Let's start with a gig...

New blog, same schtick. I get to yammer on about what I've been doing, and you get to shrug indifferently. And let's see if this new identity has any discernible effect on what or how I write (maybe I'll come over all Ernest Hemingway and feel an overwhelming urge to write about wrestling bulls, or even all Catherine Cookson in which case an overwhelming urge to write about forbidden tubercular love up against a cotton loom*. We'll see.).

So first things first; Laibach at the Tate Modern Turbine Hall on Saturday night. What could be more perfect for this space than the industrial avant-garde outpourings of this intense bunch of Slovenian noise terrorists? I was terribly excited, despite my relatively limited knowledge of Laibach's back catalogue. Their unique cover of Sympathy for the Devil (they thoughtfully made eight versions, all  of which will upset your ears) played relentlessly at a party I once attended, caused me some disquiet, as did their playful German-language take on Queen's One Vision ('Gebert einer Nation', which takes on some pointedly sinister undertones when transformed into a bombastic marching tune.). They've been rumbling away sepulchrally about the state of Europe for thirty-odd years now, seemingly as unimpressed by its conversion to capitalist democracy as by its previous Warsaw pact monotony. The Turbine Hall - a former industrial space become bourgeois pleasure temple - could not have been a more appropriately symbolic location for Laibach to express their disdain for modern life.

The gig seemed to have begun early with our bonus spotting of basso-profundo voiced vocalist Milan Fras, striding manfully across the Millennium Bridge towards the venue and looking for all the world like the advance party for a conquering army with his leather coat flapping in the cold spring breeze. Assorted middle-aged goths and nu-metalers nudged one another and made a respectful path for him as he marched, all but saluting. So far, so good.

However, Tate Modern hasn't done many of these sorts of gigs - as far as I know this may even have been the very first - and on the night, the organisational skills required to ensure that everyone ended up inside the building at the right time were not in evidence. A massive queue of disgruntled, pierced and heavily costumed punters built up, snaking round the corridors to the Turbine Hall (good to spot Daniel Miller among them, though. Daniel Miller!!), and there it (we) remained for nearly an hour while terrified-looking gallery staff checked wristbands and squeaked among themselves.

The gig began half an hour late, and as the first thirty minutes comprised Laibach noodling quietly over a backwards-projection of a 1960s documentary on the history of Yugoslavia (not uninteresting, but the point that anyone born in the Balkans during the first half of the Twentieth Century is likely to have had a terrible life, was quickly made and then remade, and remade). The audience became subdued and withdrawn, and it wasn't until a good 40 minutes into the gig that the pace began to pick up a bit and Fras started to roar rather than grumble. From my vantage point by the mixing desk the whole thing felt terribly restrained, and I kept feeling the urge to shout "Onetwothreefour!"in a Ramones-stylee, just to get them to let rip a bit. Of course, by the time they began to do that, it was time to sprint back to London Bridge station to get the last train home. I felt very short-changed and very disgruntled.

There's a wafer-thin chance that anyone might read this who was able to stay for the whole thing, but should a miracle happen and such a reader pass by, please let me know what the second half of the gig was like. I'm pretty sure I missed out on all the excitement, but I'm not too proud to grab a little bit vicariously. Grrr.

*I have no experience whatsoever of either