Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Laibach - The Occupied Europe NATO Tour 1994-1995 (1996)

 
"In the autumn of 1994, hot on the heels of their new album "NATO", Laibach hit the road for a tour of "occupied" Europe, and "liberated" several European cities. On 26 October last year they played a triumphantly successful concert to a crowd of 3000 at DC3 Dakota. We didn't know it then, but that was the dress rehearsal for their historic appearances on 20 and 21 November in Sarajevo, as part of a wider project in which NSK proclaimed Sarajevo an NSK State and issued 350 passports to its citizens. The first concert coincided with the last day of the war, and in fact the Dayton peace agreement was signed just one hour before the start of the concert on the second day. Before the signing, and before Laibach's concert, the following graffiti could be seen around Sarajevo: "Fuck Dayton, Laibach are playing". The people of Sarajevo had no way of knowing that the group would be the advance party of the NATO forces. The first troops arrived in the city a few days after Laibach's departure.

Exactly a week earlier, and in memory of the bloody events in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the largest independent record company in Britain, Mute Records, released a limited edition box set containing recordings from Laibach's Ljubljana concert. The set includes a CD, a video cassette and a numbered accompanying booklet. The CD contains 8 of the 15 tracks from the "NATO" album and the biggest hits from the "Opus Dei" album onwards. Sound and vision were recorded by a film crew from RTV Slovenia. The video is actually different from the one shown a few months back on TV Slovenia's "Saturday Night (Sobotna noc)" show, since it features additional vision mixing, documentary clips from Moscow, Warsaw and Sarajevo, and loads of computer animation. The visuals are so slick and dynamic that at times the film comes across more like a video on MTV than live concert footage. This release must surely conclude Laibach's "NATO" phase. Which means that it's time to start guessing what the band is going to tackle next. The United States of Europe, maybe?"

Album: Occupied Nato Tour
Release Date: 12th August 1996
Recorded Live: DC3 Dakota in Ljubljana

01. N.A.T.O.
02. War
03. Final Countdown
04. In the Army Now
05. Alle gegen alle
06. National Reservation
07. 2525
08. Mars on river Drina
09. Everlasting Union
10. Leben heisst Leben
11. Sympathy for the Devil
12. Trans-National
13. Wirtschaft is tot
14. Geburt einer Nation
15. Opus Dei

1 comments:

son of man said...

All Laibach albums - new links added !

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