"MACHINES WE'RE SENDING TO THE SKIES!"

Review of LAIBACH concert in Stuttgart on 30.09.03

by Hanno Reichel

Prologue

On 30.09.2003, LAIBACH presented their program WAT in Stuttgart´s “Röhre” as part of their 2003 European WAT-Tour.

As a matter of fact, after the WAT-premiere in LAIBACH's hometown Trbovlje the location could not be better chosen in the album's context of time and space: Stuttgart, as the hometown of Mercedes-Benz and thus center of German industrial power seems to be a possible parallel to Trbovlje once being the powerful center of Slovenian coalmining-industry in the Ljubljana-area and by now suffering massive economical and social problems after the breakdown of this industry. As German industrial and economical power actually seems to be declining by now, it might be that in some way Trbovlje's past might one day become Stuttgart´s future, when “all the things we made by hand are nowadays made in Japan” and history repeats itself… Anyway, for one night of LAIBACH being in town, the shining Mercedes-star on Stuttgart main-station´s clocktower was replaced by a flaming cross, and instead of luxury-limousines leaving the factory-halls, LAIBACH raised their dream-machines into the skies...

Stuttgart's "Röhre"-club itself seemed to fit 100% into LAIBACH's actual artistic/political concept as well. As the name “Röhre” already suggests, the club is located in an old "Autobahn"-tunnel which in some way created the atmosphere of a time-tunnel with LAIBACH on stage being the light either on the beginning or the end of it. Needless to say that "Röhre's" dancefloor in actual WAT-checkboarddesign completed the visual perfection of the set which was decreased only a little bit by the narrow stage that made the sight on the stage-performance a bit difficult and obviously caused the impossibility to raise the usually obligatory LAIBACH-typical banners left and right from stage.

Another important thing to mention were the two different kinds of posters for the tour that had been placed around the entrance, the WAT-version of them showing the already well-known WAT-cross in checkboarddesign in front of a flaming background, while the "Tanz mit LAIBACH"-version featured a nightmare-like picture of LAIBACH in "Wehrmacht"-uniforms posing with machine-guns in front of a classical background with a roman/greek antique temple in natural surrounding. Important seems to be that only Milan's face is recognizable while the other faces are too distorted to be identified. Possible interpretation of these images -in my opinion- tends to be the timelessness of LAIBACH:
The WAT-version in this context suggests the symbolical invulnerability of the LAIBACH-concept by showing the sophisticated and unharmed WAT-cross as a contrast to its flaming and thus destructive background. As the WAT-concept already suggests, the album is meant to represent time and history itself, and the static of history repeating itself over and over again in endless circles cannot be (self-)destructed by time, as time itself is an integral part of the concept. Moreover, the symmetrical and excessively ordered checkboarddesign, clearly separating black from white in static squares as the NSK-typical illusion of the (impossible) perfect state stands in rough contrast to the chaos of always interchanging colors and elements connected with the image of flames and fire as parallels to the actual rapid and partly destructive geopolitical changes we are witnessing all over the world.

In this sense, the "Tanz mit LAIBACH"-version might be seen as an example of this repeating history of wars and destruction by showing the different faces this history might show from WWII to the contemporary War against Terrorism. In this connection, the image also seems to equal the danger of corruption of democratic values (symbolized by the greek temple as the first source of European democracy) by aggressive military power. According to that, Milan's face as the only recognizable person in the picture might suggest the fact that LAIBACH in their conception of "Recognition of time-universality" (10 items of the covenant) already predicted this historical full-circle, witnessing themselves from within now that "el tempi del pace sono passati"...

Nevertheless, although the show was obviously not sold out, some good amount of fans entered the tunnel in the evening after the doors had finally opened. First place to be was the NSK-propaganda-department/merchandise, where -besides some already known elder collectibles- a lot of new propaganda-material was waiting for the fan's KAPITAL. Besides newly designed t-shirts with different WAT-related designs NK offered two new colorprinted posters, one of them showing the already well-known "Achtung!"-image of LAIBACH shopping in military uniforms ("LAIBACH-EINKAUF"), the other one being again a group-photo of the band in military uniforms in front of a "Kitsch"-postcardPANORAMA with the subtitle "Grüss von LAIBACH". Both images once again seem to be a conscious corruption of western capitalist/"heile Welt"-values by directly confronting them with massive totalitarian (LAIBACH-)imagery.
Other new products proved again LAIBACH's and NSK's talent for pure "Warenästhetik", ironically relating normal everyday-life things to certain LAIBACH-songs, as for example the mini-torch “To the new light”, the shoeshine-kit "Glanz mit LAIBACH" or the adressbook "We, the citizens of NSK...". Although all these things are in practice nothing but simple things for normal-life use, far be it from them to be non-symbolic:
Shouldn´t it make us think that the torch´s "new light" is actually red, thus paralleling roman war-god Mars (equalling the "red planet" Mars) as already mentioned in LAIBACH-songs "Mars (/March) on River Drina" (NATO), "Sponsored by Mars" (KAPITAL) or "The final Countdown" (NATO) and by the same time the former communist symbolism of the color red as already quoted in IRWIN's "Rdeci revirji"?
The deeper meaning of the new LAIBACH-belts with the LAIBACH-logo on the front and the words "To serve and to protect" on the back of the buckle might lead to different conclusions… In fact, LAIBACH have always served as some kind of System-"Exorcists", thus protecting us from being blinded by these very systems. And is it not so, that they always had to hide strategically this noble task behind hard and pure symbolism?
And couldn't it be that the cleaning and shining of (combat/military)-boots parallels propagandistic efforts of any kind to make brutal and inhuman acts of war look clean, smooth and technical (as seen on CNN) although it is in reality nothing but crushing skulls in the dirt under heavy boots?
And maybe the adressbook is in this sense just a motivation of connecting and interacting between as many people (NSK-citizens) as possible to develop a growing bandwith for transfer of information, ideals and ideas worldwide... In other words: BECOME A CITIZEN OF THE FIRST GLOBAL STATE OF THE UNIVERSE, THE STATE OF NSK!

On the whole, a great bunch of new ideas in those items that made everyone looking forward to the actual program which was to start in a LAIBACH-typical manner of slowly rising tension at about 21:00h.

WAT

With dimming lights, increasing density of fog on stage and the sounds of Johann Strauss' hymnic "Donauwalzer/The Blue Danube" (also well-known from Stanley Kubrick´s 1968 sci-fi-movie "2001-A space odyssey") underlined by the nervous constant ticking of a mechanical clock, LAIBACH finally entered the stage, opening the set with the atmospheric opener of the WAT-album, “B:Machina”. Wether this kind of intro was more an ode to Johann Strauss or to Stanley Kubrick might be decided personally, in both senses the classical masterpiece seems to fit the principles of WAT by combining its relation to past European monarchist dynasties on the one hand with forthcoming futuristic and intriguing science-fiction-aspects on the other hand. In this sense, it might also be a hint to the actual "50-years-project" of NSK's Cosmocinetical Cabinet NOORDUNG", which is by now also flirting with ideas of space and zero-gravity similar to those of the "2001"-movie, although in another artistic context as LAIBACH's time-universality. In this sense, even certain parts of the later lightshow seemed to parallel "2001" optically, with blue bars of light orbiting a reflective ball in the air above the hall in a manner of suns and planets moving though the LAIBACH-universe...

After "B:Machina", the show continued with aggressive versions of "In the Army now", "Dogs of War" and "Alle gegen Alle" from NATO, all adapted in a more rock/metal/industrial way similar to the presentation of these songs on JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTARS-tour in the late 90ies, with groovy guitar-riffs and distorted feedbacks in the foreground and synthesizer-sequences more in the back. Anyway, the fact that politics since the release of NATO in 1994 brutalized in a barbaric geopolitical way unleashing massive military powers i.e. in Afghanistan and Iraq justifies the adaptation of these certain war-related songs from their original clean and hymnical NATO-version to the more aggressive mixes of today. Again, this proves LAIBACH's ability to undergo slight metamorphoses if necessary for their task in changing times and surroundings without losing their original basic concept. An also absolute brutal version of "Mars on River Drina" in combination with blinding stroboscopic light-effects followed and "God is God" concluded the first part of the set consisting of these elder tracks from NATO and JESUS CHRIST SUPERSTARS.

To the beginning sounds of "Tanz mit LAIBACH", the two female "little drummers" (IRWIN) entered the stage, giving the stage-performance the extraordinary totalitarian and disciplined shape that LAIBACH-performances have always been famous for and by the same time shifting the show towards WAT. In this context, the highly professional acting of these two icecold-sexy girls has to be acknowledged and honoured: Besides background-singing the choir-parts of certain WAT-songs, their robotic drumming and synchronized gesticulating was performed in aesthetical perfection that seemed almost inhumane. LAIBACH could not have chosen better performers, even if they were in fact kraftwerkian robots. "Du bist unser", "Now you will pay", "Hell:Symmetry", "The Great Divide", "Achtung!", "Das Spiel ist aus" and "Ende" followed in a row without leaving the audience time to breathe and the hymnic "WAT" ended the regular set concluding the series of songs from the new album and by the same time summarizing in a self-retrospective way what the last one and a half hours (and the last 23 years) of LAIBACH´s activities had been about.

The atmospherical tension of the songs was once again supported by a video-projection on the backdrop of stage showing mainly computer-animated disturbing clips but also parts of the original videoclips to certain songs i.e. for "Tanz mit LAIBACH" and "God is God". Speaking of these projections, an extreme technical anachronism with a great symbolical value has to be mentioned: Considering the immense hightech-efforts necessary to create some of these computerized clips, it seems a typical LAIBACH-idea to project them to the backdrop from ancient celluloid-filmrolls with an electric film-projector. In fact, this is a visualisation of the future brought to the present through the eye (optical lens) of the past...

In connection with these projections, another small detail of the "show" shall not be forgotten: Dejan Knez, this time responsible for keyboarding and sound-effects, broke the usual mainly static and solemn sort of LAIBACH stage-performance by acting like a maniac behind his keyboard-console, in one way or another representing certain emotions and thoughts of the songs in extreme body-language from sheer terror on "Mars on River Drina" to spooky frightening (barbarian) gestures on "Now you will pay". Moreover, during some parts of tracks that did not need his continuous work on keyboards, he even turned and walked away from his console and used the partly bright white background of the projections on the backdrop for some "Schattenspiele" (silhouette acting) in a creative way, proving to be (besides a creative musician) a talented "Schauspieler!"(actor).

Speaking of the presented songs of WAT on the whole, it can be said that they were in general performed in slightly less hymnic and atmospheric but more aggressive versions than on the album or the premiere in Trbovlje, similar to what I already mentioned above concerning the songs from NATO. To put it in another way: The live-performance kept the modern and sophisticated style of the WAT-album, but by the same time drew parallels in sound and lyrics to ancient old industrial LAIBACH-times. Let me just mention here the most obvious analogy of WAT´s "The Great Divide" to NOVA AKROPOLA's "Krvava Gruda-Plodna Zemlja" once again proving that certain things in history besides LAIBACH are "zeitlos" (timeless).

After some minutes of applause from the audience, LAIBACH finally came back to the stage for "Anti-semitism" and "Sympathy for the Devil", ending the set with some examples of firsttime-seen "normal" rockstar-behaviour ever witnessed on LAIBACH-concerts, bowing and applauding to the audience and even some waving when leaving the stage. 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.

Epilogue / Perspektive

LAIBACH is back! Moving perfectly on the edge of preserving their original concept and by the same time adapting new ideas, "WAT" and its presentation on the actual tour proves that LAIBACH and NSK are in fact light-years away from being a phenomenon only of certain past circumstances and certain political and geographical surroundings (named: the Yugoslavian context of the 1980ies). They are –as it seems- in contrast to that as controversial as ever and more active on a broad global basis as ever before with their ideas and performances.

Unfortunately, the possible concept of LAIBACH to encourage the audience to some sort of interaction/communication by in fact "dancing with LAIBACH" did not yet seem to work perfectly: It was visible here and there that people were starting to move to the beat, but a real dancing of the masses did not occur although the massive beats of the above-mentioned outro really invited to move. If it is really part of the new slightly more open concept of LAIBACH to get into an open and direct interaction with the audience, the fans seem to need more time to adapt to this new “human” face of LAIBACH 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". Speaking of this intended interaction, the above-mentioned hint to NOORDUNG's "50-years-project" might get important again, as NOORDUNG's planned use of zero-gravity in a theatrical environment in the context of the "Cosmocinetical Cabinet" is also meant to erase the borders between actor and audience by putting both into an environment where they are by circumstances and the director forced to interact with each other.

Nevertheless, the idea of giving LAIBACH this slightly friendlier human face after all these years of audiovisual totalitarism to the absolute seems appropriate in todays political contexts: By now, the mechanisms of power and totalitarism lost their need for frightening facades in black stone and dreadful "Gestapo"-agents, they were simply replaced by the colourful and shiny worlds of consume, money and last but not least the technical videogame-appearance of War against Terrorism hiding behind the impression of "stars and stripes forever"... And another symbolic parallel: Is it not true that the former concept of "one transmitter and a multitude of receivers" paralleled historical and strict totalitarism, while this new –more open and communicative but not yet working- principle of encouraging the receivers to interact with the transmitter parallels the actual (US)-American "cartoon-democracy" (LAIBACH), which on the paper lets people participate in political decisions but on the "hidden reverse" (Zlavoj Zizek) bans them from really using these possibilities by a massive filtering/censorship of information and restricting educational and economical opportunities for the masses?

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 Stuttgart and already predicting the forthcoming concerts in Germany's capitol Berlin. For those who were unable to "walk into the universe of LAIBACHKUNST-machine" and "tanz mit LAIBACH" for one or another concert, it might be a glimpse of hope that the actual WAT-concerts were accompanied by Slovene filmmaker Saso Podgorsek who is obviously preparing a complete video-footage of the whole tour with parts of the stage-program, interviews, etc., so that we can look forward to sophisticated video-documenti of an impressing new LAIBACH-program.

NEW ORDER TO THE BRAVE NEW WORLD !