"I WANT TO FLY TO BERLIN!"

Review of LAIBACH-concerts on Berlin's "Volksbühne" on 15/16.10.MMIII

by Hanno Reichel

Prologue

On 15. and 16.10.2003, LAIBACH presented their program WAT on Berlin's "Volksbühne" with two concerts, thus concluding their "Bomardierung [...] über dem Deutschland" after a series of great concerts in Germany during the last weeks.

"Volksbühne" has already been a perfect venue for LAIBACH and NSK in the past, as it was in 1993 scene for "NSK-STAAT BERLIN", an interdisciplinary "Gesamtkunstwerk" of LAIBACH, IRWIN and the DEPARTMENT OF PURE AND PRACTICAL PHILOSOPHY which finalized in the proclamation of "Volksbühne" being territory of the virtual NSK-State in Time. A golden metal-plate in the upper foyer of the venue still gives proof of this certain event that took place here 10 years ago.

The reasons for LAIBACH to choose once again this certain venue for a double-feature of WAT are obvious, as already the visual appearance of the building´s exterior fits into LAIBACH's controversial aesthetical concept: "Volksbühne" is a large monumental building originally going back to 1913 with an architecture of beginning modernism but already somehow paralleling -on a smaller scale, of course- Albert Speer´s later 1930s visions of Berlin as "Germania", the timeless capitol of the "1000-year Reich". Originally in the best sense meant to be a theatre for the "Volk" (=the whole population), it was in the beginning 1920s used for proletarian politic theatre, but later assimilated for the means of national-socialistic propaganda in the totalitarian regime of Hitler´s NSDAP. Together with their ideas, the building was destroyed during WWII and reconstructed later in the 1950s. By now -in times of reunified German post-war democracy- "Volksbühne" is host to a lot of different artist and cultural events (concerts, theatre, cabaret, disco, political discussions, etc.) Thus, being full of different and partly contradictious symbolism, "Volskbühne" seems a great location for LAIBACH.

The massive fortress-like appearance of the facade was for the two days of the concerts decorated with a large darkblue LAIBACH-banner on the roof-part which was in the dark accompanied by a nearby blue neonlight-sign reading "OST" (=east) on top of it. Although this sign was obviously just a coincidence having nothing to do with the event, it had a certain way of fitting into the appearance of the venue for what was soon to come...

The monumental appearance of the building continues in the interior, the foyers and halls giving far more the impression of being in a classical theatre than in a rock-club, which actually made a great difference to the usual venues of previous LAIBACH-concerts, once again supporting the visual appearance of the whole event already from the beginning.

Both shows were absolutely sold out, even a large amount of fans had to be sent away both nights without tickets, although the venue can pack some 800 souls. Berlin, as one of the most important contemporary cultural centers of Germany seemed to draw a whole bunch of different types of LAIBACH-fans, from elder intellectuals and young punks to obligatory skinheads and blackdressed gothics. Among the audience were also some certain LAIBACH-related guests as for example the Slovenian Ambassador in Germany, people of MUTE-records' Berlin-branch and German NSK-expert and -supporter Inke Arns.

In the large groundfloor-foyer, NK once again offered various NSK-propaganda-items and the possibility for NSK-citizens to get the official visa of "WAT" stamped into their passports, and comfortable seats and tables invited people for some discussion and drinks with the other guests.

WAT

With the doors of "Großer Saal" (the main theatre-hall) finally opening around 21:15h, the audience streamed into the venue gaining their seats. Here again it proved that the venue of “Volksbühne” had been a great choice of LAIBACH: The whole room with its huge chandelier and decorated walls gave a great background, and the stage should be among the largest LAIBACH played on during 2003's WAT-tour. The extreme amount of space the stage offered gave LAIBACH the possibility of establishing a great stage-setting which made their former stage-appearance in smaller venues like Stuttgart's "Röhre" or Krefeld's "Kulturfabrik" almost look poor... Every instrumental section had a lot of space of its own standing as a separate but integral part of the LAIBACHKUNST-machine. The instrumental sections were accompanied by a setting of some shining silver- and blackcolored symmetric horizontal and vertical light-installations and two large ventilators. All in all, the symmetrical and –due to the large space- somehow filigree stage-setting, together with the possibility of changing the color of the whole stage-section by theatrical light-effects mounted high above the stage, gave the whole appearance a theatrical air. Moreover, it established some great similarity to the scenery of the THEATRE OF THE SISTERS SCIPION NASICE's plays of the 1980s, known –among others- from the video-clip of “Geburt einer Nation” with LAIBACH acting with only rudimentary (symbolic) instruments in front of colorful changing backgrounds. Actually, this is just another part of the contemporary LAIBACH-puzzle that, with WAT, combines the unchanged “historical” and eternal LAIBACH-style with “modern” elements of 21st century.

As for the previous concerts, the show started with dimming lights, fog on stage and the sounds of Johann Strauss' "Donauwalzer/The Blue Danube" underlined by the nervous constant ticking of a mechanical clock. Already with this intro it became obvious, that the sound was this time more than just a few levels louder than on the previous concerts. In fact, during the forthcoming of the show, the sound should reach an unbelievable level of loudness but in spite of that, all the frequencies from highest trebles to lowest basses were audible as clear as possible. LAIBACH-perfectionism and "Volksbühne"'s obviously sophisticated sound-equipment made this possible.

LAIBACH finally entered the stage around 22:00h, opening the set once more with the atmospheric opener of the WAT-album and continuing/concluding it with the already known setlist of the previous concerts:

B:Machina
In the Army now
Dogs of War
Alle gegen Alle
Mars on River Drina
God is God
Tanz mit LAIBACH
Du bist unser
Now you will pay
Hell:Symmetry
The Great Divide
Achtung!
Das Spiel ist aus
Ende
WAT

plus

Anti-semitism
Sympathy for the Devil

Concerning the presentation of these songs, there is nothing to add to the reviews that have already been written for the previous concerts all over Europe on NSKSTATE.COM and on LAIBACH-NSK-newsgroup.

Anyway, the optical presentation in combination with the brutal sound of the show seems to be absolutely remarkable in comparison with the earlier concerts of WAT-tour I have witnessed:
Although the optical concept was basically the same as ever (video-projections, stroboscopic effects and changing colored lights mainly in blue and red), the simple fact that the technical possibilities for these effects were a lot more sophisticated here (due to the fact that "Volksbühne" is a theatre and not just a "normal" concert-venue) made the show appear 1000% more impressing than anywhere else before. As already mentioned, together with the large video-projections –that appeared on the backdrop in a size of approximately 10x15 meters- the relatively simple but absolutely atmospheric light-effects of combining blue and red light with stroboscopic and laserlike effects with bright white lights (partly once again paralleling Albert Speer's propagandistic idea of the "Lichtdom" used during the Olympic Games in Berlin 1936), the whole performance gained an aura of futuristic and by the same time totalitarian style. Once again, it was left to the audience, if this was impressing in a positive or a negative way and gave proof of the fact that ancient totalitarian rituals still seem functional in a 21st-century context and capable of (at least superficially) impressing even an enlightened European audience.

Differing from this more atmospheric use of lights, the impression of more aggressive tracks as for example "Now you will pay" was strengthened by brutal stroboscopic effects aiming directly to the audience and thus, together with the intense loudness of sound, creating real physical stress on the edge of the bearable. For these parts it can be said that they were literally creating an aura of "sound/force in a form of systematic psychophysical terror", as mentioned in LAIBACH's "10 items of the covenant".

As for the previous concerts, in the end of the show LAIBACH again retained their more open approach with small gestures of "normal" rockstar-behaviour, bowing and applauding to the audience and even some waving when leaving the stage, things never seen before the WAT-tour and in some way being the first obvious steps away from the formerly strict basis of their original concept. Nevertheless, the fans enthusiastically celebrated LAIBACH with some minutes of standing ovations between "WAT" and the encore.

Rythmical applauding and handclapping of Milan and the two "little drummers" led over to Zeta Reticula's brutal and minimalistic "Wir tanzen Ado Hinkel"-remix of “Tanz mit LAIBACH” serving as an outro. And it might be in some way, that this certain song happens to be the strongest direct hint to the eternal original LAIBACH-strategy still alive on WAT:
One integral strategy of LAIBACH has always been radical "eclecticism", the use of most different political, cultural and religious symbols, building them together at will into some kind of chaotic "bric-a-brac" (Zlavoj Zizek) that is –surprisingly- in some way functioning in the creative LAIBACH-fantasyimage. Needless to say, this fantasyimage is nothing but an impossible non-ideology that offers no real point of identification and is in fact meaningless, thus showing the true emptiness of ideologically corrupted symbols and encouraging the spectator to think about his own attitude towards the impression these symbols himpose on him. Personally, I cannot think of another song of WAT that is so extremely close to this strategy as the "Wir tanzen Ado Hinkel"-remix of "Tanz mit LAIBACH": The massive techno-beats, hammering the scattered and senseless remains of the former original lyrics into the audience's ears creates an impression that I would describe as "Das dröhnende Nichts" ("the roaring void"). The track superficially fascinates by constantly and systematically propagating ideologically symbolic names and symbols ("Totalitarismus", "Demokratie", "Faschismus", etc.), that, seen from the distance –and after the euphoria of the show´s gigantism and the feeling of hypnotical rhythm have passed-, are absolutely senseless.

Concluding, it has to be said that the two concerts did not differ quite a lot from each other. Setlists were in fact the same and the stageperformance was in general similar both nights. Only seen in detail, slight differences might be mentioned here for the history-books: In my personal impression, audio and visual were crosschanged from one night to the other, the first concert combining slightly more brutal and aggressive sounds with a more atmospherical lightshow while the second featured a slightly calmer and smoother sound but more confusing and extreme light-effects. In combination, this resulted in mainly equal performances.

Epilogue / Perspektive

Speaking about Berlin, the possible partly new concept of LAIBACH to encourage the audience to some sort of interaction/communication by in fact “dancing with LAIBACH” showed first small signs of functioning: People were seen dancing to the beats of "Tanz mit LAIBACH" on their seats, and some groups in the audience even kept moving after the lights went back on. Anyway, after 23 years of strict “communication only through non-communication” that permitted the audience to play only the passive role as a "multitude of receivers" being overwhelmed and terrorized by LAIBACH as the "one (and only) transmitter [...] of a centralized program", this might be the beginning of a new era of LAIBACH shifting to a more open concept in the future. If this is true and how this opening might develop will be shown only by time.

With the lights in the hall turning back on, an American WWII-propaganda-song ("I want to fly to Berlin") sounded from the speakers with the image of the burning LAIBACH-logo fading out on the backdrop of stage, ending the visit of LAIBACH to Berlin. Unique in the history of WAT-tour is that fact that only here this song gets a context similar to the "Beyond the infinite"-remix of "The Final Countdown", used as an outro on OCCUPIED EUROPE NATO TOUR in 1994 and 1995, in some way predicting a return of LAIBACH with the title of that song paralleling the "maybe we'll come back... to earth!"- lyrics of NATO-tour.

As for the other concerts of European WAT-tour, LAIBACH were once again accompanied by Slovene filmmaker Saso Podgorsek in Berlin, so that we can look forward to sophisticated video-documenti of this -in my opinion- most impressing concert of the official WAT-tour up to now. And maybe, if the current success of the WAT-record goes on, we might also be looking forward to more concerts in Europe in 2004 or 2005... In fact, as LAIBACH-fans, we should be glad that, yet "the new century did not bring catharsis" at least it brought LAIBACH back to (the new?) light after 7 years of silence.

NEW ORDER TO THE BRAVE NEW WORLD !