Air -

Rating: 5/5
Buddy: Täubchen, Michael, Janina
Merch: nope
Again? Definitely worth considering

Laibach VIII - Love Is Still Alive Tour

Even at risk to become repetitive: Every Laibach gig is surprise and joy. No exception in 2023.

Rating: 5/5

Buddy: David Zimba

Merch: Hoodie

Again? you can bet

If you like gigs that surprise and impress, Laibach are always a safe bet. I do not remember one gig of them that met my expectations. It is always different. Ok, there is one pattern in Laibach gigs since many years: The first part is solely dedicated to the current album, then comes an intermission with a countdown. The second part is then other songs - but never really the same. Even songs that you know from previous gigs are performed differently. Expect the unexpected and
enjoy.

Also pleased to see that this gig saw much more visitors than in recent years. The sound is impeccable as always - certainly with some backtracking going on, but that's ok for this band. The mid section saw some heavy industrial content. The encores then were on the more melodic side with great tunes from the Iron Sky soundtracks.

To be honest, the merch is prohibitively expensive, but come on, it's Laibach and it's not plain vanilla Chinese stuff that you purchase. 

See you again, for sure.

Setlist:

LOVE IS STILL ALIVE

Love is Still Alive I (Moon, Euphoria)

Love is Still Alive II (Venus, Libidine)

Love is Still Alive III (Mercury, Dopamine)

Love is Still Alive IV (Neptune, Oxytocin)

Love is Still Alive V (Uranus, Prolactin)

Love is Still Alive VI (Saturn, Insomnia)

Love is Still Alive VII (Jupiter, Tristitia)

Love is Still Alive VIII (Mars, Dysphoria)

-- Intermission --

WAR

Ordnung und Disziplin (Müller versus Brecht)

Ich bin der Engel der Verzweiflung

Das Nachtlied I

Als Geist

Glück Auf!

Lepo - Krasno

Smrt za smrt

Krvava guada - plodna zemlja

Ti, ki Izzivas

REPENT

The Future (Leonard Cohen)

Sympathy for the Devil (The Rolling Stones)

The Coming Race

ENCORE

The Engine of Survival

Moderat

 

Moderat

A performance to remember. Harder than some metal act. No discussions about to which extent this is live music, because: This is life music ;-). And not less than the future of live performance.



Buddies: David, Andy, Dieter, we also met Claudia and Dieter
Score: 5/5
Merch: nope
Again? definitely




Open Air Arena is a rather large venue - yet this performance felt dense like in a small indoor place. Impeccable tough sound from the very beginning, which sometimes culminated to infernal levels. You feel the bass inside your spine. You feel the bass waves if you stretch out your hands.

Laibach V

Even in its fifth reincarnation, Laibach surprise and fascinate. Got my first stamp into my NSK passport.

               

  

Buddies: Täubchen, Michael, Werner; further colleagues (Daniel and Viktor)

Rating: 5/5

Merch: another belt (don't ask me where I lost my first one...)

Again: still much room left in my NSK passport

Only one year later, without a new release aside the Specre Remixes, Laibach perform another stellar gig. Spectre being still in its focus, but there was quite a lot of new (or otherwise unknown) stuff with them. Like last year, the first part of the gig was the more experimental one, yet very fascinating Laibach. Everything was much more abstract and demanding. Then came the obligatory 10 minutes break monitored by a countdown, again waltz music. This time the second break began quite experimental as well. Iron Sky was the first 'blockbuster' moment, and this performance made no prisoners, one of my personal highlights of this evening. Then the two speedy songs 'Eat Liver' and 'Bossanova', the heat rose. A rather reminiscent 'Geburt einer Nation' again reminded how strange Queen's 'One Vision' sounds with German lyrics. Near the end, then as always 'Tanz Mit Laibach' - and every year it's my impression that the song gets even more brutal. Eventually 'Leben Heißt Leben', polished up to today's standards, still the old, noisy song. On the downside, Arena was not that full although the hall has slimmed down considerably. And sometimes you had this substances in your nose with very very strange smells.

Whatever, Chapeau Laibach, I did not expect such an intense gig just a year later. If you want to, please visit Vienna every year.

Kraftwerk - 1 Autobahn (1974)

A highlight of 2014: Kraftwerk play their entire catalog in the Vienna Burgtheater during the Wiener Festwochen. After having been successful at the Internet auction in the middle of a working day, expectations are high - and easily matched, if not surpassed.

Buddies: Schnee-Weißchen, David, Michael
Score: 5 out of 5
Merch: 'Autobahn' T-Shirt + mouse pad
Another gig: yes, if it's in a comparably innovative venue :-)

 
It's raining cats and dogs, so we are all happy to spend this evening in the holy halls of Burgtheater. David and me are very lucky to get some of the last pairs of 3D glasses - some failed. Without them, the entire thing would have been half the fun. When I am offered earbuds at the entry, I smile - but I would prove quite wrong in this respect, and I'll come back to this a bit later. First faux-pas: I am not aware that the first row of 'Parterre' is quite in the rear section of the ... well ... Parterre, whatever, I finally find my seat in time.

'Autobahn' has been a quite pragmatic choice because the other days did not fit that well. First surprise is the sound, which is very gutsy and with decent surround elements. 'Autobahn' sounds have been updated, but are still very retro. Sometimes the floor heavily resonates with the quite significant volume of the music, much stronger and compelling than expected at this place. And it's still authentic, the dreamy and spherical sounds you know from the original recording, but with today's strength. A very nice way to transform this music into 2014. Same is true for the 3D visuals, this is no hyper-realistic texture-excess, but very retro 3D polygons. I did not expect anything more exiting, the 3D effects were just nice.

Second surprise was that the song 'Autobahn' was a rather short version of the 22 min original - I expected more because the entire work is rather short. But this is of no disadvantage, after these five songs, a potpourri of all important Kraftwerk songs followed. Basically nothing is missing. It gives you a lively impression of the tremendous ingenuity and influence that this music had on the development of electronic music. From this perspective, a performance of this music in a very classical venue actually makes sense. In Kraftwerk's domain, their music is classical and can be performed in the Burg, without any need to play it unplugged or otherwise strangely.

As David puts it afterwards, this gig was impeccable. From myself, Kraftwerk gets highest credit for delivering a strong, yet very authentic performance at a classic venue.

Here are some short impressions of this impressive performance:

 

Laibach IV

Even when seeing them for the fourth time, Laibach easily surprise and impress me. Without doubt, this is their best performance so far.

Buddy: David
Score: 5 out of 5 
Merch: a nice Spectre t-shirt
Again? Can I subscribe? Am I already in Groupie mode?

Crystal Castles

Another retrospect review - a tough one. About a year ago, Crystal Castles very much impressed with their particular performance. Still when I try to put the music into perspective, it gets a bit harder to rate this ... Gig? Performance? Dance Party? Whatever ...

Buddies: David Z., Michael M.-W.
Score: 4 out of 5
Merchandize: nope
Another gig? Another tough question :-)



Probably it's exactly how it should be. Crystal Castles perform literally. In everything they are doing, they somehow refuse to be categorized. Nearly all of their public statements end up in negation. So what can I say of this night?

Frittenbude (Bratze)

Another gig that easily surpasses my expectations. This popular electro punk band simply kicks ass - with a Panda on stage. Probably my worthy final in this year 2012.

A brief Tour De Force through an electrifying gig

Buddy: Michael
Score: 4,5 out of 5

Merchandise: none

Another Gig: never say never

Michael and me significantly raise the average age of a young audience. One of them even suspects me to be an undercover policeman (however, with a huge smile on his face ;-).

Laibach III

Monumental Retro-Avant-Garde - you cannot say it better.

Buddy: Michael M-W
Score: 4,5 out of 5
Merchandize: a very cool Laibach belt
Another gig? Yeah, even a fourth one!



This is my third Laibach gig and the band still surprises me. Without doubt, this one is the best gig I've seen of them. I saw Laibach in the old Gasometer and they were great (they should open a Type O Negative gig but the main act cancelled) and then in Szene Wien (see review below), when they were more trendy than these days. So I did not expect much.

I had not listened to anything from their OST for 'Iron Sky' (I do not care that much about soundtracks these days). But the live contributions of 'Under The Iron Sky' and 'America' were impressive. Melodic, but still strong and with that special Laibach industrial flavour. Great analogue synths paired with latest high-end tones. Impressive vocal contributions. Add some stunning visuals (including Iron Sky excerpts) and a good-as-usual sound in Arena, and you have the perfect industrial concert. The Arena floor has been shrunk, which was actually a good idea (especially if I remember the industrial gig before that gig in half-empty Szene Wien...).

Highlights besides the new songs from 'Iron Sky' were (of course) 'One Vision', 'Tanz Mit Laibach' and a fantastic version of 'Alle Gegen Alle'. The second encore, to my big surprise, was 'God Is God' from Jesus Christ Superstar, IMHO one of their most powerful songs (here I missed the guitars from the CD recording quite a bit).

Just half a point deduction for a missing support band - but nothing else was to be expected from this band :-). Thank you Laibach, it was a great evening. And I will honor that belt - must do so for that price *ggg*

PS: If you wanna get an idea about how Laibach sounds live in 2012, I can recommend you the official double-CD recording of the Tate Modern Gig available here: http://abbeyroadlive.sandbag.uk.com/Store/DisplayArtist.html?CatID=236

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Frontline Assembly and others

Another must-see gig of one of my favourite bands of the 90-ies, and Szene would be a perfect location for an industrial metal gig. Unfortunately, nothing turned out as it should be.

Buddy: Harald (thanks for joining, bro :)

Score: 2,5 out of 5
Merchandize: FLA t-shirt 'Tactical Neuro Implant'
Another gig? No

Kosheen

It was near to the release of the great 'Resist' album, and Flex has always been the place to be for Drum&Bass and other tight electronic acts. Put some hype by FM4 on top - this gig was massively outsold.

Score (in long retrospect): 2.5 out of 5



I completely missed out this gig for a very long time, but thanks to the Internet, I could reconstruct this after more than 11 years (many thanks guys, this I owe to you!). Yes, the Internet has a memory, it's just a bit different than libraries :-).

Talking of Kosheen, this band has been quite successful these days. It's a kind of softer Drum&Bass that still kicks a** - fair enough. Let's face it, songs like 'Suicide' and the eternal 'Hide U' just could not be ignored, and they are still brilliant.

So why could I forget of this gig for such a long time? Probably because it was not that enlightening. Somehow it was not much more than it would have been playing these songs from CD. Flex is also not the best place if it becomes really crowded, like this night. If you are far away from the stage (like I were), the only thing you realize is how hot it is and how many people smoked very different substances around you (I really don't miss these smokey days :-). And without a ticket (I believe that Flex did not have tickets these days), the likelihood to forget was even higher (I did not take a photo of the entry stamp on my wrist :-).

Since this is all written in long retrospect, the further development of the band proved right. 'Resist' was just a minor departure into Drum&Bass, whereas the second album disappointed me in exactly the lack of any serious attempt to catch the vibe that's inside this kind of music.

This means that the review linked above the day after very much proved right. I hope that it is ok for these guys that I copy/paste this here, because it just fits into this review. And as regards the closing of this review: You just made the point, well done!

------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright drumandbass.at:
so 12-05 kosheen @ flex oder wieviele fm4 hörer passen auf einmal ins flex
oder wo ist der funk oder superfette live performance???


gestern pilgerten die freunde des leichten, lockeren breakbeats (und diejenigen, denen fm4 geflüstert hat, dass es ziemlich cool ist so jemand zu sein) wohl geschlossen ins flex um decoder und seine popformation kosheen zu sehen...

...zu den vielen ungeklärten fragen des abends gehört auf jeden fall - wer war die vorgruppe??? - ich glaube an diesem abend wusste das niemand im ganzen flex!

aber egal - begonnen hat das konzert gleich mit ein paar drumandbass hits - catch, demonstrate - die hütte tobte...

...dann wurden ein paar downtempo stücke vom album zum besten gegeben, die hütte tobte, irgendwo in meiner nähe hörte ich aber jemanden sagen - "aber den funk hams dahamglassn" - ich konnte nicht verneinen;))) - ein an der bar lehnender flex-mitarbeiter konnte sich das gähnen nicht verkneifen - "ist das langweilig" meinte er...

...gute studiomusiker dürften sie alle auf jeden fall sein, allerdings komme ich hier gleich zur nächsten ungeklärten frage des abends - halbplayback oder doch live - hinweise bitte an: keyboards-don t-sound-if-u-don t-hit-any-bar@drumandbass.at...

...zum schluss gab man noch "hide u" zum besten gefolgt von einer zugabe, bei der die tanzfläche bebte!

den leuten hat s auf jeden fall gefallen - ein erfolgreiches konzert...

...mir nicht!!! ;)

und zwar nicht weils kommerz ist, oder zuviel airplay hat - sondern weils einfach fad und unfunky war!

zu einem konzert gehören einfach solos, improvisation, eingehen aufs publikum und nicht das sture runterspielen von tunes - there s no business like showbusiness meine lieben leute von kosheen!!!

wer konzerte von massive attack, attica blues, herbaliser, nightmares on wax oder anderen downbeat-live-combos gehört hat, kann sich vielleicht vorstellen auf was ich hinauswill - wer nicht, sollte sich mal so ein konzert anschauen...

...das wort das mir im gedächtnis bleiben wird ist: STERIL!

...übrigens auch, wenn ich mir überlege, wieso so ein promoter einen cross-over dj nach einem breakbeat-konzert hinstellt - na vielleicht, damit die halle schnell und effizient leergespielt wird!

fyi: das ist meine unbedeutende und völlig unfundierte, private meinung, ich kanns selber nicht besser und werde auch nicht probieren es besser zu machen!

PEACE... ...und don t believe the hype!
------------------------------------------------------------

Laibach I

If you want to see something completely different, then always consider Laibach. Yes, there has been much playback, but the show is it worth it.




Look at this fancy ticket - back in 1996, Szene Wien even did not produce band tickets!

Buddies: Michaela, Flyingsheep
Score: 3 out of 5
Go again: Might be interesting