Puskás Aréna, Budapest, Hungary – July 11 & 12, 2023
A kiss, a fall, a guitarist channeling his mischievous energy, and a bassist that finally seemed to really enjoy himself on stage – over two days, Rammstein lit up an audience that was already melting in the Budapest heat.
By KidArctica
Like several others of the stadiums Rammstein have played this year, Puskás Aréna was rebuilt on the site of a former one. Ferenc Puskás Stadium was demolished in 2016, and the new Puskás Aréna was finished in 2019. Located in the Zugló district in Budapest about a kilometre east of the city centre, the football stadium has a capacity of 67.215 people, and it has a 4-star UEFA ranking. It is named after former national team captain Ferenc Puskás.
The stadium is central Europe’s most modern football stadium. It has hosted many UEFA matches, including the 2023 UEFA Europa League finals. In 2022, Red Hot Chili Peppers played Puskás Aréna, and later in July, Guns N’Roses and Depeche Mode will enter the field during their World Tours.
This time however, six Germans were ready to come out and play. Rammstein had sold out two nights in a row in the Hungarian capital, and Budapest welcomed them by cranking up the heat.
11.07.2023
Already for the first day, forecast showed temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius. Still, there were people queuing up fairly early. One of the challenges for queuers was that the arena had two entrances for Feuerzone. One seemed to lead to Paul’s side, and one seemed to lead to Richard’s side. In theory, that should make the choice easy, however, one of them had a longer distance to go to reach the actual stadium. Besides, with two entrances, there is always the chance that one of them will be opened before the other.
The other challenge was, of course, the heat. In the morning, it was not that bad, though as the day went by, people hid under emergency blankets or in the shade of some nearby trees. In general, there were fewer people in the queue than normal. Not until around two hours before doors, the number really picked up. The last hour, we also had to dispose of the blankets and thus our shade, so that last hour was pretty much people just melting in the blazing sun.
Someone said that the guards called entry to the venue “The Run of the Gladiators”. Of course, this was not very encouraging for anyone who cannot run fast and long. That said, the entry was not by any means among the worst this year. Doors were opened more or less exactly on time at 4:30 pm. After the initial ID check and then security check, there was a run to the ticket check. All visitors scanned their tickets themselves, and then walked through revolving doors, one by one, to get inside where they got their Feuerzone wristbands.
Up until this point, things were pretty good. Unfortunately, security had decided to stop the crowd by placing guards with security tape just after the ticket control. So instead of taking advantage of the natural staggering of the revolving doors, they gathered everyone inside before finally letting people loose. This meant a run to get to the stairs going down to the field. Of course, security told people to be calm, but when does that ever happen when no one enforces it? It didn’t help that security held back only some, while others got to run freely.
While lining up early did mean that you got a better position to run, in the end, this was another show where running was the most important factor. I find that quite disheartening, but of course, there is nothing to do about it – it is what it is, and you can only accept it and do your best (and ideally, do cardio the rest of the year, hah).
Once inside, the roofing of the stadium was a blessing. The sun was not really a problem from there on. Luckily, the crowd was not pushy either, many sat down on the floor to chill in the heat, and it was fairly easy to go and buy drinks, at least in the beginning.
The wait inside the stadium was shorter than what we have become used to. Abélard went on stage already at 7:15 pm, and it was nice to hear a crowd that was more enthusiastic about the opener. Opening for Rammstein can be a thankless job, and while a piano duo might not be everyone’s cup of tea, they deserve credit and applause.
A little more than an hour later, crowd cheering from one of the sides revealed that Rammstein was walking to the backstage area, and soon after, the band entered the stage. Probably because of the heat, both Paul Landers and Christoph Schneider were wearing their alternate costumes, though with tweaks: Schneider didn’t go full cleavage down to his pants, instead he had a red shirt under his jacket. Meanwhile, Paul had added white, long – something – on his lower legs. It looked like thin bandages, and it was discussed whether they could be custom made from Demobaza. Then again, it could have just been bandages, and they slid apart as the show progressed.
It seemed like the band was in a good mood from the start. Paul dropped his sunglasses early, and was very interactive with the audience. What was more interesting, was that Oliver Riedel was in a playful mood as well. The bassist rocked out like mad, moved over to the right side for Mein Herz brennt, went up close and personal with Till Lindemann‘s Puppe cam, did a little Puppe outro dance, goofed around during the Mein Teil intro, went to the front of the stage for Du riechst so gut, and in general seemed to really enjoy himself on stage. It was a such a pleasure to watch him. The set list changes from last year took away many of the “Oliver moments”, so hopefully this means that he is finding new opportunities to have fun!
Till was also in a playful mood, even though he was totally off beat at the end of Sehnsucht. During Puppe cam, he snuck on the left side of Paul instead of going on the right, as usual. Paul saw him though, and smiled overbearingly as Till gleefully teased him and touched his nose before moving on to the audience.
For the Radio intro, Paul went over to Richard Z. Kruspe‘s side, and the two guitarists played back to back. During Mein Teil, Paul and Schneider sat together in the back, whereas Richard sat on the other side. Paul kept sitting there also when Schneider went back to his drums. He didn’t play the “clown song”, instead he played what seemed to be some random melody.
After Sonne, when the band was leaving for the B-stage, Till fell. While we didn’t see it ourselves, we received this description of the event: “It happened after he left the stage and came out of the left side. The moment we saw was that he was going down, and the slope was slippery or I don’t know, but then a second after I was seeing a body crumbling down and legs in the air. Two security staff quickly helped him get up, and he must have hurt his leg because he was limping on the B-stage.”
On the way back from the B-stage, Paul grabbed a fan made sign that read “Ohne euch wollen wir nicht sein” and held it up. Oliver leaned out from the boat to give a fan a pick. Needless to say, that fan was very happy.
It seems like it has become a standard now for the band to do their collective headbang during Du riechst so gut, because again, both Oliver and Flake Lorenz came to the front of the stage for this. Till, who recently did his freezes with Flake, moved on to Schneider this time. Cheating the freeze, he grabbed two of the drummer’s drumsticks, and after the freeze, he went down to front of the stage and threw them to fans.
The first Budapest show was not emotional as Munich, and it didn’t feel fully as lively as Groningen 2, but it was still a really good show, and it’s heartwarming to see the band have so much fun together on stage.
12.07.2023
The first day in Budapest was warm, but the second day was even worse. Even fewer people lined up early, which is understandable, as the temperature kept rising to even more intense levels than the day before. People protected themselves as much as they could, but again, the last hour in searing heat without shade was harsh.
Interestingly enough, security had made a change from the first day – and a good one. Initial ID check and security check was the same. Unfortunately, one of the lanes on the right side was heavily delayed, so those who had lined up for that one got held up quite a bit. After the initial run to the ticket check, people got their Feuerzone wristbands, and unlike the first day, they could just continue running to the stairs down to the venue.
This change worked well, since the revolving gates acted as a natural staggering mechanism to portion out people. Once at the stairs, people were stopped, and after a good batch had arrived there, this one batch was walked slowly down the stairs to the field, while more security stopped those who came after to make a new batch that was walked down once the first one had reached the field. While running is still not my favourite type of entry, this way of doing it felt a lot safer, and I commend security for this change – it was definitely for the better.
That said, having two entrances is still a gamble, and unfortunately for those queueing on Richard’s side, they were the unlucky ones and got let in a good while after those on Paul’s side, which means that a lot of the front row was already full by the time they made it into the venue. Several times now I have heard security say “there is room for everyone inside” as a response to concerns about entry, and while that is technically true, there is a reason why people spend hours and hours waiting outside – and it’s not to just get inside.
The wait inside was rough in the heat. At the beginning, buying water and bringing it back went well, but closer to concert start, it was harder to move from the front. Besides, open cups are just not good when you want to jump and rock out during a concert, or when the band happens to shoot out a huge load of confetti during the show. So by the time Rammstein went on stage, most seemed to be out of water.
This second Budapest show was definitely one of Paul’s best ones. The left guitarist came on stage wearing his new outfit again, but this time he had what seemed like heavy bronze make-up in his face, plus red make-up on his hands and legs. He started “Pauling” from the beginning. During Rammlied, he didn’t stay in his spot, instead, he walked around inspecting Oliver, who just glared back at him. After this, he kept dancing, joking around, and rocking out with the erratic movements he is known for. It is difficult to understand how this man can be 58 years old as he appears so youthful on stage!
After Angst, during the drum jam, he stuck his head into the CO2 stream and messed up his hair a bit. During Mein Teil, instead of going to the centre, Paul went over to Richard’s side where the two of them rocked out together before sharing a kiss – and then Paul patted Richard’s chicken coat before heading back to his own side, where he went up to the platform with Flake’s Du hast keyboard to inspect it. He even had to hurry back down to be able to reach his microphone before he had to do backing vocals.
When Till, again, attempted to cook Flake, there was no dancing in the back. Instead, the two guitarists and Schneider decided to stand behind the drums with their arms crossed, just staring at the events unfolding in front of them.
Because of Paul’s performance, it was at times difficult to focus especially on those on the other side of the stage. Oliver was great again though, and hopefully, he will keep this up and perhaps even blossom more in the remaining shows. Flake had a cute moment when he was just chilling, lying down on Schneider’s drum platform after being on Puppe cam. Schneider pretended once more to cut his throat with a drum stick, and it then looked like he was trying to perform exorcism to get Paul away from him.
During the boat ride, Paul picked up a fan that read “Fuck off” and held that for a while. He then kissed Till’s hand as he was helped out of the boat. Richard had picked up a tiny stuffed shark, and as the boat moved towards Till, he made movements with it as if it was swimming to the vocalist. Then, once out of the boat, he stuck the shark into Till’s jacket, which made Till smile.
Till, who has now done the Du riechst so gut freeze with Flake and Schneider, decided to go to Oliver this time, and did the freeze next to the bassist.
As the band took their final bow, Paul put on his hood and zipped up so only his face poked out, and the guitarist also picked up a piece of confetti and put it in his mouth – although he did spit it out eventually. He also tried to grab a piece of confetti that flew by when the band went up in the elevator.
This second Budapest show was also really good. The main problem, especially for those in the front row, was the intense heat. Sonne pyro felt even more blazing than normal. People were sweating like mad, and since security didn’t hand out any water, most people were totally parched by the end of the show.
That said, the band was also drenched in sweat, and performing in such temperatures can’t be easy. All honour to Rammstein for two great, hot shows.
11.07.2023 & 12.07.2023
- Rammlied
- Links 2-3-4
- Bestrafe mich
- Giftig
- Sehnsucht
- Mein Herz Brennt
- Puppe
- Angst
- Zeit
- Deutschland RMX
- Deutschland
- Radio
- Mein Teil
- Du hast
- Sonne
- Engel
(Piano version with Abélard) - Ausländer
- Du riechst so gut
- Ohne dich
- Rammstein
- Ich will
- Adieu
KidArctica is a RammWiki editor who has been part of the website for years, working in the background with edits and content. Fun Fact: After 18 concerts this tour, KidArctica finally knows the lyrics of Rammlied.
