Laibach

[daven]

I was at this gig. Has anyone else caught any of this tour. Definitely a "band" worth seeing.

[Kavus Torabi]

I love Laibach but, frustratingly, never got it together to see them. I'd always hear they were playing after the event or something.

[happytheman]

I owned Let it Be years back.. but like most.. Across the Universe is the only real gem from that release..

[daven]

I owned Let it Be years back.. but like most.. Across the Universe is the only real gem from that release..

Mina Spiler is fantastic:

[Kavus Torabi]

Laibach's Across The Universe is better than The Beatles original.






...*hides*

[thedunno]

I saw Laibach 10 years ago in Amsterdam. Easily one of the weirdest things I've ever seen. I am not quite sure if everythign I heared was 'good' but it was a concert experience I would recommend to everyone.

[strawberrybrick]

Yeah, Let It Be is pretty awesome... in a Laibach type of way. Ah... industrial music. Always had a soft spot for it...

[Scrotum Scissor]

I sawthem in the early 90s - when they were arguably one of the most controversial high-profile European bands around. I think it was around the MacBeth release, which is still my fave by them. There was definitely something almost painfully incendiary about the atmosphere at that event; Laibach were known to attract radical factions among audiences, and the hall was in a sense divided between the cyber-goth/squat/SHARP-kinda looking crowd and a smaller mass of people essentially appearing all-out fascist - and I'm saying this as an educated historian on the topic.

Haven't listened to them in over a decade, though.

[thedunno]

The controversy is mainly triggered by the name. Laibach was the name the Nazis gave to Ljubljana. They have nothing to do with fascism. I think it was more meant as a 'middle finger' to the regime in Yugoslavia at the time.

[PeterG]

The controversy is also fueled by the uniforms they wear and the imagery they use in their videos. I like them & all their crazy cover versions, but I don't like it when they are funny.

[PeterG]

You want controversial German bands? This didn't go down well with everyone at the time.
D.A.F.

[Scrotum Scissor]

The controversy is mainly triggered by the name. Laibach was the name the Nazis gave to Ljubljana. They have nothing to do with fascism.

I never said the band itself had "anything to do with Fascism" - and about that I'm as clear as on the whole Magma debacle on the same preposterous issue (which was and remains a completely different matter than the one concerning Death In June et al.). But as PeterG said, there was wider controversy in relation to the overt appearance of the group's stagesets and such back then - as to whether this was effective in deconstructing the forces of authoritarian and totalitarian symbolicism in art. During the concert I attended, or rather at the very end, the crew behind the band eventuelly piled up banners containing emblema of several totalitarian political movements of yore - including the Hammer & Sickle, the Swastika and (inevitably) the Ustase letter - yet the consequential discussion went as to why the group still attracted dedicated extremists to their performances. Of course, during following tours, they mostly abstained from this sort of self-contained symbolicism and went for more abstract approaches to the topic. Obviously, their darkly humourous take on the "authoritarian" construction of "Life is Life" (by Opus) became their foremost token to that craft.