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Q Magazine - Review of Prague Concert - Issue #Q223

German metal freaks set Prague alight.

The Lowdown:
Setlist: Reise,Reise / Links 234/ Keine Lust / Feuer Frei! / Rein Raus / Morgenstern / Mein Teil / Stein um Stein / Los / Moskau / Du riechst so gut / Du hast / Sehnsucht / Amerika / Rammstein / Sonne / Ich will / Ohne Dich / Stripped
Show Time: 1 hour 50 minutes
Ticket Price: 800 Koruna
Attendance: 16,000
Strange but true: The Pet Shop Boys recently remixed Mein Teil, the first single from Reise, Reise, lending this metal juggernaut a jarring disco appeal.

Rammstein : T-Mobile Arena, Prague – Friday 3 December 2004
After six songs of almost totemic industrial power-songs that feature exploding drumsticks, nuclear-sized pyrotechnics and the production of so many flames that it feels like Bonfire Night - Rammstein wheel out the giant cauldron. Sitting inside it, and dressed in a rubber suit, is keyboardist Flake Lorenz, who, for Mein Teil, is cooked alive by singer Till Lindemann spurting more fire from a contraption strapped to his arms. Later, Lorenz will perform a spectacularly camp thigh-slapping, ankle clapping dance while wearing hotpants and knee-high socks.

Located somewhere between Metallica's demonic pantomime and Spinal Tap's propensity for the absurd, Rammstein are bizarre, hysterical and sublimely entertaining. Unusually for an act who sings in a mother tongue so comprised of blunt-edged consonants that it resembles a Rottweiler with a nasty cough, Rammstein are Germany's most successful musical export. Since their formation in Berlin in 1993, these metal overlords have sold 8 million records across the globe, and their current album, Reise Reise, is perhaps their most commercially accessible to date.

"The best way to appeal globally is to celebrate our German-ness" says bilingual drummer Christoph Schneider backstage before the sold out show. " We have been a curiosity in our own country for a long time now, and our critics are convinced we are right-wing. Because of our country's bad history, Germans are terrified about playing with imagery. But we are convinced that we need a new identity, and I hope we can help bring this about."

Musically, Rammstein are preposterous, Lindemann's voice as deep as the Earth's core, while the emotions in every song are pointedly apocalyptic. But the band's sense of theatre broadens their appeal exponentially, their fanbase stretching from heavily-pierced teenagers to middle aged men with handlebar moustaches, all of whom revel in the exploding comets of Du Hast and the volcanic confetti that spews throughout Amerika.

During the closing rendition of Depeche Mode's Stripped, bassist Oliver Riedel surfs the crowd on a rubber dinghy to a reception that suggests this feat is both miraculous and biblical.
"He loves doing that" Schneider says later.
That is very evident, and his enthusiasm proves contagious.
Nick Duerden

© 2005 Sue Lindemann