Sopron Volt Festival - Hungary

5th of July 2007

Report by Laszlo

Laibach performed at the Volt Festival in Sopron, Hungary on 5 July 2007. While I was trying to get there (it was a 3 hours drive from Budapest right after work), the band (which arrived on the previous evening) enjoyed some free time in the city.

I arrived to the venue an hour before the band; I stood near the backstage of the tent called Vodafone-Samsung Arena. Finally a single car arrived, with Ivan and Natasha sitting on the back. Ivan was greeting me with a smile from behind the window. As they got out of the car, a bigger bus appeared with the rest of the band. I had a little chat with Eva and her boyfriend. They all got inside the “restricted area” (this time they had no spare pass, so I could not get backstage with them this time…).

I was wearing a special T-shirt, designed for this occasion. It shows my 5 weeks old daughter with my Laibach-cross armband over her body, touching her let ear (listening to Volk). The text on the side is “Du bist Unser” and “Laibach” on bottom. I showed it to the girls (they were saying congratulations), to Milan (he was laughing and said “It’s a gentle album, so she can listen to it”), and finally Ivan (first he said, “What is it? What is it?” then, after I explained, he said, “She won’t like us. Daughters don’t like their father’s music.” Finally he said, “So we really have to do an album for children…” HAHAHA!)

Anyway, while Laibach were changing for the show (in two “rounds”, since they only had a small container), Natasha, Eva and her boyfriend came out for a cigarette and a little chat. I got a bottle of beer from Natasha as a present from backstage (I could drink only half since I was facing a late night drive back home, and we have 0% alcohol tolerance in Hungary…) Eva and the guy left soon, and Natasha said she has some time to walk around. So we did a little walk, visiting the main stage and the rock stage for a while, smoking my special Indian beedees. We had a nice chat too. On the way back, we met Ivan talking with a local guy. We got back together to the venue.

The show was scheduled 21:30 so the partisan songs started around 21:00 with Ivan guiding the stage setup. I was a bit afraid, because the tent was almost empty that time! I had a handshake with sound engineer Grant next to the mixers (that’s where I stood during the show). The crowd started to come luckily, and the tent got almost fully packed by the Hungarian anthem (I don’t know the exact size of the tent, I heard Ivan complaining about the rock stage being bigger – it supposed to be the same size…). The stage was a bit unusual, having a big built in projector in the middle, so Laibach’s two screens have been put on the sides (the projector showed images from the stage – it caused laughing in the mixing crew as the camera showed Primoz playing the piano for a minute during the first part of Germania…). There was an annoying “SMS-wall” on the left side of the stage, with many stupid messages from football hooligans to drunk teenies and vice versa…

The set was shortened compared to the Tour, here it is:

Warm-up:

1. Partisan Songs
2. Hungarian National Anthem

First part:

1. Germania
2. Amerika
3. Anglia
4. Russia
5. Francia
6. Espania
7. Yisrael
8. Turkiye
9. Zhonghua
10. Slovania

Second part:

1. Tanz mit Laibach
2. Alle gegen Alle
3. Du bist Unser
4. Das Spiel ist Aus
5. Life is Life mix

My comments in general: the sound was ass-kicking, with only minor errors (a half second of Hungarian National Anthem started again after it was played once; Milan’s very first words caused interference; the band started one song quite slowly – can’t remember which). The crowd was okay, with some who saw Laibach for the first time (some wrote “it’s cool” on the SMS-wall). All in all, it was another victory for the band.

During the show, I met “merch guy” Miha, who asked the guards to let me inside backstage. I didn’t want to disturb the band inside their container, so I spoke a few words with some of all before I finally left. Unfortunately, all seem to be collectors, no-one gave me their backstage passes this time… Right before I left, I saw Miha arriving with a bottle of Absynth and some ice… Laibach, as a big family were sitting together in the container. It was such a peaceful moment, watching “good old” Milan and Ivan sitting with a smile, surrounded by all those youngsters, talking quietly, after a great show.

I watched some TV-programs about the Festival, but I’m sorry to say that Hungarian visual media was as stupid as the written ones:

Hungarian music channel “VIVA TV” showed about 45 seconds of the beginning of the concert (Milan and Mina could be seen while singing “Rossiya” form “The artic circle…” until the end of the refrain). No comments told.

The other appearance was on Hungarian National TV (MTV channel 1) for about 90 seconds:

Two extremely stupid reporters, one of them was trying to climb on a children toy but fell, then said: “You [other reporter] saw THIS Laibach yesterday here. Does that sucked like me now?” Answer: “No, not at all! It didn’t suck. It was really great.”

Then they showed images of the concert (Milan and Mina singing “Amerika” – “Praise the lord…”).

Then a short piece came from an interview with Ivan (RETRANSLATED FROM HUNGARIAN): “Many songs [nowadays] are stereotyped. We never believed that today’s pop culture, the music can be original. We accept each other’s opinions, and try to be more and more opened. Most of the groups interprets music too traditionally and too generally, which makes the outcome being groovy which was heard by the audience from other artists.”

Then a short piece from “Anglia” showing Milan and Mina.

Then another sentence from Ivan: “Unfortunately we have not much time on the event. We do the show and then we go. However, it seems to be a great Festival” (this is funny in the sense that personally Ivan told me he dislikes festivals…)

Other reports by Laszlo - BUDAPEST 2007, VIENNA 2006, BUDAPEST 2004, ZAGREB 2003, BUDAPEST 2003

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