Following Rammstein for their first three shows is no joke. And it’s very hard to put down your thoughts on the shows immediately after you’ve ‘gone through’ a live show. It’s like you’ve been hit by a train. To me a Rammstein-show is like an orgasm of pain.Thank you, Katvrou!
Now that I’ve returned to South Africa after nine exhaustingly exhilirating days, I can finally try to describe how it was for me.
In Lisbon I only queued for ten hours at the Pavilao Atlantico. I made friends with Pussy (who posted earlier on this thread with his cool pics of Paul and the guys), and some other girls from Lisbon. Pussy introduced himself to me and said I’m a brave girl, coming so far to see Rammstein. Heh heh. He is a true fan. I also met people from Australia. Yes, even from that far. We all ate bananas and sunflower seeds, drank mineral water and shared stories about our favourite songs and albums. We had to endure endless bouts of rain and icy gusts of wind. We bought black garbage bags from the Vasco Da Gama shopping centre and covered our bodies with it – very few of us had umbrellas. It was quite hard at times. But we held on until the security guards opened the gates at six to run through the gates downstairs to the stage. I was lucky enough to get second row.
I must just tell you that, no matter how much you read about the spoilers, nothing can really prepare you for the moment when the lights go off and the crowd starts screaming. And when Paul and Richard starts hacking through the wall with the axes, everybody goes apeshit. Then, of course, when the flame starts burning through the centre door and you KNOW it’s Till, all hell breaks loose. Especially when he waits for those slow few seconds before he kicks open the door. Seeing him strut down to the microphone, hearing everybody scream their lungs out, hanging on to the person in front of you so you won’t fall down, crying and laughing at the same time because this is Rammstein, finally you see your ultimate band on stage, LIVE, barely three metres away from you – it’s almost too much to bear.
Nevermind the sound problems with the intro. It’s incredibly irritating, especially for Till, you can just see it in his face, but just after that the song kicks into maximum overdrive, the drums roll like a truck over your body and the slashed black backdrop falls open. Everybody screams every word of Rammlied. You see Paul’s two tattoos (What?? Never knew he had any???) and you frown a bit over Richard’s hair. Weird. It’s quite emo, really. But then the guitars take over and you don’t really give a shit about any of that stuff anymore. The songs that you love are alive in front of you on stage. And that’s all that matters. The way Till kneels before the chorus in Waidmanns Heil. The pillars of flames that shoot up behind him. The flames that fly over your head, the way it feels as if your skin is melting off your face, the chorus in Waidmanns Heil, Richard and Paul chanting-chanting-chanting Waidmanns-manns-manns-manns HEIL!!!, the jumping, the moshing, the screams, the hands in the air, more screams, a neverending salute of loyalty and love to Rammstein.
The way Flake walks in THREE different directions on the treadmill (how the hell did they manage that??), his funny new dance, hahahahaha, then, the eery way the dolls get slowly dropped from the roof, those green laser eyes, Till’s voice like barbed wire being pressed into your skin with the chorus in Wiener Blut, the incredible beauty of Fruhling in Paris, the lights, oh my God the white lights that blaze open behind him when he sings the French chorus, how everybody behind and around me sings it with him, even though they say “I don’t really like it, it’s too sentimental…”
Paul’s interaction with the crowd, his cool jerky movements, when he and Richard meets in the middle with their foreheads against each other, exhanging a few quiet words, smiling, then retreating, Olli’s funny pants and hat, Flake giving us the middle finger salute after climbing out of the bath, being showered in sparks and explosions, Richard pacing in circles, pacing-pacing, then dropping onto his right knee with every insane guitar solo.
All the feeling leaves your feet. You can’t stand anymore. But you do. Somehow your body just copes with the fatigue and endless bursts of adrenalin.
It’s good that they do Seemann and Engel at the end. So you can come down from wherever you’re bouncing and just recover. I took the subway back to the hotel and wanted to cry all the time because the show was over. And because, for me, it was absolutely incredible. The timing and sound problems were forgotten. Even Finger walking around in the pit, with his pack of backstage passes, just smirking at my tattoo as if it’s nothing, that was all forgotten. I just wanted to replay the show in my head over and over again.
The next morning on our flight to Madrid, I saw Richard on our flight. After recovering from a near-fatal panic attack, I managed to grab some courage, walked to the front of the plane (before take-off) and asked him for a picture. He looked tired, but he got up, put his arm around my shoulders and posed. I almost fainted, but kept my cool and said that I thought he was awesome last night. He said "Thank you" and sat down again – I almost ran back to my seat. That was incredible for me, a simple girl from South Africa – what were the odds of me even meeting one of them???? I know they probably get tired of all the fans, but for me it was fantastic that he didn’t just blow me off. It will be one of my treasured pictures forever.
So then Madrid happened. I was at the Desportes venue just after six o’clock the morning, and there were already about 150 people in the queue. Next to their queue were about ten tents with girls, camping (some of them with their parents) for the Jonas Brothers concert the following day. They were looking at us with big eyes. We just laughed. It was like two different worlds on that pavement – two types of music that would (thankfully) never see eye to eye.
Madrid was awful for me. I could only get in about 20 metres from the stage. The shit already started with Combichrist, when I realised that lots of the people were really drunk and didn’t care if anybody next to or in front of them fell down. They just moshed and jumped and crowdsurfed. I panicked for a full half hour until I realised that I cannot fall down – the people are packed too tightly around me. So I tried to stay up, hang on to the person in front of me, and try to see some of the show. It was very hard, seeing the entire set, especially with the Rammlied intro – I am only five foot six and had to stand on my toes to see at least the upper half of Till’s body. The fast songs came in thick and hard – and people started to faint around me, mostly from heat exhaustion, and not from the flames – we were too far from the stage for that. It was so hot in-between all the people, it seemed as if every other minute, someone fainted and was carried away. I tried to move a little bit forward and managed to get a metre closer, before I was pummeled and bruised by the crowd. I cracked a toe and nearly lost my arm piercing. I wanted to leave – it was too hard to see the songs and still stay upright. I was truly afraid I’d get hurt. I wanted to cry, I felt like such a wuss. But then I just shoved back whenever a huge crowd wave came my way, and hung on to the guy in front of me for dear life. I managed to see Flake’s boat pass over my hands, and shouted with Christoph when he worked up the crowd in Links. I must say that the crowd spoiled my experience of this Rammstein-show. I wish they’d stop chanting “Puta-puta-puta!!” all the time when it’s obvious that this will not be performed, dammit. I do believe it would have been too risky here – the crowd would be totally out of control. And people were throwing up on the pavement in the morning already, running around drunken, cursing, – so I feel that a lot of them were giving Rammstein fans a bad name. I wish I met more of the nicer fans. And, the two cool girls that I did meet, fainted just after Fruhling in Paris. Dammit-dammit.
The same sound problems were evident with the few notes of Rammlied – and I was hoping that it would sort itself out before Till landed the newspaper headlines for beating his sound engineer to death with his mike stand.
My plan was to be at the venue early for the Barcelona concert. So I took a taxi at five o’clock the morning – it was still pitch dark, and very very cold. I met about twelve fans at the venue, some of whom slept there the previous night. So our 12-hour waiting shift started. I ate bananas. Quite a few of them. And I watched the sun come up while shivering from the cold – and most probably the excitement of seeing this band again live on stage.
The crowd grew rapidly throughout the day – with lots of people shoving themselves into the front row, which I thought was bad. In the end, at about 19:45, when the line of security guards came down the steps under thunderous applause from the crowd, the long wait was all worth it – all the pain in my feet and back just evaporated.
We were searched, briefly, before we broke loose and ran up the stairs, three at a time. We came to the upper level and the security guards said “Don’t run!!” but we RAN. And, together with most of the morning campers, we all got to the front row. It was evident that this set was smaller, without the side parts of the previous two shows – this was also a smaller venue, which probably led to the decision to have a smaller stage.
Combichrist was just a blur.
The adrenalin shooting through my body when the lights went off, was unbelievable. I wanted to faint, but held on to the railing. Next to me was a woman from Australia, whose children bought her the Rammstein ticket. Isn’t that just incredibly fantastic??? When Paul started hacking at the wall in his corner, you could see he was in a different, aggressive mood. He hacked and kicked, and kicked some more. Then he stepped out, just in a tiny pair of shorts and thick boots, and was handed his guitar. At the other end Richard was standing deadstill, with the axe in his right hand, bright white light streaming from behind them. Then Till started burning through the door. My heart wanted to explode. I knew what was coming, but the excitement was still like a living river of lava in my body. He kicked open the door. The crowd went MAD. He lifted up his arms, beckoning the crowd to scream louder. They bellowed, yelled, whistled, cried, and roared. It was one of the best moments of the show.
Then the first few notes. Nothing. Till’s mouth filled with that eerie light, but nothing. Then, thankfully, after a few painfully stressful moments, Rammlied started properly.
And the backdrop opened again with its slashed design under the thundering sound of “RRRRAMMM-STEINNNN!!!”
It was fantastic to see LIFAD become live on stage. Even Haifisch has its own charm, a song that I like a lot. Pussy was of course one of the highlights, what with Till riding this giant penis that spews foam over the crowd. Some of it got into my eyes, even though I ducked low when Till came past us, and it burned a little. But I must say, it looked very funny around me, with people covered in foam, grinning like loons, wiping it over their faces and hair. And with the confetti paper falling through the air – what fun!!! Also, the drumming in Liebe Ist Fur Alle Da is just incredible live. Christoph is an animal. He MAKES that song work, he just does.
Of course, when the sound died twice in Fruhling in Paris, it was AWFUL. I felt so bad for the band – and I thought it was inexcusable, that the sound guy could’ve done better. At least, when the sound died, the crowd sang very loudly with Till, just to make the awkwardness go away, and Christoph still beat the drums like a madman, even though his sound was gone, too. He and Olli just looked at each other, smiling, shaking their heads. Olli looked quite freaky with his white painted skin, with what looked like dirt smeared over the white. It was also good to see him come to the front of the stage every so often and receive his due recognition from the crowd.
At the end of Engel, when they came to the front of the stage and bowed, Richard jumped off the stage and landed awkwardly on the ground, it seemed as if he could’ve hurt his ankle, but he got up quickly and started to touch some of the fans’ outstretched hands. Finger was on him like a flash, gesturing wildly, probably telling him not to be so stupid and to move away from the crowd. I thought that was unnecessary. If Richard wants to touch the fans’ hands, bloodywell let him, dammit!!! Richard then ran to the back, past the right side of the stage.
In the speakers, the sounds of Roter Sand was coming through. The crowd mingled around, confused, hoping to hear some more from the stage. But the show was over, and the technicians came out, shooing us away, starting to break up the steel barriers that we were clinging to just a few minutes before. I immediately got a beer from one of the guys walking around selling beer, and didn’t even mind to pay the ten euros for it. I was so thirsty, I wanted to die.
But I was also ecstatically happy. I saw Rammstein live, up close, from the front row, I saw the sweat and flames and Till’s piercings, I ogled Richard’s legs (forgive me for gushing, but dammit, that studded leather band around his left leg looks SO good), I lost litres of sweat, probably put out my back forever, got flattened against the railing by jumping bodies, I hurt my neck while headbanging to Weisses Fleisch, and cried a little for Fruhling in Paris.
Things that I know now:
** If you have long hair, tie it back, or up on your head. It’s incredibly painful when your hair gets yanked and pulled by everybody around you who’s trying to hang on to you.
** The security guards in front won’t give you any water, no matter how many times you plead them for a sip. See that you have at least one bottle of water stashed away somewhere. It’s essential, especially after Benzin.
** Finger only hands backstage passes to pretty girls. Or the girls that Till blows kisses at. He doesn’t really see the true fans. I don’t know what he’s looking for while walking the pit – I really don’t know. I think he should come and find the true fans in the queue and camp tents at five o’clock in the morning before the show.
** The show is two hours, but if you bury yourself in every song, it will feel like two days. Trust me.
As I sit here, typing to you tonight, I’m incredibly sad. It feels as if I’ve dropped into an abyss of quietness after the exhiliration of experiencing Rammstein on stage. It will probably take me a while to recover from this. But I’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Rammstein forever.
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