A Laibach concert is always an event, and even more so when the object of the tour is ‘Opus Dei’, the legendary industrial record from 1987 that sealed the band’s international breakthrough. Anyone who has been following Laibach for a while knows that their performances are always built around a concept. They usually consist of three parts, one of which is the playing of an entire record, in this case the recently rereleased ‘Opus Dei’ in a revisited version.

Not only do Laibach’s concerts have a concept, but so does the band itself. Laibach is conceptual art in the form of a rock band (which also produces a lot of visual art), and its main inspiration is conceptual artist Marcel Duchamp. The name ‘Laibach’ alone was enough to cause controverse when the band was founded in 1980. Laibach was the German name of Ljubljana, the capital of the Slovenian republic in what was then still communist Yugoslavia. In a country where the memory of the Nazi occupation was still very much alive, the use of that name was a provocation that – as we will see – would also provoke a reaction from the government.

Laibach's concept was developed early on, in 1983, in a manifesto that the group published in the socially critical Slovenian magazine Nova Revija. In it, Laibach declared itself to be dedicated to the study of ideology and art. It was a form of subtle questioning of the official ideology of the then communist Yugoslavia, in which Laibach, without explicitly taking a position, pointed out the contradictions between ideologies, but also and especially within one ideology. By provocatively mixing elements of communism, fascism and liberalism, without any context, the group was already thought-provoking, and that is why I have called Laibach one of the most intellectually challenging groups on the planet.

I give you some quotes from the manifesto:

• Laibach works as a team, according to the model of industrial production and totalitarianism, which means that it is not the individual who speaks, but the organization.
• The name Laibach suggests the possibility of a politicized ideological (regime) art due to the influence of politics and ideology.
• All art can be the subject of manipulation, except the art that speaks the language of this manipulation.
• Laibach practices provocation on the rebellious state of the alienated individual (who must necessarily find himself an enemy) and unites warriors and opponents in the expression of a static totalitarian cry.

Usually, the first part of a Laibach performance consists of the complete performance of the latest album. In this case, however, it should be the classic ‘Opus Dei’, and indeed in a completely new version. But today, the parts are turned upside down. The first part consists mainly of older material that is supposed to sketch the context in which Laibach operated in the 80s. And that is good, because I also want to tell you about that context.

When we enter the concert hall, after a quick stop at the merch stand, the room is still quiet. Then the silence is broken, and we immediately recognize the drum intro of ‘Live is Life’, a monster hit by the Austrian band Opus from the 80s. We initially find that quite funny, because the song was covered by Laibach in a very ironic way, and will undoubtedly play a leading role in the performance tonight. However, our laughing vanishes when we notice that the drum intro is turned into an extremely annoying endless loop, which will continue to be played for another three quarters of an hour. Yep, Laibach likes to put its listeners to the test.

When the group finally appears on stage, they start with ‘Vier Personen’, the opener of their second album ‘Nova Akropola’ from 1986. In reality, the group has never been limited to four members, and over the years dozens of people have contributed to Laibach’s oeuvre. But the manifesto stipulates that Laibach consists of four fixed characters, which must protect the group from any individual deviation from the official line, which of course again makes fun of the communist way of dealing with troublemakers. The four persons within Laibach are called Eber, Saliger, Dachauer and Keller, names that refer to German painters from the National Socialist period.

The background images – the work of Laibach’s chief ideologist Ivan Novak – are also of great importance here. In ‘Four Persons’ we see images of Marx, Engels and Lenin, as they were traditionally depicted under communism as each other’s successors, with Donald Trump as the fourth character, who is thus presented as the current leader of the working class. Not so strange, at a time when you even have a movement of MAGA communists. In fact, this image has been around since the early days of Laibach, so long before Trump. Originally, a member of Laibach was in the fourth place, and later a black square, which may have been a reference to the Russian supremacist painter Kazimir Malevich.

While I’m at it, I’d like to explain the connection between Laibach and Malevich. At the merch stand we saw a bag with the black cross that Laibach has used as a symbol since the beginning, with the inscription ‘Ceci n’est pas Malevich’. Laibach’s cross was often seen as a reference to Malevich, but that was not the intention when it was first drawned. There is also a little anecdote I heard, but that is not necessarily true. During an interview in America, Laibach, who were often suspected of being far-right, were supposedly asked: ‘Are you white supremacists?’ After being perplexed for a moment, they would have answered: ‘Of course we are suprematists!’

Back to the performance. Songs like ‘Država (The State)’ – featuring a short speech by Yugoslav dictator Tito, who died in 1980 – and ‘Boji (Struggle)’ also date from the early years before ‘Opus Dei’. ‘Mi kujemo bodočnost (We are forging the future)’ was not only the name of a song on Laibach’s debut, but also the name of a scandalous performance the group did in Zagreb in 1983. I have described this event in detail elsewhere, but to summarize it briefly, Laibach played video footage of Tito simultaneously with a pornographic film during the performance. In the course of the ensuing witch hunt, Laibach was interviewed on Slovenian television, and delivered a particularly clever yet shocking parody of totalitarianism. The government intervened, banning the group from performing or releasing music under the name Laibach.

Laibach was not deterred by this, went on tour through Europe and gave an anonymous concert in Ljubljana upon its return, which was only announced with the aforementioned black cross of the band. That cross also served as the cover for Laibach’s debut from 1985, which also does not mention the name Laibach. On the other hand, Laibach receives a lot of support. It is the time of the Slovenian Spring, and young people are beginning to question the dictatorship and centralism of the Yugoslav government. The punk subculture, but also new social movements such as the peace movement, the ecological movement, the gay movement demand more pluralism, and that demand is also supported by the communist youth league ZSMS.

‘Smrt in pogin’ may be a recent song, from the 2023 album ‘Sketches of the Red Districts’, but it refers to the foundation of Laibach on June 1, 1980 in Trbovlje. The date was the anniversary of the riots between the fascist Organization of Yugoslav Nationalists (Orjuna) and the communist Proletarian Action Cells (PAČ), which had a strong position in the red stronghold of Trbovlje. The communists expelled Orjuna, and therefore June 1 was an important holiday in Trbovlje. That did not prevent the city from banning Laibach’s first action in September 1980 – a combination of concerts and exhibitions – after the band covered the entire city with posters exuding totalitarianism and horror.

‘Anti-Semitism’ comes from ‘WAT’, a 2003 masterpiece released during the ‘War Against Terror’, to which it strongly alluded. I suspect that the song is being played live again for two reasons. Firstly, ‘Anti-Semitism’ is just about the only Slovenian-language released by Laibach that was released between 1987 and 2023. As we will see, Laibach chose to work in other languages from ‘Opus Dei’ onwards, which certainly helped to ensure their international success. But secondly, there is the growing anti-Semitism in Europe, which undoubtedly received a new boost from the wars in Gaza and Lebanon. Even among my friends I notice that when an anti-Semite literally says ‘burn the Jews’ at a demonstration, people rush to justify it, to say that the person must have meant something else, that it is not a sign of evil, or even that it is understandable. That is a very bad development.

‘Ballad of a Thin Man’ is a cover of Bob Dylan that expresses annoyance about journalists who want to understand everything about an artist, and get lost in their web of interpretations, as this ‘mister Jones’ might be doing now too. After another song from Laibach’s debut – ‘Brat moj (My brother)’ - the first set is closed with another cover: ‘Alle gegen Alle’ by DAF, which appeared on ‘NATO’, an album full of (anti)war songs, during the post-Yugoslav Balkan wars. The song fits in with the concept of ‘NATO’ from 1994, but in this case it is also a real tribute, and not the only one, from Laibach to the German EBM legend DAF.

The screen – where we saw numerous historical images from Yugoslavia, especially of the partisan struggle, but also fragments from Eisenstein movies and more modern images of demonstrations – now shows the message: ‘Maybe we’ll be back. Intermezzo’. A countdown clock also appears, indicating how long we have to listen to the annoying drum loop of ‘Live is Life’ again.

Everyone is relieved when the drum loop metamorphoses into the beginning of ‘Leben heißt Leben’, also because we finally get to the main reason for our evening out: a complete and renewed performance of ‘Opus Dei’. The original record started with two ‘new originals’, because that is how Laibach has always called their own interpretations of other people’s work. The new originals are also a reference to the conceptual art of Marcel Duchamp, who elevated ordinary objects to art with his ready-mades.

The complete performance of ‘Opus Dei’ follows a reissue of the album earlier this year, accompanied by a bonus album with live performances of the songs and, most importantly, another extensive explanation by Laibachologist Alexei Monroe. (Monroe was effusive that I had called him a pioneer of Laibachology in a previous review, but with his 2003 PHD turned book, he paved the way for a slew of books and academic articles on Laibach and NSK, which I gratefully use to write my own articles.)

Now you probably think that I have already given you all the context for ‘Opus Dei’, but you are mistaken. After the municipality of Ljubljana banned Laibach from operating under its name in 1983, the group founded the Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK) with like-minded artists in 1984. In addition to Laibach, the painters’ collective Irwin and the Theatre Company of the Sisters Scipion Nacise are also part of the movement. Together they worked on a large-scale project in 1986: ‘Baptism under the Triglav’.

'Baptism under the Triglav' was the most expensive theatre production in Slovenian history at the time. The performance refers to the Slovenian national epic ‘Baptism at Savica’ by the national poet France Prešeren, and took place on the Slovenian Culture Day, also known as Prešeren Day. All of this should also be seen in the context of the Slovenian national struggle for emancipation, which was also part of the Slovenian Spring mentioned earlier.

The fact that Laibach was involved in this gigantic performance, and at about the same time released its second album ‘Nova Akropola’ on the British Cherry Red Records, led to animated discussions about the ban on Laibach. In April 1986, the communist youth league ZSMS requested the legalization of the group. The idea gained momentum, and when legalization was imminent, Laibach went on tour in Yugoslavia, eventually playing a major gig in Ljubljana on the day the ban was lifted. That was also the moment that ‘Opus Dei’ was released on the even more prestigious Mute label.

I think you can hear the influence of ‘Baptism under the Triglav’ on ‘Opus Dei'’ because the theatre project gave Laibach the opportunity to experiment with more symphonic music. For me it is the missing link to understand how Laibach went from the cold industrial of the first two records to the symphonic bombast of ‘Opus Dei’. On the other hand, the switch to Mute is probably the reason that Laibach switches from lyrics in Slovenian to lyrics in English and German. The group did not speak fluent English or German at the time, and appropriated many lyrics to make the record, as we will see below.

The album can be roughly divided into three parts: the three ‘new originals’ by Queen and Opus; two songs that tend towards industrial rock; and three songs that contain a clever combination of industrial and symphonic sounds. To illustrate this, I will return to the performance. ‘Leben-Tod’, the second song from the ‘Opus Dei’ set, is clearly one of the industrial rock songs that led to the suspicion – in my opinion somewhat unfairly – that Rammstein copied a lot from Laibach. (Laibach responded to this statement that they do not believe in originality, and that Rammstein could therefore not possibly have stolen anything from them.)

The phrase ‘Es gibt ein Leben vor dem Tod’ was effectively stolen, namely from the East German dissident singer Wolf Biermann, who – after being expelled from the GDR – released a record with songs about the Spanish Civil War, with this phrase as its title. Biermann had written those songs when he still had an unwavering belief in communism, a belief that later turned out not to be so unwavering after all. The ‘ja ja nein nein’ cries in turn are said to refer to the conceptual slogan of Joseph Beuys: ‘ja ja ja ne ne ne’. I have to admit that I originally found the two industrial rock songs on ‘Opus Dei’ musically weak, but I am glad that they have become much more interesting in today’s revised versions, with alternating vocals between singer Marina Mårtensson and old hand Milan Fras.

You will have understood by now that Laibach is not sticking to the original chronology of the ‘Opus Dei’ record in this performance. The next song is ‘Transnational’, one of the symphonic industrial compositions on the record. On the new version, a list of human rights are now read out by Marina, while Milan declaims the original text ‘Charity, hope, faith, fortitude, prudence …’ Once again, it is clear that the new versions have been thoroughly revised.

‘F.I.A.T.’ also belongs to the symphonic industrial numbers, and was already notable at the time because of the speech by Ezra Pound that was incorporated into it. Ezra Pound was an American poet who attributed the First World War to financial capitalism, and later embraced the fascist ideas of Benito Mussolini. During the Second World War he made radio broadcasts from Italy in which he called on the American population to stop the war, and thus to let Hitler win. In the background, however, we see images of how the American war industry was running at full speed and thus made a significant contribution to the victory of the Allies in the war.

On ‘How The West Was Won’ – the second industrial rock number from ‘Opus Dei’, which also gets a better performance here than the disappointing original – Laibach mixes two different texts. ‘The Freemason’s Health’ was an old English song about Freemasons, while ‘Zdravljica’ is a poem by the already mentioned Slovenian national poet France Prešeren, which would later also become the national anthem of independent Slovenia. (The song suggests a secret society for the men of the nation. A reference to Laibach itself, or to another mysterious entity?)

‘The Great Seal’ – originally the closing track of ‘Opus Dei’ – later became a national anthem as well. It's one of the symphonic industrial tracks on the album, and this time the song was lyrically coloured with a famous quote from Winston Churchill, who in 1940 promised that the British would keep fighting against Nazi Germany, and would never surrender. The fact that this quote is used after Ezra Pound was just quoted, shows that Laibach doesn’t want to be caught out, and is always looking for ambiguity.

And how did ‘The Great Seal’ become a national anthem? Well, after Slovenia gained independence, the Neue Slowenische Kunst also transformed itself into an independent country, the NSK State In Time, a country without borders that anyone could become a citizen of, and the bombastic song proved to be an excellent anthem for the virtual state. Again, there is a link to the Russian painter Malevich, because in 1992 a large black square was unfolded on Red Square in Moscow to celebrate the birth of the NSK state, an action that was named ‘Black Square on Red Square’ after a work by Malevich. The NSK state still exists, although in 2010 the management of the state was taken over by the citizens of the country, who have turned it into an ongoing reflection on democracy and totalitarianism.

The climax of the performance, however, remains with the three ‘new originals’, the songs that also received the bulk of the attention in 1987. We start with ‘Geburt einer Nation’, which is perhaps tonight’s song that remains most faithful to the original version from 1987. This was Laibach’s version of ‘One Vision’ by Queen. Queen enjoyed great success at the time, and this song also became an absolute hit. ‘One Vision’ was composed as a hymn to love and solidarity in the context of the Live Aid concerts for Ethiopia. But by translating the language into German and adding some Wagnerian bombast and industrial rhythms, Laibach revealed fascist accents in the song. Whether the new title of the song – ‘Geburt einer Nation’ – refers to the KKK documentary ‘Birth of a Nation’, I have unfortunately never seen confirmed or denied anywhere.

The revisited version of ‘Opus Dei’ ends with the two covers of ‘Live is Life’ by Opus, performed in both the English version ‘Opus Dei’ and the German version ‘Leben heißt Leben’. Once again, Laibach took over a monster hit and turned it into a song full of apocalyptic bombast. Apparently, the Christian fundamentalists of Opus Dei were not happy about Laibach reclaiming their name, but whether there was a lawsuit and how it ended remains a well-kept secret. The swastika of axes turning in the background led to accusations of extreme right-wing sympathies at the time, just as long until the beholders realized that the image had been taken from the work of a German Dadaist artist who, out of aversion to National Socialism, had changed his name from Helmut Herzfeld to John Heartfield.

With that, the second half of the performance is over. But as I said, there is often a more limited third part in the encores. The audience is encouraged on the screen to applaud for the encores: ‘Applause please. Louder, we’re not at a funeral.’ The encore round starts with the well-known ‘Engine of Survival’, a recent original song by Laibach. Then follow two covers. The first is ‘Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves’, the presentation of a poem by Oscar Wilde that is best known in the version by Jeanne Moreau in the film adaptation of the Jean Genet novel ‘Querelle’. But the most surprising is the cover of ‘I Want to Know What Love Is’, for which this ‘mister Jones’ cannot immediately find an explanation, except that Laibach could be practicing some self-deprecating humor here, or ... wants to know what love is.

The second encore, on the other hand, does not seem to be meant to be ironic at all. With ‘Strange Fruit’ by Billie Holiday, Laibach revisits a song that was initially an indictment of the lynching of blacks in the United States. In the background we see images of bombed-out cities. I suspect that we first see images of Berlin after the Second World War, but gradually the images switch to more modern images of – I’m guessing – Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon. And so Laibach leaves us with the feeling that humanity has made a mess of things again, a feeling that we were just trying to escape by going to a performance that evening.

The screen reads in black letters: ‘The End’.

Part 1: Vier Personen / Država / Boji / Mi kujemo bodočnost / Smrt in pogin / Anti-Semitism / Ballad of a Thin Man (original: Bob Dylan) / Brat moj / Alle gegen Alle (original: DAF)

Part 2: Leben heißt Leben (original: ‘Live is Life’ by Opus) / Leben – Tod / Trans-National / FIAT / How the West Was Won / The Great Seal / Geburt einer Nation (original: ‘One Vision’ by Queen ) / Opus Dei – Leben heißt Leben (original: ‘Live is Life’ by Opus)

Encore 1: The Engine of Survival / Each Man Kills the Thing He Loves (original: Jeanne Moreau) / I Want to Know What Love Is (original: Foreigner)

Encore 2: Strange Fruit (original: Billie Holiday)

The clip for the renewed version of 'Leben heißt Leben':

Oops, my mistake, this is the clip I meant to share:

To make up for my mistake, I’ll give you the clips from the original album. The first two clips were authentically released in 1987, the third clip was put together from archive footage to accompany the reissues of ‘Opus Dei’ in 2024.