ABORT Magazine™

Live Review: Rammstein – May 13th, 2012 – Rogers Arena, Vancouver B.C.

(CLICK TO ENLARGE | Photos – Chris McKibbin)
(All photos: Rammstein)

Live Review: Rammstein
Sunday, May 13th, 2012
Rogers Arena

Rammstein have had to, almost literally, jump through some flaming hoops in their 18-year career to keep people interested. They haven’t missed the mark, but they have the scars to prove it anyways. The band has pioneered macabre music videos, brought industrial metal to a wider audience, won many awards internationally, and all this despite a few alienating factors that could have proved disastrous hindrances.

For the most part, Rammstein’s music is sung in German. Many European bands who hardly speak English will still write lyrics in English to reach broader audiences. I applaud the band for sticking to their guns on this, and it has actually worked in their favour. The English version of “Du Hast” just didn’t have the same guttural clout as the original. And despite the fact that the majority of their international audience can’t understand a damn thing they are saying, it didn’t stop die-hards at the show from belting out pseudo-German gibberish like they were preaching their most heart felt beliefs. That is the power of music and melody over literal meaning. One felt it hard to suppress a chuckle when the band gave the audience the chance to sing the final line in the chorus of “Engel”, and a multitude of unsure voices sort of mumbled the first few words (“gott weib ich will”) and then fervently belted out “kein Engel sein”! (Of course, everyone sung along with “Du Hast”.) The few songs Rammstein played that did contain English lyrics, “Pussy” and “Amerika”, for example, left a little something to be desired, sounding silly and over simple. Had they been sung in German as well, perhaps it might have seemed awesome to be singing about big dicks and pussies, and us Anglophones would have been none the wiser.

Speaking of dicks, all the homophobes attending this tour got to squirm a little as the band capered in a bondage scenario across a massive steaming bridge to a hydraulic stage in the midst of the crowd. There, Till Lindemann (Vocals) would spank and dry hump Keyboardist “Flake” Lorenz’s buttless chap exposed bare bottom until a pressurized hose attached to his crotch erupted with spurting semen. Funny enough, back in ’94 Lorenz was hesitant to join the group. I wonder if he knew that he would be theatrically sodomized, spat at, put into a cauldron and shot with a flamethrower, to later run off stage with a sparking pink contraption attached to his Mr. Sparkle full-body leotard? Perhaps he had a bad dream before he joined but decided to ignore it. At least Lindemann didn’t shoot him in the face with the giant dick cannon.

Needless to say, as alluded to previously, Rammstein’s intense pyrotechnic live show makes up for what they lack in musical complexity or diversity, and helps bridge the language gap by engaging virtually any audience with a spectacle unrivaled by most of the entertainment world. The technicians are at least as talented as the band. I won’t ruin the fun by giving too many details, but I will say this: The band entered the arena bearing a single torch, with the Rammstein and Union Jack flags in tow, and proceeded to light the entire place on fantastical fire. I’m glad someone is carrying that torch, may they bear it to all the corners of the earth for years to come.

Rammstein.de

By: NinJoelspy

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