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Rocksound - Feb'05 : Nuremburg Concert Review

With the Tour surrounding latest album 'Reise, Reise' Rammstein are about to cement their reputation as rock's greatest showmen. Rocksound visited Germany to witness their new live spectacular first-hand.
On the outskirts of the picturesque German town of Nuremberg, an apocalyptic showdown is brewing. This is a place that, when it's not being associated with the aftermath of World War II, now chiefly attracts visitors for its famous Christmas market - a magical sprawl of handmade toys, candy canes and traditional Bavarian treats. Yet tonight it's proving popular for an altogether more menacing reason. Rammstein are here to promote latest album 'Reise, Reise' and as ever, they're not doing anything by half measures. Inside Nuremberg's vast arena, the ground shudders as if Mother Nature is warning of an impending earthquake, while foreboding sound effects thunder overhead.
Soon, suit-clad figures brandishing baseball bats fill the stage as part of the band's ongoing tribute to Michael Douglas' vengeful businessman in the film Failing Down. As the mystery men scan the crowd with searchlights like rescue workers in a disaster area, the backdrop falls to reveal several members of Rammstein atop a towering drum riser-cum- second stage. Surrounded by a set that's part industrial battleground and part sci-fi futurism, they present a motley crew. Marching to an ominous regimented beat, keyboardist Flake Lorenz is the lederhosen-clad comic relief, while guitarist Richard Z Kruspe-Bernstein cuts an imposing, albeit glamorous, figure in a floor-length military coat and army boots. As frontman Till Lindemann bursts through a curtain centre-stage, twitching and scowling like a burly mental patient, his guitarists are lowered down to meet him on moving platforms, and all this before a single note is played. Even the set list for a venture of this magnitude reads like a military plan of attack, and you'll find everything from "mortar hits" to "grid rockets" and "concussion boats" cited alongside song titles. But for a show that, according to those around the band, is being carried out on twice the scale of the live outing that accompanied previous album 'Mutter', you wouldn't expect anything less. If you thought flaming suits and ejaculating dildos were as good as it gets, this time Rammstein are outdoing everyone's expectations, including their own. "If you go down this route, it's really hard to stop it", confesses Richard of the band's elaborate approach to their gigs. "We have to keep challenging ourselves. But that's with everything, not just the live shows.
You have to keep yourself hungry. I've actually found myself in the situation where I'm making myself suffer to create this, subconsciously anyway. But that's okay. I always need a bit of drama." Right now, that 'bit of drama' is making Rammstein the greatest live act around.

Making a Monster
"Obviously we didn't start with such a huge show, continues the amiable guitarist from his dressing room a couple of hours earlier.
"At the first shows Till got really bored and just pulled out some firecrackers. That's how it started. But I think we were always interested in playing around, I think we were quite like children in that way. After a while we also realised there was this was this language barrier so the effects helped cross those bridges." Taking their inspiration from films, show producer Roy Bennett (also responsible for Inch Nails' past two tours) and, for Richard at least, pictures of KISS he'd seen as a boy, Rammstein are involved in the live process from start to finish. "We really motivate each other," says Richard. "Someone comes up with an idea and someone else will try to compete with him so these fantasies just build and build." Next, it's time for a meeting with Roy to discover whether or not ideas are feasible and how they can be made reality. Once the show's production is underway, the band rehearse their new material in uncharacteristically small clubs in front of family and fans "to find out which songs work onstage". After that, a rehearsal of two to three weeks follows, during which during which the full show is acted out in an arena with pyrotechnics, effects and lights. As work schedules go, it's more akin to that of a theatre production than a live music event, something Richard fully acknowledges.
"Yeah, it is theatre," he agrees. "In fact, right now it's more theatrical than ever before. It's not like you're going to a rock show. You're going to the rock theatre!" Does that mean you put on characters when you're out there? "Yeah, I think everyone does.

"But the important thing is that you let that character go when you come off stage, otherwise you go insane. So we do try to be really evil, but we're actually quite nice," he laughs. Of course, with the trappings of a theatre-style production comes a theatre-style price. Consequently, while Richard loves both creating and delivering their live events, he also realises there are limits. "We're on the cusp right now actually. In the old days we didn't really make money from the live shows, we made money from selling records. Now the market has gone down so much that we're not sure if we can make money from selling records anymore and we have to balance it out.
These shows are really expensive, like one of the shows we do now costs €100,000 (approximately £69,000). I think the only other reason we would stop would be if we felt we had become slaves to the show and the music might suffer. Right now, the stage is so big that we can't really see or feel each other anymore." Indeed with 53 crew members needed to build at each venue and 14 trucks transporting it from gig to gig, you can understand why Rammstein might feel the live show is becoming bigger than the band. And that's without even starting to think about the staff needed for the catering, administration and policing behind an effort like this. "I think the only way to get away from this now would be to do something else entirely," Richard ponders. "For example, to start over with an acoustic set for people who really enjoy the music and then try to build something up again without all the effects"

Hot Hot Hot
Tonight, however, is no time to be thinking about alternatives. That Rammstein have a future should they decide to take another route is already clear, after they performed a much talked-about acoustic set at an industry conference Popkom in Berlin last year. It's an achievement that's echoed when they huddle at the front of the stage for a stripped down 'Los' this evening, proving they can be just as striking when they aren't surrounded by fireballs and flames. Right now though, it's all about living for the moment and that means enjoying an all-out extravaganza. Just two songs in with 'Links 2-3-4', the pyro explosions hit, whetting the audience's appetite for several ostentatious fire feats that follow and singeing plenty of eyebrows in the process. That includes the flame-throwing masks worn by Richard and fellow guitarist Paul Landers in 'Feuer Frei', and the impressive firework-spurting archer's bow wielded by Till in 'Du Riechst so Gut'. And this time around, when they aren't projecting flames from their limbs ('Rammstein', Du Riechst So Gut'), Rammstein (completed by bassist Oliver Riedel and drummer Christoph Schneider) are injecting some unexpected humour into their performance. It's illustrated best in 'Mein Teil' , the song based on German Armin Meiwes who cut off, cooked and ate the penis of a consenting man he met over the internet, before killing him and devouring the rest of his body. Emerging in a bloodied chef's outfit to the sound of knives being sharpened, a sinister Till looks on ravenously as victim Flake is wheeled out in an oversized cooking pot. As the singer proceeds to blast the pot and its contents with an equally preposterous torch, he takes on his greatest "character" to date, chasing Flake around the stage with evil glee when he escapes. Then there's 'Amerika', their tongue-in-cheek exploration of our love / hate relationship with the good ol' US of A. Fittingly, it coincides with an eruption of white smoke and blue and red glitter that's blasted into the audience to make a subtle parody of both the American flag and glorified traditions like the ticker-tape parade.

So does this all mean Rammstein still have a passion for controversy? Despite these occasional forays into making statements, Richard doubts they ever did. "Everyone says Germans don't have a sense of humour so we're trying to show them otherwise. But I wouldn't say we do anything controversial in our show. There are things I don't like. For example I didn't like it when Till was pretending to fuck our keyboard player. But that's a matter of taste and those things are more funny than controversial." In Rammstein's minds the only thing they're consciously doing with their live show is having fun, especially Oliver, who gets to crowd-surf in the aforementioned concussion boat (or rubber dinghy to the rest of us) during a cover of Depeche Mode's 'Stripped'. "Sometimes I would love to play with a band who just do music," concedes Richard. "But when I see a Nine Inch Nails show I come away much more satisfied than if I'd seen a band with QOTSA who just play songs. We're really unique at what we do, especially our live shows, and people really appreciate that." With the UK tour fast approaching, do yourself a favour and find out why.

The single 'Keine Lust' is out on Feb 07 and the album 'Reise, Reise' is out now, both on Island / Universal. Rammstein play the UK in February.
Words: Victoria Durham
Photos: Olly Hewitt (live)


© 2005 Sue Lindemann