anyway!)
The new treatment of their well-known first "new originals" based on the works of Opus and Queen, as well as their own compositions distorting musical zeitgeist through the lens of totalitarian symbolism and war rethoric was not as radical as the revisited versions of their earlier catalogue. While those debut album and "Nova Akropola" tracks had been completely deconstructed and rebuild, "Opus Dei" probably just didn't need that kind of complete transformation. So even if tone, intensity and instrumention deviated from the studio tracks or interpretations from earlier live performances - the arrangements stayed clearly recognizable, no matter if it were obvious stompers like "Leben - Tod" or "Geburt einer Nation" or more abstract pieces like "The Great Seal" or "F.I.A.T.".
After all this was a hit show, but it embraced the sonic colours and possibilities of present Laibach's line-up. And the crowd loved it.
Which brings me to... that guy. Sometimes there is that one guy, who just loves it so much, that he isn't even interested in hearing the music itself or letting other people hear it. That guy who just has no intuition (or just doesn't care at all) for when his enthusiasm spoils the experience for everyone else who paid to see the band. You know, that guy in whose direction everyone in the hall starts to look in annoyance. That one guy who goes waaaoooohoooo!!! as loud and as often as he can. That guy who allows absolutely no quiet moment on stage without heavy indications of his presence. That guy who snuck up closer and closer to me, until he was standing directly behind be wooohoooing directly into my ear, which was the loudest fucking thing of my whole (mind you: Extreme Metal festival!) weekend. If you recognize yourself now: Yeah, fuck you very much. I rather spent the last part of the show further in the back, where I could actually hear the music.
The new treatment of their well-known first "new originals" based on the works of Opus and Queen, as well as their own compositions distorting musical zeitgeist through the lens of totalitarian symbolism and war rethoric was not as radical as the revisited versions of their earlier catalogue. While those debut album and "Nova Akropola" tracks had been completely deconstructed and rebuild, "Opus Dei" probably just didn't need that kind of complete transformation. So even if tone, intensity and instrumention deviated from the studio tracks or interpretations from earlier live performances - the arrangements stayed clearly recognizable, no matter if it were obvious stompers like "Leben - Tod" or "Geburt einer Nation" or more abstract pieces like "The Great Seal" or "F.I.A.T.".
After all this was a hit show, but it embraced the sonic colours and possibilities of present Laibach's line-up. And the crowd loved it.
Which brings me to... that guy. Sometimes there is that one guy, who just loves it so much, that he isn't even interested in hearing the music itself or letting other people hear it. That guy who just has no intuition (or just doesn't care at all) for when his enthusiasm spoils the experience for everyone else who paid to see the band. You know, that guy in whose direction everyone in the hall starts to look in annoyance. That one guy who goes waaaoooohoooo!!! as loud and as often as he can. That guy who allows absolutely no quiet moment on stage without heavy indications of his presence. That guy who snuck up closer and closer to me, until he was standing directly behind be wooohoooing directly into my ear, which was the loudest fucking thing of my whole (mind you: Extreme Metal festival!) weekend. If you recognize yourself now: Yeah, fuck you very much. I rather spent the last part of the show further in the back, where I could actually hear the music.
III: Encore
Some of the most obvious encore tracks had already been played, but of course there were still more than enough possibilities left. Laibach chose to focus on a peaceable message of love with the duet of their still pretty recent standalone single "The Engine Of Survival".
After that followed Jeanne Moreau's "Each Man Kills The Thing He Loves" and one very very Eighties track, which Marina in non-laibachian fashion even announced as song they just used to sing all the time in the bus on their last tour: Foreigner's "I Want To Know What Love Is"
Wow, what a fabulous piece of kitsch! But I had seen the original artist play this thing back in 2016 and I loved it. So I also gladly welcomed it now. And at least I won't spoil the very ending of it, in case you still want to see Laibach (as you should!) on this also visually striking tour.
Having the ants in my pants, because I also had that other thing beside this brilliant show going, where I wanted to get back to, I simply forgot that also a second encore could be expected on this tour.
So as I was already hurrying back to the Vega venue for a brutal finale of the night at A Colossal Weekend, I missed what happened with Billie Holiday's "Strange Fruit" in Laibach's hands.
But even without that Laibach "Opus Dei" was one of the very best shows I've seen so far this year. Seriously: How couldn't it be?
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