From the Sauna to the Iron Sky! (2012)

Arhiv Arhiv Last updated 3 October 2026

Author: Aleš Podbrežnik
Photos: Aleš Podbrežnik

Location: Ljubljana / Kino Šiška / Slovenia
Concert date: April 20, 2012
Attendance: 800
Ticket price: €27.00 / €30.00

Laibach! A name that instantly dilates your pupils, pricks up your ears and sends the associative cortex of your brain galloping off in a runaway string of lightning-fast reflexes that stir up and stretch the mind of the human spirit! Laibach are a band we Slovenes should be especially proud of. With their inexhaustible, galaxy-unique avant-garde image and the structure of a highly hygienic art haul, they have always shaped a part of the world music sphere that, in its search for ideas and inspiration, keeps turning back to them. And even the most successful acts out there, especially from the industrial genre, aren’t ashamed to admit it and announce it with great pride. From Ministry to Rammstein.

Laibach is the very definition of perpetual artistic shock. Whatever they touch turns into a one-of-a-kind art piece of unrepeatable value, shining with timeless greatness! The latest challenge of constant change driving Laibach forward came, among other things, from teaming up with Finnish director Timo Vuorensola, who was fatefully »struck« with the idea for the film during one of his refreshing breaks in a Finnish sauna. For the film »Iron Sky« Laibach accepted Vuorensola’s invitation and offer to prepare the »soundtrack«, and, as expected, they devoted a piece of this Ljubljana show to presenting the artistic product of this bold Finnish-Slovenian alliance.

The film Iron Sky, which was a big hit at the Berlinale film festival on February 11, 2012, got its premiere screening at the closing concert of Laibach’s new European tour, called »We Came In Peace«. And that honor fell to none other than the Ljubljana show at Kino Šiška. Laibach also worked music from the upcoming albums ‘Laibach Revisited’ and ‘Reproduction Prohibited / An Introduction To… Laibach’ into this tour’s repertoire. So on Adolf Hitler’s birthday, Iron Sky got its premiere screening right in Ljubljana, four hours before the band’s concert. Meaningful dating with extra symbolic value. An hour-and-a-half sci-fi story soaked in black humor, with no qualms about parodying totalitarianism of every kind, and an excellent outcome in which nobody wins: the survivors on the dark side of the Moon, in a swastika-shaped city, realize that Earth is different and that it’s better to just stay on the dark side of the Moon. What’s more, after the failed invasion of Earth, they accept racial otherness among themselves. Meanwhile, Earthlings remain slaves to a worldwide American tyranny. Even in 2018, when the film’s plot is set. A film you have to see. A film that shocks and stuns, a film that thoroughly airs out the knots in your brain and stretches your mind! A film you won’t escape a wave of powerful impressions from, ones that will keep shaking you intensely long after you’ve come into contact with its message.

At nine o’clock everything is ready for Laibach to start. Like hell it is. Until almost 9:30 PM the entrance lobby was bursting at the seams, jam-packed with every curious soul who had crammed in, which the paparazzi photographers on the outdoor staircase above the lobby put to good use, collecting a few high-flying middle fingers from the crowd »in thanks«. At 9:35 PM the concert opens with a first part that serves up the band’s classics, performed by the live lineup of Milan Fras (vocals), Ivan Novak (lights, projections), Mina Špiler (vocals, backing vocals, synthesizer), Janez Gabrič (drums), Luka Jamnik (synthesizer) and Sašo Vollmaier (synthesizer). The first part was dedicated to freshly re-arranged classics from the early stretch of their career. In fact, Laibach had already offered a partial taste of this in Trbovlje on September 24, 2010 (Smrt za smrt, Brat moj, Država). The opening psycho-cybernetics was eased by another song upgraded for 2012, Die Liebe, where Mina Špiler took over the lead vocals for the first time (on the original album »Slovenska akropola« the song is performed by Anja Rupel). The theatrical French recital Le Privilege Des Morts, with Fras grabbing the »bible« Capital, was accompanied by a stunning projection of a Japanese seppuku ritual on the backdrop screen. The first part of the concert morphed into its ending, with Mina Špiler once again taking the lead in a reinterpretation of The Beatles classic Across The Universe.

Next up is »Iron Sky« – the central part of the concert, opening with Take Me To Heaven (a cunningly salted arrangement merging Slovenian folk melos and zithers), followed by the epic march B Mashina, the song America from Volk, which is used in the Iron Sky film for the chaotic brawl at the United Nations headquarters, and the closing Under the Iron Sky, where those who missed the film could see for themselves what the gigantic secret weapon called Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods – there’s plenty of »Wagnerism« in Iron Sky) can do, chipping 10% off the Moon with a single shot in the film.

The third part of the concert was meant to lift the stage to its atmospheric peak. It was made up of proven hits and a vivid finale with ‘Warme Lederhaut’, a cover of the original ‘Warm Leatherette’, which came out of The Normal project. In this form it was premiered by Laibach in May 2011 at the »Short Circuit presents Mute« festival, while another, no less Laibach-ified version, Love On The Beat, originally performed by Serge Gainsbourg, wrapped up the regular part of the set.

Nothing short of an exceptionally intense, tautly strung atmosphere was to be expected in Kino Šiška. At moments the ecstatic response of the packed hall that night reached deeper even into the one and only Laibach figure, Milan Fras. The performer, famed for his grim, doomsday-of-humanity stare, the true stage embodiment of a fictional emperor in his war room of the state of Laibach, treated the crowd to quite a few spontaneous smiles that night. A surprise and a half. The special mood was also boosted by the outfits, the well-worn off-the-rack picks of many attendees flirting with the symbolism of Laibach fetishes.

Laibach come back for the encore, and here it’s the album »Opus Dei«, as they bring the crowd to its peak with renewed »steel cables« of the iron repertoire, Leben Heiβt Leben (orig. Opus) and Geburt Einer nation (orig. Queen »One Vision«), and they season the first encore with a cover of Bob Dylan’s ‘Ballad Of A Thin Man’, which Laibach prepared for Dylan’s 70th birthday and which was part of a nationwide Slovenian project reinterpreting Dylan’s classics, joined last year by Vlado Kreslin, Katalena, Zoran Predin, Hic et Nunc, Mia Žnidarič, Niet, 6 Pack Čukur, Severa, Chris Eckman & the Frictions, Brina, Peter Lovšin, Murat & Jose.

The hypnosis worked. So well, in fact, that the crowd didn’t want to budge from the hall, loudly demanding the band’s return to the stage. After a few minutes, when some people were losing patience and already leaving the hall, Laibach visited the stage once more and played the proven Das spiel ist aus, then after a solid two hours wrapped up yet another unique and unforgettable concert night!

We can safely say Laibach wrecked Kino Šiška! The incarnation of a new sphere of the unique Laibach universe and equilibrium got its full manifestation, which, true to its purpose, once again shocked and stunned. And this is only the beginning. As mentioned. New releases and even more Laibach shows are coming. Everybody, stay on the lookout!