With a 45-minute set that included cover versions of Edelweiss and Do-Re-Mi from the Sound of Music, the avant garde Slovenian group Laibach on became the first foreign rock band to play a gig in North Korea.

Foreigners who attended the evening concert in Pyongyang on Wednesday said the Slovenian rockers were given a warm, if slightly muted, reception by the 1,500 capacity crowd at the capital’s Ponghwa arts theatre.

“They seemed to really enjoy it. It wasn’t an audience pulling faces of distrust or confusion,” said Simon Cockerell, general manager of Beijing-based Koryo Tours, which arranged a special trip for foreign tourists to see the show.

It was the first of two Laibach gigs in Pyongyang arranged as part of 70th anniversary celebrations of the Korean peninsula’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule.

Apart from about 150 foreigners – including diplomats, NGO workers and tourists – the rest of the audience was made up of North Koreans.

“Hard to say exactly who they were, but it wasn’t a load of military uniforms or high-ranking officials,” Cockerell, told Agence France-Presse.

Spectators watch the performance by Laibach at a theatre in Pyongyang. ‘They seemed to really enjoy it,’ said the manager of a Beijing-based tour firm. Photograph: Dita Alangkara/AP

Founded in 1980 in the former Yugoslavia, Slovenia’s best known music export has courted controversy with its deliberately ambiguous use of political and nationalist imagery.

While some accuse the rockers of being fascist, others argue that their work is a critique of totalitarian ideology.

Either way, their stage persona and gutteral sound made them a surprising choice as the first foreign rock band to perform in one of the world’s most isolated states.

The North Korean popular music scene, such as it is, is largely limited to state-approved bands making state-approved sounds, although foreign music – especially from South Korea – is becoming more accessible with the spread of portable media players. These can play music smuggled into the country on CDs or USB sticks.

Deviating quite significantly from their normal repertoire, Laibach offered the Pyongyang crowd a medley of songs from the Sound of Music, which is well known in North Korea.

As well as Edelweiss, Do-Re-Mi and the Sound of Music title song, they also sang the well-known Korean folk song Arirang – accompanied by a North Korean pianist.

The lyrics to the group’s original songs were subtitled in Korean on to a screen above the stage.

“Everyone sat in their seats the whole time and there wasn’t really any clapping along or singing along, but then that’s the norm at concerts here anyway,” said Cockerell, who has been to North Korea about 150 times.

“I imagine most of the people there really had no idea what to expect, but the whole show seemed to be well received,” he added.

Pyongyang’s official news agency lauded the unusual concert, noting: “Performers showed well the artistic skill of the band through peculiar singing, rich voice and skilled rendition.”