Venue: Mali grad / Kamnik / Slovenia
Concert date: 25.08.2006
Attendance: 500
Ticket price: 3.000,00 SIT
The last show of one of the great art mysteries, Laibach, on the tour supporting their studio album “WAT” (2003) – “We Are Time”, the now, I can safely say, legendary Laibach, went down at Mali grad in Kamnik. The setting for an event like this was one of a kind. The band is releasing a new studio album this October, packed with national anthems, recoded of course into their unique language, which for everyone whose ears tune in nicely to the frequency of that language is already a seriously exciting musical event. Politics is the highest all-encompassing art, and Laibach remain politicians, because they create contemporary popular art. They like to say so themselves. The era of provocation that caught fire in the eighties, the prophecy of the new resurrection of Opus Dei that once scared the communists, is long gone, but sinking into their unique apocalyptic militant vision is still a one-of-a-kind, irresistible thrill. Like I said, the world they build can only be created through their own personal language of musical art.
It was hellishly cold for the end of August. It came after a hefty morning “downpour”, of which we’ve probably all had a heaping suitcase-load this year, unless one of you is hiding a tendency to turn into an amphibian. By evening the sky cleared and a fresh but disgustingly cold wind blew in through the Kamniško sedlo pass, and under its merciless blasts plenty of bones were rattling during the show, like those of our brave “shorts guy” Jani. The other problem was that there were no portable toilets anywhere at Mali grad, so you really couldn’t overdo the beer on the spot or your bladder might have burst. There were around 500 people. As I said, the atmosphere in the shelter of Mali grad was special. If someone had switched on a light back then, you’d almost have felt like you were on an alpine pasture; all that was missing were the Simmental cows and some cute milkmaid with her hair in a braid who’d just come to do the milking. But no, things were rather different. Pitch darkness stretched out its hand and ate the orange on the horizon, the wind was shaving us mercilessly, and we waited for Laibach, the steel machine that will awaken all the demons of humanity’s recent history, whose burden our shoulders carry into the present, probably forever. Order, discipline! The nation must be healthy and fertile. Obey, exercise a lot and above all work. Preparing for battle. For conquering the world. For that, exemplary order and discipline are needed, from all of us. Obey the machine!
At 21:50 the prophecy began to unfold. A loud conspiracy of self-destruction, of a new self-rise and a new self-destruction. Laibach kicked off with the whirlwind of war. B Mashina, In The Army Now, by Status Quo, who recently flopped in Graz, and a dreadful upgrade of the already bitter atmosphere of the original Dogs Of War (Pink Floyd). And that was only the warm-up. The mood climbed a notch with Alle Gegen Alle, and the machine slowly bored through the fragile structure of human beings and, bit by bit, enslaved us in the building of its world of apocalyptic catharsis. Hypnotic, no doubt. What every music analyst needs here is to push aside a bit of the unavoidable added “playback”, the pre-recorded samples that built the band’s overall sound, and to resist comparing Laibach’s reworkings with the original versions. What helps a lot with switching off and sailing into the Laibach world is, well, nothing but a sweet beer – classic gig therapy, then, but within reason. The machine showed its insatiable claws when the ice-cold uniformed “Lolitas” arrived on stage. Those two were so perfect at carrying out orders and so well drilled that their ice-cold arrogance and indifference to everything else, amid the militant pounding of the “snare” drums, literally took your breath away, since they had more masculinity than all the members of Laibach on stage put together. Even the guys on stage, despite their special choreography, acting and the unique magic of Laibach’s creation, showed some heart and stage moves that could be described as “rock jams”. Through it all, Milan Fras remains the irreplaceable, tangible figure of Laibach. The man has unbelievable charisma and some kind of demonic magnetism. His performance is brilliantly considered and subordinated to the chanting of piercingly deep robotic verses, as always filled with his trademark gesturing and militant saluting. And that’s the trademark of this proclamation of a new world! Of course with no chatter between songs, which would ruin the picture of the “machine’s” untouchability and authority, but at the end of each number Milan always gave at least a slight yet convincing bow to the applauding crowd as a thank-you. People watched in a trance for most of the show, and the culprit was of course Fras, in his hypnotic dictator role. The machine ground on mercilessly! And the authoritative leader Milan in his standard getup proved once again to be one of the most important factors in creating this Laibach world, which sucked us into another dimension for an hour and a half. The regular set lasted an hour and 5 minutes. The film projection on the screen in the background also made a big contribution to visualizing the creation of the Laibach world, and the gloomy mood hung over Mali grad especially mercilessly through the thick stage fog and the individual “blasts” of spotlights that the band has at its disposal. The “machine” dictated a fighting march that trampled and ground to dust everything in its path. The slow steel caterpillar fed on fresh energy. It has time, it is time! There’s no light at the end. There’s only terror that commands obedience and the carrying out of orders. A bizarre past, present, future, forever and ever, to perdition and into a new birth, to a new perdition. “The passion of mad fathers, we love their gray heads, they gave us fertility so we can follow them into the black of the abyss of the fateful hour, in which our debt will be repaid…”, if I may borrow a bit of their preaching from the avant-garde record “Slovenska Akropola”.
The encore began as grotesquely as it could! Mama Leone! Here the pre-recorded lines in the background pushed up front a little too much. Well, even Laibach have a bit of sweetness and tenderness in them, and yet it turned out that Mama Leone could very quickly be rebaptized “Mama Can’t Take Iiit”. I was cracking up. Laibach shocked me again, successfully and unexpectedly, bravo guys. To fill the cup of nostalgia, the guys came in with a bit more guitar-driven rock racket. No need to guess, and yet. Rolling Bones and Sympathy For The Devil, followed by Geburt Einer Nation (One Vision, Queen), which woke up some nostalgia in me, because I remembered how we ran to get the “Opus Dei” record when it came out, still just “lizards”, high schoolers, and on top of all that, tonight’s Laibach show in Kamnik was symbolic for me in general, recalling my four years of school in SENŠRM. The cup overflowed with Life Is Life. In the encore the crowd properly came alive and shook off the hypnosis, or sleep. Laibach reaped some stormy applause and left us after an hour and a half through the pre-recorded sounds of Wir tanzen Ado Hinkel remix. The Laibach world came to life in its own unique way and scared us to the bone. Fear is the key! Brrrr,… A really nice show, a show of completely unique feelings, a show you have to see.
A lot has already been said about Laibach on Slovenian soil, so much that it’s almost too much. And yet… The fact is that abroad, even today, the crowd gets much more fired up at their shows. Slovenes are simply a quiet, reserved race, used to every hardship, yet still demanding, and I think still not proud enough of the world-famous Slovenian Laibach. But we’re curious enough to come see the “machine” every time it rattles into any Slovenian village with its destructive arsenal. We’re respectful toward the “machine”, and in Kamnik too Laibach proved they deserve it!
On this occasion I’d like to thank the organizer for all the kindness and excellence in putting on the Laibach show! It was the last day of this year’s Kamfest 2006 festival, and for many people a weight must surely have been lifted at the end.
Setlist
1.B Mashina
2.In the Army Now
3.Dogs of War
4.Alle gegen Alle
5.Mars on River Drina
6.God is God
7.Tanz mit Laibach
8.Du bist unser
9.Now You Will Pay
10.Hell : Symmetry
11.The Great Divide
12.Achtung!
13.Das Spiel ist Aus
14.Ende
15.WAT
—encore—
16.Mama Leone
17.Sympathy for the Devil
18.Geburt einer nation
19.Life Is Life
20.Wir tanzen Ado Hinkel remix (recorded outro)
