Love Letters to Rammstein

Love Letters To Rammstein

-July 5th, 2008 by Scott Urmson

Going to a concert is much more fun when the band isn't a bunch of stiffs. I don't pay hard earned cheese to watch the Pops Symphony Orchestra when I went to see a heavy metal show. Even though they were a minimalist three-piece, I'm sure Nirvana was good to watch live because of the high probability that Kurt Cobain would spit on someone or jump off the amp stack and flip-kick a teenage girl in the throat.

Some bands know about good stage shows. They know that if people paid to get in, they don't just want to see someone looking back at you, sitting on a stool, while playing acoustic guitar. Oh, I'm sure the Beatles were a blast to watch; four guys standing still on masking tape x-marks while smirking at young girls who scream, knife, and trample each other to touch their pantlegs. I'm not talking about them. I'm talking about the opposite. More specifically, I'm talking about Rammstein.

Rammstein is very visually entertaining as a group. You don't tend to see them in the same outfits or donning the same stage props from tour to tour. Their music videos are usually conceptually simple in nature, but are always aesthetically rich and diverse from one another. This is also the same with their photoshoots. New outfits, new concepts and new ideas are always being applied. Among my favorite videos, is the video for the song Keine Lust from the album 'Reise, Reise'.

I was shuffling through some reading material a while ago when I came across this snippet of trivia:

In June of 1999, Till Lindemann and Christian Lorenz were arrested after a performance in Massachusetts, US. The pair were performing lewd and lascivious behaviour during the song 'Bück dich' (Bend Over). The act in question had previously gone unnoticed in several other US shows.

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What kind of sick bastard would call that entertainment? What sicko would go see that kind of show? I'm proud to say that I was one of those who attended that very show. So, what did they do that would be considered "lewd and lascivious behaviour"? There are six guys in the group, so why were only two arrested? Did they make the jerk-off motion with their hand or something? We'll get to that momentarily.

To reiterate, Rammstein is a very visual show. I've seen them live in concert twice. At one point during the song 'Seeman', the keyboard player crowd-surfed on an inflatable raft; this stunt can also be seen on their live DVD Live Aus Berlin. They're most notorious for heavy use of pyrotechnics on stage. Even in the lower ceiling venues like the one I attended at the Palladium in Worchester, Massachusetts, there were 7-foot high flames shooting up from the stage. Apparatuses such as flame-throwers and gas-masks that shoot fire aren't uncommon at shows. Lead singer Till Lindemann, who is a qualified pyrotechnician, would even sing the song 'Rammstein' while his longcoat was set ablaze.

In June 1999, I went to The Palladium in Worchester, Mass. Later that night, they were arrested, which is roughly translated into 'good show'. During the song Buch Dich, Lindemann took out of his pants a fake donger attached to a strap-on apparatus that shot a milky liquid over the audience. He rhythmically interrupted the constant stream by slapping the shit out of the wanger to the beat of the song. At this point, my mind couldn't help but go to the visual I saw earlier of the suburban-looking twelve year old kid in the baseball hat shuffling into the venue with his prudish-looking father. This is why they got arrested. This was happening at an all-ages show and he wasn't even halfway through with the bit yet. He then took keyboard player Christian "Flake" Lorenz on a platform in the middle of the stage and proceeded to dominate him like a BDSM session. He opened a butt-flap on the back of his pants and proceeded to spank the monkey all over his back and ass while ramming his pelvis into his spine-shaft.

Needless to say, the constant stream of the dildo juice was perminantly disrupted from that point of the song onwards. It looked like he was trying to break his band-mates hips.

Here in the US, we live in a country where violence is tolerated over sex. Yet, I think even if those perspectives were flipped backwards and had he been lovingly caressing the phoney shaft and gently making love to the keyboard player -- same result, probably. Either way, that's entertainment. When you tell someone else who you've seen in concert, that's the kind of stuff you remember; not, "Oh yeah, I saw Pearl Jam once. I don't remember what they played, though. I was busy looking at some chick who showed her tits".

It's at shows like this where chicks actually don't get up on shoulders and show tits. Sure, that's a bad thing in it's own right, but the reason is because they know that them lifting their shirt doesn't compete for shit with the show on stage.

I've been to Ozzfest in 2000. At one point, I saw the whole audience in front of me with their heads turned backwards looking behind me. Come to find out two girls side-by-side with titties all out. Now, what does that tell me? It tells me that no one gives a fuck about the lame-ass mascara, hairstyles and band's logo-banner you spent time on. It's not good enough. It can't even compete with a random chick. They might be into the music blasting through the air, but who's to say you couldn't get the same experience listening to the band's CD at home while spying on topless sunbathers? This is why Rammstein dominates as hard as the singer does the keyboard player. I rest my case, your honor.