Budapest - A 38, Hungary
17th of February 2007
Personal account of Laibach's day in Budapest by Laszlo
The venue is in fact an old cargo ship on River Danube ( http://www.a38.hu/?p=cikk&id=98 ), “parked” close to the leg of Petofi bridge (Buda side, close to
). I never been to the ship before, so I decided to make an early visit. It was about 11.00 am when I approached the site (with my 6 month pregnant wife Brigi at my side), and to my happiness, Laibach’s tour bus was already there. My friend, who’s working on the ship showed us around. There was no sign of any of the band or roadies (they were supposed to be sleeping…), only local guys were setting up the stage. We had some other duties with Brigi, so we left for a while. Technical University
I returned alone (crowd and smoking made my wife to change her mind about the evening’s gig…) at around 2.00 pm. Luckily my friend was still there, being busy with the stage setup. There I could see some of the roadies. So my friend led me right into the back of the ship, to the VIP bar, which is probably the best backstage area I’ve ever seen… It’s the old engine room (there you can see one of the engines restored and displayed as sort of a sculpture, Ivan was making some pictures of it lately), with a well filled bar, with empty chimneys where the sunlight can come through, and with comfy chairs all around. As I entered the area, I immediately saw my old friends, Eva and Natasha, the drummer girls, sitting over the ruins of their breakfast, drinking coffee one after the other and busy by checking e-mails (they had no chance for internet for a while before). I took a seat next to Eva, and had a little chat. She told me how hard this tour was for the whole band (others admitted this lately), especially the 24 hours ride on the bus from
Bucharest to. She told me that they were arriving at 10.00 am (damn it, I missed them), and were all in the city for a while. But since it was cold, they came back. Ivan The Terrible was still out, and no other musicians I could see for a while. Eva said the soundcheck starts at 16.00 pm, so I decided to stay, but not to disturb her, I sat back in a corner. Budapest
While waiting for the next event to happen, I had a little talk with the “Merch Guy” (boyfriend of Natasha). He said he’s AGAIN sold out, no more badges remained for me. Then I said: “You promised me in
Vienna to bring a lot of stuff to!!!” As a response he said, there is 1 or 2 more new badge (VOLK-symbol), and after 5 minutes, he gave me one of them as a present!!! (when I asked how much I owe him, he said 100 EUR, hahaha). Budapest
At around 16.00 pm, the soundcheck indeed started, with mostly sound engineers involved (they were all great guys, had a nice talk with them). Then I went out to breate some air, and saw ITT coming back to the ship on foot with a lady. This lady turned out to be Mina, as Eva introduced her to me. Her name was all I heard from her that evening, but she looked so young! She disappeared almost immediately. Then came Jani, we greeted each other and had a little talk. I asked whether I could stay there (remember, I had no ticket or anything that time on me!!!). Suddenly
came too, with other musicians and sat down all around in those nice chairs. I said to ITT, that they’ve got the best promotion this time, both 2 “program booklets” had an article about the concert, one of these booklets had Laibach on the front page even! Unfortunately there was only a few of the other, and as Ivan asked me to “organize” a few for him, I had to leave the ship (luckily I had my car with me, so it took only some 20 minutes to find a place where I could grab a few booklets for them). As I returned, I gave one to Milan , one to Eva and one to ITT. They were all complaining that the journalists used old pictures (WAT press photos). Ivan even asked whether the people are aware of the new material… I said, there were many articles about VOLK a few weeks before… there was a special poster at the entrance (here is it: http://www.a38.hu/dinamikus/File/flyers/070217_laibach_B1.jpg ) Milan
Time flew, and I became very hungry. Eva also said, that the band will have dinner on the ship (first floor’s first class restaurant), so I also went there around 17.40. Ivan just started and interview with local journalists, Natasha and the “Merch Guy” was sitting there, inviting me to their table. As I checked the menu, and ordered something, Natasha gave me their “dessert dish”, as she was full. So I started my dinner with a special Laibach dessert! J
As I was eating, the couple left, but others came, including the sound engineer, one of the bus drivers and the tour manager, who sat right in front of me. I was happy as they all were talking in English. After a while, I asked the tour manager about the stage pass hanging from his neck, whether he has a spare one for my collection. He first promised me to give me one from the bus, then gave me his, saying that he might forget his promise lately. I GOT A
with VOLK SHEEP on it. “Access to all areas”… J (I even helped one older fan collecting autographs of band members – I brought his book to Natasha, who were sitting in the backstage…) LOVELY PASS
After dinner, I didn’t want to disturb the band anymore, so I left them for a while. The “Merch Guy” asked me to help him finding the best Hungarian prices for the merchandise desk. So he wrote some euros, then I recommended something (slightly cheaper, but still fair). Final word was of course his (I saw him being very busy during the concert, so I hope we did a good job). I became also one of his first customers, buying a long armed T-shirt with the Laibach logo on front and text on the back, and also an NSK sticker (now I have it on my car too, Zlato!). Then I had to leave the ship again, to buy him some cigarette paper (…). I also brought him 3 beers and a Red Bull from the VIP bar later on. In the meantime, Ivan was directing the lights-setup, it was really nice to see how the stage was finally becoming ready!
And then about the concert: the promoter sold over 600 tickets, and there were almost 100 persons on the guest lists, so the ship was FULLY PACKED. During the “partisan songs” I finally saw Arne coming (I desperately watched my phone for some message, but they were having nice time in
: http://www.szoborpark.hu/index.php?Lang=en ). While we had that promised beer, a silly guy started to shout out in Hungarian like “stop this fuckin’ songs, play real music, I don’t want Russian shit, they ruined my childhood…” end so on. I was surprised that no-one really acted on this (not even security guys, who were hardly to be seen in the concert hall) for almost 15 minutes, then somehow the guy became quiet. Statue Park
The show started with the Hungarian National Hymn, some were singing alone, most people seemed to be surprised. The tracklist was the same as on other concerts, so I won’t repeat that. The show was just 100% perfect. The VOLK songs caused mild success, I was sad again, that I can hear some people whistling while Mina sang
Nippon . It could be such a special and quiet part of the concert if people would have more self-control… Second part was loud as usual. I’m sorry for the missing guitars, in my opinion the WAT-Tour instruments sounded much better… maybe next time.
Some “flashes”:
-
Milan changed the lyrics for Slovania (I don’t remember doing this in). Instead of “ Vienna Poland ”, he sang “”!!! Yugoslavia - Ivan was half naked after “Francia” (the room was very hot!)
- Some pictures here: http://www.a38.hu/?p=galeria&id=140
During the “Life is Life Mix”, I left the hall and went backstage again. I collected a nice black drumstick from Natasha, some farewell words from Jani, Eva, Natasha and others, I was almost leaving, but Milan was “standing in my way”… I never really talked to him before in personal, so I was a bit afraid how to make my way out. Finally I just said “Brother Milan, I’m leaving, thanks for the nice show” – and he opened up that I didn’t expect at all!!! He told me how much he liked the venue, it was like a studio, very little reflection, so musicians complained (he didn’t!). He said again that the tour was hard, and also, that he liked that they were playing in such a venue like A38 at the end of the tour, as all of them were confident. He also commented some of the audience as “I like smart people, but I don’t like smartass! I hope I showed them a lesson today, hahaha”. I responded like “you surely did!!!”
Having all these behind me, and my nice presents collected, I left the ship before them. They left
Budapest forat 6.00 am next morning. But that’s another story… Bratislava
Other reports by Laszlo - VIENNA 2006, BUDAPEST 2004, ZAGREB 2003, BUDAPEST 2003
Live Reports Home
E-mail: