Light! Fire! Destruction! Teutonic mascletà. Metal with abundant scenographic apparatus, post-industrial cabaret and almost sick fascination with flares. Light, more light! I wish I could be on the other side of Barcelona at the same time to be able to see how the Montjuïc mountain spit fire and braised. … a little more the ozone layer. Rain, they say? Yes, rain poured down throughout the afternoon and the band held out on stage under an imposing downpour, but at the moment of truth, the time of the drum rhythms sculpted in granite and the riffs as if forged with hammer blows by Odin , the only storm that mattered was the one Rammstein unleashed on stage.
Water fell from the sky non-stop, yes, but the Germans brought fire, firewood and gasoline with them. The magic formula of roadkill. The secret book of stadium metal. Till Lindemann, the singer, in trans-Siberian master of ceremonies mode; the audience singing (or at least trying to) “Hier kommt die Sonne, das alte Leid”; and the hell of metal turned into paradise for the 52,000 people who packed the Olympic Stadium in Barcelona. ‘Ramm 4’, piledriver and to the mess. Total communion and slamming the door on the accusations of alleged sexual abuse against Lindemann that the Berlin Prosecutor’s Office filed a year ago.
Dense black smoke, blood-red flags reminiscent of totalitarianism with the band’s logo, and an apocalyptic and nightmarish scenario made of pieces of industrial brutalism and George Miller fantasies. More volume. More firecrackers. More of everything. ‘Keine Lust’ and ‘Sehnsucht’ crushing the public. ‘Ausche zu Asche’ without mercy or mercy. And the people? There it was, about to solidify into a uniform mass of raised arms and colored capes. Yes, the electric blue and phosphor yellow raincoats didn’t quite fit with the sound hell that the speakers were spitting out, but it wasn’t the day to get fussy.
industrial fury
Like the rain, they also came from the sky (literally; an elevator took them down from the highest point of the structure to the rhythm of Handel), but as soon as they touched the ground everything was over-the-top theatricality, lacerating electricity and seismic blasts. In 2019 they already charred the Espanyol stadium in Cornellà, with a capacity for 35,000 people, but this Tuesday they returned in a big way to inaugurate the concert season at the Olympic Stadium with their coven of inflamed metal and industrial fury. With the burning baby carriage of the macabre ‘Puppe’ and the ghostly synthetic dance of the remix of ‘Deutschland’, pure Kraftwerk with anabolics to give yourself a slight respite after a first hour of fireworks and bulldozers.
View of the stage where the German band performed
Adrian Quiroga
Electronic grafting and rhythmic concrete mixer in ‘Radio’ and octane through the roof with ‘Mein Teil’, that song-performance in which Lindemann tries to incinerate keyboardist Christian Lorenz with flamethrowers of different calibers and ends up wielding something similar to an anti-aircraft cannon. The ‘props’ and the pyrotechnics lighten the monotony of some songs not given to versatility. Nothing serious. Because just then, the ecstasy: apotheosis of fireworks, flares and charred eyelashes with ‘Du Hast’.
Rammstein in its element. The dough and the fire. Grilled metal. Flares in the four amplification towers spread across the track, tongues of fire licking the sky from the top of the stage and gusts of heat like a Guinness record barbecue in ‘Sonne’. All very subtle, yes. At that point, halfway through the concert, even the rain had begun to give up, frightened by such an unexpected competition of lightning, thunder and impetuous explosions.
Rammstein and flamethrower guitars
ADRIAN QUIROGA
For the encores, the band moved to a small stage located in the middle of the track and played ‘Engel’ in its essential version: only piano and the musicians sailing among the audience aboard three inflatable boats. Unintentionally comical moment of the night, too mundane and tiny compared to the behemoth that the band was up to then. Back to the main stage, more wood, more roller. ‘Ausländer’ with the storm again doing its thing; ‘Du riechst so gut’ with the stadium dyed alien green and the musicians letting out sparks. In front, Lindemann standing on a huge cannon and shooting something (foam? confetti? don’t even ask; maximum paste, in any case) at the first rows.
And to close, the fireworks. All the meat, sorry, on the grill: operatic pantomime, shovel fire. A flamethrower here, a singer spitting fire out of his back there. ‘Ich will’, ‘Rammstein’ and ‘Adieu’. Bread, circus and riffs like Basque pelotari hands. If this is not how you should feel after a concrete mixer runs over you, you should be fine.
