I'm Not Dead

As much as this site my appear to be dead in the water I'm alive and well, and can't wait to get back into it...as soon as I have an internet connection. I'm posting this over a highly over-priced cellular connection (thanks Vodafone NZ), as I wait for my DSL to be up and running. I'll be back in black.

Made in Germany Album & Tour

Rammstein have announced their next tour and album just now:

RAMMSTEIN have assembled a retrospective of their most significant songs: "Made In Germany 1995 – 2011"!
The machinery of RAMMSTEIN Live is hauling across the whole of Europe, starting 6 November 2011 and bringing the essence of 16 years to the stage. With a completely new show, RAMMSTEIN at its best!
All dates are listed below. The tour will be continued in 2012.

The tour dates are as follows:

„Made In Germany 1995 – 2011"- Tour
11/06/2011 SK Bratislava Zimny Stadion Ondreja Nepelu
11/10/2011 HU Budapest Sportarena
11/12/2011 CZ Prague O2 Arena
11/14/2011 PL Gdanks/Sopot Ergo Arena
11/17/2011 D Leipzig Arena
11/20/2011 D Munich Olympiahalle
11/21/2011 D Friedrichshafen Rothaus Halle
11/23/2011 A Vienna Stadthalle
11/25/2011 D Berlin O2 World
11/28/2011 D Hamburg O2 World
11/29/2011 D Bremen Arena
12/01/2011 F Strasbourg Zénith
12/02/2011 LUX Luxembourg Rockhal
12/04/2011 D Düsseldorf ISS Dome
12/08/2011 D Frankfurt a. M. Festhalle
12/10/2011 D Stuttgart Schleyer-Halle
12/12/2011 CH Zurich Hallenstadion

They add detail about the album as well:

Parallel to the tour, "Made In Germany 1995 – 2011" will be released – 20 RAMMSTEIN original bests, including one new track, as well as the entire video catalog for the first time on CD/DVD!

See the link to the Rammstein site for ticket details.

More from Jules

Following on from my earlier post of the photos from bdjules:

Christchurch Shakes

This is completely off-topic, but I wanted to share it to give people some idea of what is going on in Christchurch, New Zealand, where quakes have been destroying infrastructure, homes, and businesses, leaving people shaken and in shock, separating families from their homes and belongings, and killing and injuring many:



This started in September last year. Donations to the NZ Red Cross will benefit the victims of this awful series of disasters directly.

Confirmation?

Rock Sins has posted that the March 1 Manchester show has been confirmed. It'll be interesting to see how this develops.

Made in Germany

The Gauntlet and Richard

TG has posted content from his interview with Richard last month. It's from here that we had the first intimation that Rammstein might be heading back to the US, and this, an interview conducted in the US during the last LIFAD tour leg.

Back to the UK

March at MEN in Manchester, according to Metal Hammer. More details (and presumably venues) to come. Stay tuned...

Video Release Estimate

Rammstein's site has stated that they expect to release the new video in late Autumn this year. I won't link to the Rammstein site, as it's behaving very strangely for me. The 'Rammstein's North America Tour' link takes me to the article just posted with a URL indicating it's the Golden Gods nomination article, and I'm deeply confused. The CMS seems to have gone a bit haywire.

Aussie Tour Rumour False

It is being put about that someone called Universal Media has confirmed a four date tour in Australia. Here is an excerpt:

Rammstein and Universal Media have now chosen 4 cities in Australia to do a tour, as of yet I have not been advised on these cities or the dates and I am currently talking to Universal Media over the next month and I will post the dates as soon as I know them, and I thank everyone for there support to bring Rammstein to Australia.

I have checked, and this is false. Please do not propagate this rumour. It's unfair Rammstein, their team, and to Australian fans.

Vegas Fan-Photos

A Herzeleid user called bdjules has shared some really good photos from the Las vegas show, and very kindly given me permission to post them:






There may be more to come!

Correction: Attendance Figure

I'm afraid I made something of an assumption regarding the 100,000 number I posted this morning. Because it wasn't specified I assumed that number was for the entire leg of the tour, but it turns out that it's only for the US and Canada! Mexico is not included. That just makes it even more impressive.

Attendance High

The latest leg of the LIFAD tour has been rather impressive, especially if you consider only the US shows, because we all know Mexico has a long-term love affair with Rammstein, which is entirely reciprocated, and Canada is multilingual anyway. An official source has told me that attendance across this entire leg (including Mexico and Canada) has been around 100,000. That is huge. The USA is a hard market for non-English-singing acts to break into, yet Rammstein has smashed their way in, torched the place, and come away with the sort of attendance number that an English-singing band would be proud of. Way to go Rammstein!

Correction: This figure is not for Canada, USA, and Mexico. It's just for the US and Canada! Awesome :)

The Owl Mag Photos

Some excellent photos of both Rammstein and Combichrist have been posted to The Owl Mag. They're from the Oracle Arena show, and the photographer is Mike Roseti.

Rammstein in the USA

Kadri, one of the four people I was able to give concert tickets to, thanks to Webby, has reported back on her Rammstein experience. Enjoy:

Alright, Liebe fellow Rammsteiners, time for some concert rewiews from the concerts in USA!
I was there for 3 shows: Oakland, Los Angeles and Las Vegas (for which I won the ticket from here ). I flew in from all the way from Europe, just to see them in 3 shows, but oh boy! has that been rewarding!!! But let's start at the beginning.
To give you a picture of myself: I am a blond Estonian girl, who has been terrified to go to places I do not know, my whole life. This trip proved to me, that with a good enough reason nothing is impossible. I landed in San Francisco 3 days before the Oakland show and thought to myself, well, let's see some of SF-s sights as well. Hah, it rained nonstop all the time, so my whole sightseeing ended up in couple of shopping malls and many small divebars for some beers. But then... met couple of people, who I got to know (and love) from fan-gathering in NYC in December, and we went out on the night before the show to a have a couple of beers. There, one of them casually mentioned: "oh, by the way, I won 2 meet and greet tickets for the Oakland show and I have a spare one, wanna go?" I swear to god, I almost fell down!!! And it did happen, we got to meet 5 out of 6 band members (only Schneider was missing) just minutes before they went on the stage, got pictures with them, and I got their autographs on my LIFAD CD cover, and a hug from Richard. Happy as a kid in a candy store!!! They were all really nice, although Ollie seemed very shy, and Till looked slightly annoyed and bored. But Richard and Paul were sooo nice, they smiled and chatted with us. After the meet and greet we were escorted to the PIT to see the show, and we ended up in 6-7th row, which was not bad at all. The concert itself was great, as they all are.
The next day it was off to LA, to be ready for the lineup early in the morning of May 20th. I was there at 7 AM, and our group was the second one in line. During the day in the line it turned out, that one of our group members had an extra PIT ticket for Vegas, and I ended up buying it off of him, although I had the ticket won from here, but it was a seated ticket, and if given a choice, I always would prefer PIT. (The PIT tickets for Vegas were so insanely overpriced, that I could not let get away the possibility to have it only slightly over the face value). After looong waiting it was time to run for the first row. Ended up there just between Richard and Till, couldn’t get better than that! Then there was the time for Combichrist, the supporting act on all 3 shows to start warming people up. As I do like them as well, I really enjoyed their act, until… Richard and Paul showed up on the stage to perform “Blut Royale” together with them! What a massive surprise!!! The crowd flipped out! Both Richard and Paul really seemed to enjoy themselves; they were smiling all the time – something, that is very rare for Richard during a concert. After that there was time for Rammstein to enter the stage. They did, with the big black wall with Richard and Paul punching their way through that, and finally Till welding his way on the stage. But, pictures speak louder than words, so I really suggest, you check out the footage from the concerts on youtube. The crowd in the LA show was quite wild, and I got some serious bruises from a couple of crowd surfers, but hey, It’s rock, without some bruises after the concert you will look like a pussy. At the end of the concert I got a high-five from Richard, when he jumped off the stage at the end. WIN!!!
Right after the LA show it was time to head towards Vegas, and after nearly 5 hours we arrived in sin city. We went straight to the lineup, just to see, that we were almost first in line again. Reached he first row again, this time right in front of Richard. And again, the show was amazing! As it was the last show together for Combichrist and Rammstein, then they had prepared a special surprise for the audience for both Combichrist performance (Lacey Conner from “Lords of Acid” and Sin Quirin of “Ministry” performing “Kickstart the fight” and “What the f**k is wrong with you?” together with Combichrist), as well as for the Rammstein (Joey Letz and Trevor Friedrich from Combichrist joined Rammstein on stage for “Ich will” and “Sonne” – there were 3 drumsets on the stage – it was INSANE!).
So to make a really long story short: the trip was soooo worth travelling around the world. Would not change anything, and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.

Du Hast Balalaika

Russians, I think? Awesome, either way.

Rammstein in Rosemont: 7th Highest Grossing

The Rosemont Rammstein show is listed as the 7th highest grossing show in the US for April and May 2011. Not bad for a pack of foreigners.

LIFAD, Especially For This Guy!

The whole idea of LIFAD and the heart symbol really comes into its own when a Rammstein fan (link in Spanish - GLT English here), desperately in need of a new heart, lies in hospital fighting an infection. It would be nice to click my fingers and send the band to him. It would be nicer if I could magic up a heart for him. Spread the word though. This boy needs to be in all our hearts.

Vegas Photos

There're some really great shots from Las vegas here. Yeah, I'm playing catch-up...