Rammstein - The Concert

It was expected to be 'Different from anything we had ever seen or heard before'.  

Oh boy were they right! 

June/July 2022, Unsure if I'm allowed to blog this as I work at the venue, I will be no more specific on location than that.

Having had Ed Sheeran and the Stereophonics/Tom Jones in a few weeks before, we were perhaps somewhat nervously anticipating the Ramms from Germany. The boss told us we were to 'expect the unexpected, be open minded, be prepared for anything and most important of all wear the little orange earplugs given to us before the event.  If nothing else this was going to be...

LOUD. 

The Ed crowds had been mainly well behaved and a mix of young and old, a few weeks before. The main issue with them was the queues for the merchandise. I was stupefied at the number of people happy to miss the support acts in order to stand in a queue for about 45 minutes to pay £24 for a t-shirt or £45 for a beige sweatshirt (I mean beige... really - although the colour choice didn't stretch to much more than that to be fair). Those who had been to Primark on the way in had bagged a black Ed t-shirt for about £4.

The Tom Jones/Stereophonics crowd were averagely older, the TJ fans probably averaging the crowd age at about 50. Apparently one lady, who had passed away a few weeks before, had left a pair of her knickers (Clean, apparently) for her daughter to throw onstage for the man himself as historically is the done thing at such an event. By the end of the night, there was fighting in the toilets because some 'ladies' (I use the term loosely) had gone in through the out door thereby jumping the queue. As you may well know, us British do like a good old queue. At one point a fight broke out and there were fingernails and eyelashes flying everywhere. By the end of the night there were about 50 pints of dark-fruits cider causing waterfalls down the concrete stairs. This was partly due to the egg-box type container dished out by the venue for carrying multiple drinks. As soon as these get wet they turn to mush and no longer hold anything and the pints hit the deck. At about £6 a pot that's quite an expensive water feature. For those who managed to get their drinks back to their seats and drink them, many were so inebriated that they fell down the wet stairs left for them by the not so lucky. 

Anyway, Rammstein - I digress. We noted there were a lot of German and Polish people coming in to see the show, many of these dressed in a lot of black and many wearing a lot of what my late aunt would have called 'stage make-up', these were both men and women. They looked quite alarming but turned out to be lovely, polite and well spoken folk.  They came in early to watch what appeared to be an hour long piano solo by the support act which appeared to go down well and the crowd applauded politely. They drank in moderation, coming back from the bar with single pints and not the 4 at a time we had seen in previous events.

Staff were asked if they wanted to go down to the floor level 'moshpit' as most of the crowd action was expected in that area. A polythene 'rain mac' was then issued to the volunteers and a warning was then given about 'flying bodily fluids'. Ewwww.

At the allocated time I inserted the little orange things in my ears which were apparently supposed to save my hearing. Ye Gods, no matter whether I had these earplugs, noise cancelling headphones or the ability to time travel to Timbuktu, nothing quite prepared me for this. (and I was the only one wearing them from what I could see). The volume made my ribs vibrate like xylophone keys. Leaning against the wall just made them vibrate more as the whole building shook.

The show started with huge jets of fire and plumes of black smoke to fill the whole stadium. Amongst this carnage a small German man had lit a cigarette.  He was asked by a steward politely to put it out as stadium rules state no smoking. He did so, apologetically although clearly confused by this apparently pointless local quirky rule. The show continued, and I watched with interest. Next, black confetti was shot into the air filling the stadium with what appeared to be a biblical scale plague of flies. The band played on. Having never been cultured with the likes of German Rammstein music, I couldn't tell you what happened during what song, indeed my level of appreciation was such that they could have played the same sequence of notes over and over all night and I, personally, wouldn't have noticed. The crowd, though were standing and singing and appreciating every single moment.

At one point a huge cauldron type cooking pot was assembled onstage and a chap was placed inside. A large fire blower was aimed at the fire kindling underneath and three 'attempts' were made to set it alight. When these attempts 'failed' a monster fire-blower on wheels was brought onstage, I could picture health and safety getting a little edgy at this point. More fire and a lot more smoke, so much so that it was impossible to see the other side of the stadium and people outside thought the building itself was on fire (according the the local rag the following day).

at this point, the man who had been told not to smoke raised his hand in the way Germans do with his cigarette - surely it was OK to smoke now? No - it wasn't!

Next, the front 18 rows of crowd were covered in white 'foam' from an industrial sized penis shaped cannon which the singer sat astride and aimed with predictable glee.

Next three life rafts/dinghies appeared from one side on the ground floor with band members inside and the crowd surfed these overhead towards the stage. The band continued, their costumes were interesting - a range of everything including some skeletons which lit up and danced. A huge baby pram was set alight onstage and an abundance of smoke and hellfire raged throughout the night. By the time the crowd left at 10:30, we were about physically spent.

The following day the local rag described them as 'rooted in spectacle rather than musical technique' and told how the locals thought the stadium had suffered a catastrophic fire as flames were seen high above the roof level.

Not sure if I would do it again - my ears are still ringing, but it's one we will all remember for a very long time.