Emir Kusturica & The No Smoking Orchestra
A sweaty Serb scaled the wood paneled walls of the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall at the Emir Kusturica & The No Smoking Orchestra gig.
The pop music and rock music that finds its way into the Opera House concert hall usually excretes a pungent pompous air. Audiences arrive expecting their critically acclaimed artist to be accompanied by black clad string players. There might even be a conductor involved. It is is a a sophisticated affair that lends an air of credibility to a punter’s musical taste. It is also an opportunity to dress up for the opera.
Music is serious and it needs to be taken seriously.
Hand clapping is also serious.
My palms were numb by the end of the evening and my right leg shuddering from too much stomping. Emir Kusturica & The No Smoking Orchestra are a cocktail mix of gypsy, punk and HI-NRG, although they don’t seem the cocktail-sipping types, they are more the vodka-slurping-mongrel-in-heat types.
The No Smoking Orchestra formed in Sarajevo in the early 80s and were involved in the New Primitivism movement. New Primitivism was a raw reaction to the wankery of western New Romantic music and the Neue Slowenische Kunst collective that was active in Ljubljana.
The cultural antagonism is still alive 28 years later at the Opera House with a show that has the frontman Dr Nele Karajilic climbing over seats and dancing with women in the aisles.
Their music is a type of music that spits at pretense. It is a type of music that is needed to pillage cultural institutions like the Opera House that have fortified the arts from the people. Music does not need an altar. Music does not need to dress itself in the emperors clothes of an architectural wonder. All music should need is an audience to listen. All the opera house did is hinder an honest effort by an audience to experience the music.
“Why is everyone clapping?” someone asked.
“They want to dance but can’t,” someone answered.
The opportunity to dress up was wasted on this concert anyway. People should have followed Dr Nele Karajilic’s lead, gone topless and shaken their breasts.