Anyone else see this? Slovenian art-rockers play North Korea and seem to be engaged in a competition to see who can take themselves more seriously, the band or the hosts. It’s a curious documentary, but typically excellent for the Storyville brand and well worth your time. Although there is a variety of nationalities involved most of the dialogue is in English.
@black-celebration mentioned the gig when it was played back in 2015 and I’m sure there are other fans on here. I must confess I had heard of Laibach but never paid much attention to them. They play cheesy songs while looking very solemn so you’re not sure if it’s meant to be a laugh or not, with some rather lovely back projections. Is that the gist of it? North Korea wasn’t entirely sure what to make of them either.
I like them, although I’ve been less enamoured of their output of late so maybe I prefer the *idea* of them?
At their best they do interesting and unexpected things with music, most notably in the greatest collection of covers you will ever clap ears on – I will push the boat out here and say they have improved upon the Let It Be album, Sympathy For The Devil, Queen’s One Vision, and Gustav Holst’s Mars, among others.
Understandably their original music tends to get overlooked as a result, but they can still pull classics out of the bag such as Tanz Mit Laibach, or the Opus Dei album when it’s not covering Life Is Life etc.
Their unashamed nationalism, industrial roots, are-they-aren’t-they fascists, stern refusal to ever ever ever break character … it all makes them unique and definitely worth checking out whether you like their music or not.
I reviewed their gig the last (fourth?) time I saw them: https://theafterword.co.uk/laibach/
Laibach and think of Tito?
Just watched this, it’s really good (it doesn’t matter if you’re not a fan as there isn’t much music in the documentary). It focuses around the preparations for the gig and the fearless Morten Traavik (Laibach video director who has also conducted numerous cultural exchanges with DPRK) and his unflappable North Korean counterpart Mr Ri are the heroes of the piece.
It’s very non-judgemental of North Korea, very nuanced and you’re left to make your own mind up about the whole thing – the most telling moment is where during a photoshoot in a vast public square in front of some state buildings Mr Ri suggests the singer of Laibach should remove his headgear and when pressed as to why has to spell out the word ‘N-A-Z-I’ on his hand which suggests the level of surveillance he’s under. I was surprised to see North Koreans had smartphones too although I presume they can’t access The Afterword.
What isn’t really understood is why, of all bands, Laibach were chosen to play. I suspect it’s down to Morten Traavik as he’s able to communicate with North Korean officials and understands their culture inside out. That said, given that Daniel Miller comes along for the ride you wonder why Depeche Mode perhaps would have been a more easy listening choice but perhaps the NK are cleverer than we credit them and thought perhaps Laibach would just leave their concertgoers somewhat baffled and convince them that they’re really not missing anything by being isolated from the rest of the planet.