Post by Nik on Dec 1, 2006 22:36:46 GMT -5
Thought it's been a while so heres my indepth review of Laibach from their recent london show, i'd be appreciate it that, even if ya dont like the band, you could let me know what you reckon to the writing and layout, cheers!
After getting lost on the tube system (always a pleasure) I finally reach the Mean fiddler at the ungodly early hour of 6PM. The first thing that hits me is that the assembled masses queuing around the venue are not exactly the most conservatively dressed bunch, PVC, elaborate make-up and being in possession of more metal than skin was very much the norm. Being the non-conformist wanker I am I rebelled by wearing a shirt and jeans. Whilst waiting in the queue I was robbed of the time killing pleasure of listening in on other peoples’ conversations, simply because I didn’t speak the same language as most of them. Safe to say the crowd was a tad on the culturally diverse side. Instead I entertain myself by observing the freak show that was the lone ticket tout. His excessive prices really didn’t stand much chance, competing as they were with tickets going for face value on the door. Was difficult to hold back the laughter as he got a talking to over the phone from his wife/ girlfriend / hooker because he was going to be home late because he ‘still had to go round a few more venues.’ What a life he leads. It had slipped my mind that the venue itself is underground and so once again I experienced the shock of walking down a flight of steps to find myself still a floor above the stage. A passing glance at the merchandise stall makes me regret being a poor student, as alongside the expected t-shirts and posters there are tonnes of stuff like stamps and passports for the NSK state. This being the ‘first global state of the universe’ established by the NSK multi-media arts collective, of whom Laibach are a member.
The crowd react favourably to opening act Client, whose emotionless electronica is certainly suited to the occasion. They evidently had a handful of obsessive fans dotted around the venue judging from the occasional lone voice screaming out the choruses, one genuinely hilarious time this differed totally from the actual lyrics. They dealt well with technical problems that were present from the moment they took to the stage, one song having to be stopped midway through owing to the singers’ microphone and wire needing to be replaced. Although hardly awful I wasn’t too impressed, it’d be wrong to suggest that they don’t have some quality catchy tunes but these seemed to be strung out for such a long time that catchy quickly gives way to repetitive and uninteresting, whilst the lesser numbers were totally disposable and seemed to only function to pass time between their better numbers. Judging by their innuendo heavy lyrics and stage show they’re clearly aiming for the dominatrix concept but this fails utterly, coming across as extremely forced and ultimately uninteresting. While at first the vocalists’ clinical delivery is entertaining it quickly becomes apparent she is not going to vary it in the slightest, causing it to soon become boring. They are saved somewhat by some decent and quite unusual arrangements but, whilst some of their better songs would go down well in a club environment, as a full length live act they don’t cut it.
The gap between bands is usually not the most entertaining of times, but on this occasion it was made bearable by the spectacle of an utter knob of a roadie having a serious hissey fit. It seemed to start when he was trying to get the attention of another roadie, but to no success. Understandably furious at this he responded in a calm and collected manner by throwing a wire into the front row of the crowd and later at the offending roadie. He also turned rather red. And shouted. A lot. Of course, I’m sure he’s a pleasant fella away from the stress of the job. Aroundabout 8PM Laibach stride onstage to deafening applause, it’s a small wonder there wasn’t any structural damage. At this point the collective consists of a drummer, a few electronics/keyboardists and two vocalists. One being a woman blessed with a beautiful operatic voice and the other, of course, being Milan Fras, cutting a dominant figure centre stage in his trademark headgear. Also a vital part of the performance was the film/animations that were constantly projected onto two giant screens behind the musicians. The first section of the show focused exclusively on their latest record, Volk, which is a collection of reinterpretations of various national anthems. It’s predominantly very slowly paced material, with the woman’s vocals central to the overall sound. Milan’s voice presented a brutally efficient contrast to this, most successfully when some songs gave way to more violent passages. The sound quality throughout was genuinely unbelievable, recreating the recorded sound perfectly. There was the odd knobhead in the crowd shouting out for older material during the reflective songs but on the whole the crowd seemed totally enraptured by proceedings and greeted the end of each song with thunderous applause. The choice to showcase the entire record as a whole makes good sense. The songs are enjoyable individually; it’s just that it is essential for the concept of the record that they appear in context with one another. Bringing to a close the first section of the show the band all left the stage allowing the NSK national anthem and accompanying patriotic video to blast out by themselves. In deliberately sharp contrast to all the other anthems reinvented, which tended to air on the questioning and ironic side, NSK is a clear cut pledge of total allegiance and trust to the state, much as were the original versions of the other anthems. Discuss.
The second section is an around 50-minute run through of their better known material. You couldn’t really call this a greatest hits section as it largely ignored the bands 20-year history and instead took songs almost exclusively from their 2003 album, Wat. There are changes within the collective to accommodate this change in musical direction with the addition of another keyboardist and two women drummers placed at the very front of either side of the stage. Gone is the female vocalist and with her any sense of beauty and calm in the music, but that’s not what this part of the show is about. Kicking off with the military march of ‘Tanz mit Laibach’ the change in atmosphere is immediate. Gone is the almost passive analysis the anthems were given and in their place a rigid, cold and aggressive power. There has clearly been considerable effort to meticulously choreograph every aspect of movement onstage, most clearly in the mirror image movements of the drummer women, when they are not smashing the drums in a heavily exaggerated style they spend their time pointing and saluting in perfect unison. This is very much more what is expected of Laibach, it’s all very authoritarian with Milan genuinely frightening in both his vocal delivery and manic poses. The crowd greet songs such as ‘Actung’, ‘Hell: Symmetry’ and ‘Das spiel ist aus’ ecstatically, I totally didn’t expect for a small mosh pit to start up, nor for there to be crowd surfing. Next time I shall know better and perhaps be less surprised when a shoe hits my head. It’s all over far too soon and extremely early at that, Mean fiddler insist that gigs on a weekend are over by 10PM, thus allowing them to run a club night immediately afterwards and double their money for the night. Tossers. A medley remix of numerous Laibach tunes plays as the credits roll, literally on the screens. Whilst this is happening, in a style that identifies the band much more with the performance art of the theatre than the standard touring band, each collective member individually returns to take a bow before finally the whole band return to do so as a whole. It’s striking to see people who had moments before been the embodiment of cold obedience now smiling and laughing amongst themselves as they take their bows. It’s a suitably bizarre end to a bizarre gig. It may well be many years till they’re back in the UK, and the new album they bring with them could sound like almost anything, but when they do I’ll most defiantly make the journey again.
Laibach
25/11/06
Mean Fiddler
London
25/11/06
Mean Fiddler
London
After getting lost on the tube system (always a pleasure) I finally reach the Mean fiddler at the ungodly early hour of 6PM. The first thing that hits me is that the assembled masses queuing around the venue are not exactly the most conservatively dressed bunch, PVC, elaborate make-up and being in possession of more metal than skin was very much the norm. Being the non-conformist wanker I am I rebelled by wearing a shirt and jeans. Whilst waiting in the queue I was robbed of the time killing pleasure of listening in on other peoples’ conversations, simply because I didn’t speak the same language as most of them. Safe to say the crowd was a tad on the culturally diverse side. Instead I entertain myself by observing the freak show that was the lone ticket tout. His excessive prices really didn’t stand much chance, competing as they were with tickets going for face value on the door. Was difficult to hold back the laughter as he got a talking to over the phone from his wife/ girlfriend / hooker because he was going to be home late because he ‘still had to go round a few more venues.’ What a life he leads. It had slipped my mind that the venue itself is underground and so once again I experienced the shock of walking down a flight of steps to find myself still a floor above the stage. A passing glance at the merchandise stall makes me regret being a poor student, as alongside the expected t-shirts and posters there are tonnes of stuff like stamps and passports for the NSK state. This being the ‘first global state of the universe’ established by the NSK multi-media arts collective, of whom Laibach are a member.
The crowd react favourably to opening act Client, whose emotionless electronica is certainly suited to the occasion. They evidently had a handful of obsessive fans dotted around the venue judging from the occasional lone voice screaming out the choruses, one genuinely hilarious time this differed totally from the actual lyrics. They dealt well with technical problems that were present from the moment they took to the stage, one song having to be stopped midway through owing to the singers’ microphone and wire needing to be replaced. Although hardly awful I wasn’t too impressed, it’d be wrong to suggest that they don’t have some quality catchy tunes but these seemed to be strung out for such a long time that catchy quickly gives way to repetitive and uninteresting, whilst the lesser numbers were totally disposable and seemed to only function to pass time between their better numbers. Judging by their innuendo heavy lyrics and stage show they’re clearly aiming for the dominatrix concept but this fails utterly, coming across as extremely forced and ultimately uninteresting. While at first the vocalists’ clinical delivery is entertaining it quickly becomes apparent she is not going to vary it in the slightest, causing it to soon become boring. They are saved somewhat by some decent and quite unusual arrangements but, whilst some of their better songs would go down well in a club environment, as a full length live act they don’t cut it.
The gap between bands is usually not the most entertaining of times, but on this occasion it was made bearable by the spectacle of an utter knob of a roadie having a serious hissey fit. It seemed to start when he was trying to get the attention of another roadie, but to no success. Understandably furious at this he responded in a calm and collected manner by throwing a wire into the front row of the crowd and later at the offending roadie. He also turned rather red. And shouted. A lot. Of course, I’m sure he’s a pleasant fella away from the stress of the job. Aroundabout 8PM Laibach stride onstage to deafening applause, it’s a small wonder there wasn’t any structural damage. At this point the collective consists of a drummer, a few electronics/keyboardists and two vocalists. One being a woman blessed with a beautiful operatic voice and the other, of course, being Milan Fras, cutting a dominant figure centre stage in his trademark headgear. Also a vital part of the performance was the film/animations that were constantly projected onto two giant screens behind the musicians. The first section of the show focused exclusively on their latest record, Volk, which is a collection of reinterpretations of various national anthems. It’s predominantly very slowly paced material, with the woman’s vocals central to the overall sound. Milan’s voice presented a brutally efficient contrast to this, most successfully when some songs gave way to more violent passages. The sound quality throughout was genuinely unbelievable, recreating the recorded sound perfectly. There was the odd knobhead in the crowd shouting out for older material during the reflective songs but on the whole the crowd seemed totally enraptured by proceedings and greeted the end of each song with thunderous applause. The choice to showcase the entire record as a whole makes good sense. The songs are enjoyable individually; it’s just that it is essential for the concept of the record that they appear in context with one another. Bringing to a close the first section of the show the band all left the stage allowing the NSK national anthem and accompanying patriotic video to blast out by themselves. In deliberately sharp contrast to all the other anthems reinvented, which tended to air on the questioning and ironic side, NSK is a clear cut pledge of total allegiance and trust to the state, much as were the original versions of the other anthems. Discuss.
The second section is an around 50-minute run through of their better known material. You couldn’t really call this a greatest hits section as it largely ignored the bands 20-year history and instead took songs almost exclusively from their 2003 album, Wat. There are changes within the collective to accommodate this change in musical direction with the addition of another keyboardist and two women drummers placed at the very front of either side of the stage. Gone is the female vocalist and with her any sense of beauty and calm in the music, but that’s not what this part of the show is about. Kicking off with the military march of ‘Tanz mit Laibach’ the change in atmosphere is immediate. Gone is the almost passive analysis the anthems were given and in their place a rigid, cold and aggressive power. There has clearly been considerable effort to meticulously choreograph every aspect of movement onstage, most clearly in the mirror image movements of the drummer women, when they are not smashing the drums in a heavily exaggerated style they spend their time pointing and saluting in perfect unison. This is very much more what is expected of Laibach, it’s all very authoritarian with Milan genuinely frightening in both his vocal delivery and manic poses. The crowd greet songs such as ‘Actung’, ‘Hell: Symmetry’ and ‘Das spiel ist aus’ ecstatically, I totally didn’t expect for a small mosh pit to start up, nor for there to be crowd surfing. Next time I shall know better and perhaps be less surprised when a shoe hits my head. It’s all over far too soon and extremely early at that, Mean fiddler insist that gigs on a weekend are over by 10PM, thus allowing them to run a club night immediately afterwards and double their money for the night. Tossers. A medley remix of numerous Laibach tunes plays as the credits roll, literally on the screens. Whilst this is happening, in a style that identifies the band much more with the performance art of the theatre than the standard touring band, each collective member individually returns to take a bow before finally the whole band return to do so as a whole. It’s striking to see people who had moments before been the embodiment of cold obedience now smiling and laughing amongst themselves as they take their bows. It’s a suitably bizarre end to a bizarre gig. It may well be many years till they’re back in the UK, and the new album they bring with them could sound like almost anything, but when they do I’ll most defiantly make the journey again.