Dirty Three: Brimstone Catharsis!

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 11 June 2026

Venue: Orto Klub, Ljubljana
Concert date: 28.05.2007
Attendance: 150
Ticket price: 13 euros

“Of all the cities we play, this is the one we love coming back to most” were the words Warren Ellis used to send off the opening song of Dirty Three’s long-awaited return. All three of them, Warren on violin, plus drummer Jim White and guitarist Mick Turner, were in great spirits. But it was Warren who had the most to say. Between every song he took his time to chat about all sorts of things: Greece, travel mishaps, adventures from the recording sessions, and of course memories of the last show at Orto, which is why he asked for the fan hanging right above the stage to be switched off, “I can see myself bleeding before this bloody night is over!” The memory of that last Orto show, when fate had this tireless fiddler wrap up the gig with a few stitches in his hand, is clearly still very much alive. This time, luckily, there was no blood toll, but the energy still flowed in rivers.
Considering that Dirty Three have released seven albums, and every one of them sits somewhere between really good and excellent, it’s no wonder that every song they play comes across like a little anthem, and every single one gets greeted with obvious enthusiasm from the crowd. Whether it’s a track from the debut Sad And Dangerous or from the latest studio effort Cinder, which Warren describes as “we wanted to make some pop music, the kind they play on the radio. Like Placebo or U2 and all that other crap!” and then adds with a grin “of course we were very wrong!”, every song is positively soaked in a kind of obsessive energy, each one saying exactly what it wants to say. Without lyrics, of course. This is purely instrumental stuff, only occasionally propped up by Warren’s yells and shouts.
Besides being their “favorite” city, Ljubljana soon gets another title too, “Ljubljana, city of truth”, which was a reaction to a grumpy audience member named Slavc, who made it known he’d like to hear a “geetarman solo”. “You want to hear a guitar solo? Okay, Mick, play a solo for the man!”, which only made Mick burst out laughing, and Warren went on: “You’ve discovered the band’s weak spot. After fifteen years of touring, you’ve now found out that our guitarist can’t actually play!” The crowd laughed, while Warren, with a somewhat more serious look, mumbled mostly to himself “am I going to have trouble on my way out tonight?”, referring to Slavc, with whom there had been a clear, minor communication glitch.
On the other end of the spectrum, as he put it, he found a true friend in the crowd, a guy named Tomaž, who had renamed himself Too Much especially for the occasion. “Where are you now, Too Much?” Ellis asked after one of the songs, “help me out, tell me what we should play next?” and from the crowd came the answer “I don’t know, I’m modest. Play whatever you want!” “That’s the best answer I’ve ever gotten!” Warren shot back, grinning, and repeated “I’m modest.” “Too Much, you’re just too much!”

Even though Mick isn’t exactly keen on soloing, it’s by no means true that he can’t play. Quite the opposite: in a world where guitar playing has become a downright masturbatory act that lives by the creed “you can never have too much”, Mick is the perfect antidote to that nonsense. The rule “less is more” surely applies to him, and how right he is, because in the eclectic madness that Warren and Jim create, any extra guitar excess would turn into nothing but racket, which never happens with his calm and remarkably simple melodic patterns.
On the other side there’s of course Jim White, who can safely be said to have precious few equals in the drumming world. A drummer this relaxed and inventive is truly impossible to overlook. A spectacle all on his own. Besides using a whole range of different sticks, he had a whole series of artifacts sitting directly on his drumheads and cymbals that you don’t normally see there. A few small tambourines caught the hits meant for the heads the whole time, and on top of that there were some plastic ornaments in interesting shapes, whose function I’d struggle to pin down. Jim also kept throwing in surprises in the flow of the music itself, which veered off in every direction except the predictable one. Despite his exceptional technical mastery, his playing feels more like carefree, easygoing play, as if everything he does is dead simple. But only in appearance, because that kind of understanding and command of any instrument doesn’t come on its own, and not through practice alone either. In White’s playing there’s a perfect balance between pure technical precision and an outstanding feel for music in the truest sense of the word. He gives equal weight to sound and silence, and in doing so truly creates something entirely his own. In fact, all three of them are doing that, three musical alchemists.
The main attraction, though, is definitely Warren, who comes across as anything but a person playing a violin. Hunched over, back to the crowd, “abusing” that fragile and delicate instrument, preferably with heavy distortion (he uses five special effects for his fiddle, by the way, while Mick has just two for his guitar), he coaxes out music far closer to the “riffomania” of Tommy Iommi from Black Sabbath than to Vivaldi or anything of the sort. He plays exactly the way they teach you in music school never to play! He gives himself over to his instrument, and it to him, in a truly cathartic way, and there’s surely not a hair on his body that doesn’t contribute its share to the music. And when, in a rush of passion, he lifts it into the air with open arms, feedback booming and untamed, it looks like he wants to expose it to something mightier than himself, which can probably only be lightning. Maybe. And amazingly, the instrument doesn’t even fall apart!

So Jim and Warren are the front line of musical debauchery, and Mick, despite being a bit more reserved, with his downright hypnotic playing only cranks up the level of musical perversity they shamelessly create, the very essence of Dirty Three’s sound. Without a doubt, Dirty Three would be the best example of why Rock & Roll was banned! Especially given the golden piece of advice “rock concerts are the best chance to meet someone you’ll have a good time with for at least the next 24 hours. Just make sure it’s not the same person you came to the show with… seven out of ten people leave with someone other than who they came with!”

Over a set lasting almost two and a half hours, full of excesses and including the obligatory encore, the trio thoroughly aired out their musical treasure chest, so you could hear at least one song from every album. Among the standouts were “Amy” from Cinder, “I Remember A Time When Once You Used To Love Me” (Horse Stories), “Sea Above, Sky Below” (Ocean Songs), “Lullaby For Christie” from Whatever You Love, You Are and others, if it’s even decent to single any of them out.
The clock had already struck one in the morning when Dirty Three really decided to wrap it up the way you should. With one more song and the words “remember… remember… remember…” and just as the crowd was getting impatient, he finally finished the sentence: “remember to forget! And if anyone here today is already dead or dying… get over it, you’re not the only one!” A few lonely shouts into the night and Dirty Three vanished through the crowd just as they’d arrived. In style!