Last week, I went to a Rammstein concert in Bremen. Great experience, spectacular. Yeah, it’s expensive, but someone has to pay for all the pyrotechhnics. All in all, it was more like a(n awesome) show than a gig. That’s the impression I get when I read an article about the concert in Berlin that mentions the exact same songs that were played in Bremen. That’s the tradeoff, I guess, for all the pyrotechnics, an extremely well designed stage setting for each song, a plastic penis with a pumping rate like a firehose, a rubber boat and a foam cannon (painted to imitate a giant penis, of course). That’s the effects and all.
The other thing is Rammstein itself. It’s always fun when people complain about how Rammstein would be right-wing extremist-fascist-whatever because they appear topless, with German texts and roll their R’s. That are the three main reasons. Nuff said.
Then there’s this article, for example. The author argues the inconsequence of people who party to Rammstein’s songs, but buy the shirts and go out of the concert hall too well-educated into their normal, poor and stupid lives. Well, you may think he has a point, but he doesn’t. Rammstein is entertainment. They’re just as political as they need to be in order to be recognized as rioters. Provocation is Rammstein’s marketing, but hard to come by these days.
They had to release the video for ‘Pussy’ on Redtube to push the album ‘Liebe ist für alle da’. That got them some attention, but no real scandal. Then, they releases ‘Mein Land’ to push the Best Of ‘Made in Germany’. It got exactly the responses it was made for. Who analyzes and manipulates whom at this point?
Rammstein provocated enough, it’s not getting easier. I could go on, but just point you to an interview with Till Lindemann. I can’t find the video on Youtube, but I think it’s on the Lichtspielhaus DVD. Well, I’ll try to get it together, although I watched the interview (great videos, by the way) probably over six years ago. It holds everything that is right and wrong with Rammstein. And all of that is to find in this sentence by Till Lindemann:
Wenn wir auf der Bühne stehen, dann erwarten die Leute etwas… »Aktion«.
When he says ‘Aktion’, he says the German word, doesn’t say ‘action’ like everyone else in the show biz would, and slightly leans forward.
P.S.: This interview is quite interesting and confirms that Rammstein works out a strict choreography at the beginning of each tour.