Quarterback Immobilien Arena, Leipzig – 8 November, 2023
After being postponed numerous times, Till Lindemann’s solo tour finally started in Leipzig. We got old effects like flying fish and cake. But also Till’s newest accessory: A moustache!
By Admin
The original Till Lindemann tour was announced in October 2021. Several postponements and cancellations later, fans started wondering if the tour would ever take place. However, more show dates and locations were added for a full-blown tour late 2023. Ticket pre-sale started in May, and as the tour start drew closer without any further postponements or cancellations, fans were excited to finally be able to see Till Lindemann on tour for the first time as a solo artist.
After Lindemann disbanded in 2021, Till has released three non-album singles and one album under his full name, Till Lindemann. A new live band was put together. The band debuted in Holon, Israel 1 January 2022. They had another show in Dubai, UAE three days later, on Till’s birthday the same year, and 2 December 2022 they played Hell and Heaven Festival in Mexico. For these shows, the band played mainly the standard set that Lindemann had used, with the addition of Ich hasse Kinder.
With the new album Zunge out, it was exciting to see what the new set list would look like and which new songs would be played. Would they work live? Would there be new background projections on the big screen or would the old ones be used? So many questions were to be answered this evening.
When I arrived at Quarterback Immobilien Arena around 4 pm on the day of the show, there were already quite a few people queuing outside on both sides of the arena. Of course, this was not a Rammstein show, so there weren’t already hundreds of people waiting. Though the queues got longer within few minutes.
Not everyone was there to see the concert. Demonstrators had shown up with signs and shouted “Schämt euch!” [“Be ashamed!”] to people arriving for the show. Note: That was all I noticed happening between demonstrators and the audience. If anything more took place, please leave a comment below.
Entrance was scheduled for 6 pm, and started shortly after that time. It all went smoothly. Nobody rushed through the gates, nobody ran like they do at Rammstein shows. Security was well organised and entry didn’t take long. The standing area had two wave breakers, which kind of created a “Feuerzone”, but without special tickets being sold for it. Access to this was done on a first come, first save basis. The front area filled quickly with people. While the rest of the arena took longer to fill, but before the show started, around 12 000 people made sure the arena seemed pretty packed.
Around 8 pm the first band came on stage: Phantom Vision. This is a band from Portugal that plays synth/goth rock music. The band has never been seen in the Rammstein cosmos before, so most people were in for something completely new. Crowd participation seemed to be scarce, which may have been because nobody knew the band or heard their songs before. That’s unfortunately the price you pay to be a support band. The show itself was nothing spectacular and lasted for about 25 minutes.
- The Last Frontier To Hollow Land
- Time Is The Master
- Until Heaven Sleeps Again
- Right City, Wrong Time
- One Dollar
- Millionaire
After a 15 minutes stage change, Aesthetic Perfection started their set. Aesthetic Perfection supported Lindemann on their 2020 tour. For this tour, front man Daniel Graves introduced two new band members: Lore Jarocinski on guitar and keyboard, and Mike Schopf on drums. The reason for two new touring members is pretty simple: drummer Joe Letz and guitar/keyboard player Constance Day are part of Till Lindemann’s live band, and playing two shows each night would be a bit much and also take away from the excitement of the main band. Aesthetic Perfection is also playing extra headline shows in between the Till Lindemann tour dates.
Aesthetic Perfection was met with more crowd participation than Phantom Vision received. The set consisted of fan favourites and the recently released new single Toxic. Aesthetic Perfection played a powerful set, full of energy, and they didn’t let the crowd rest much during their 25 minutes. Even Constance was seen rocking out next to the stage.
- Gods & Gold
- S E X
- Toxic
- Rhythm + Control
- Love Like Lies
After a 15 minute break that lasted around 20 minutes, Till Lindemann finally came on stage. The band kicked off the show with the first live debut of the night: Zunge. Still wearing red, the band outfits seemed quite similar to the ones used during the concerts in 2022, with the most noticeable difference being Emily Ruvidich wearing less clothing than before. And – of course – Till sporting a moustache! Whether it suits him or not is up for debate. For this first song, scenes from the Zunge music video were showed on the screen, with the addition of some new footage towards the end.
The second song was another live premiere: Schweiss. Not only was the song played live for the first time ever, it also came with a new video. Early 2023, Till got a tattoo of eels covering his entire back. The Schweiss back projection showed Till from behind with his tattoo on display, and with eels swimming across the screen. We might never know where his fascination with eels come from, but they definitely seem to play some role in his life.
Next up was Fat, a well-known live classic. The crowd happily sang along. This song had a somewhat new back projection. During the first half, it showed a big, naked woman doing the Till hammer, shaking her belly and dancing around. The second half was taken from the already known video of Till being attacked by two big women while being covered in white slime.
Another live debut followed with Altes Fleisch. In the accompanying video, we got to see an old person and detailed shots of their skin and body. At one point she started to tear the skin from her face. During this song, Constance shook her bum, and Jes Paige was not able to contain herself, but had to give it a little slap.
Allesfresser didn’t have any changes music wise, though the video was very different from before. While the old version consisted of different scenes from the theatre play Hänsel & Gretel, the new one showed a lot of different women eating things like noodles or sausages. It also showed scenes of Till on the ground getting milk poured over his face. But instead of Peter letting it spill from his mouth, it is now Constance doing so. Another scene showed Jes spitting milk into Emily’s mouth before the two of them kiss.
Like before during this song, the band threw cakes into the crowd. All the band members visibly had a lot of fun doing so. Till sometimes pointed out certain people in the crowd to be caked. It’s strawberry cake, by the way.
Golden Shower held no surprises musically, however, the video was slightly altered. The “pee stream” fell into a cup with the Till Lindemann logo on it. Other than that, everything was the same as before. For the last chorus of this song, the backing vocals of Jes and Emily were turned out quite loud, which led to them singing louder than Till did. This only lasted for this chorus, and was quickly corrected.
The fourth live debut of the night came in the form of Tanzlehrerin. After starting with only Jes and Till on stage, the other band members joined in. Constance was having fun dancing around a pole she has on her keyboard platform. The back projection showed scenes from the Ach so gern video during this song.
Next up was Ich weiß es nicht. Neither musically or video wise anything new has been done. The music video was shown for the entire duration of the song.
The last live debut was Sport frei. Many would have expected the music video to be used as a back projection. Scenes from the video were only shown towards the end of the song, though at first, there was footage of the entire band playing table tennis, mixed with scenes of them spitting out table tennis balls.
Aside from Blut being a truly great live song, there was nothing new in its live delivery. The same went for Praise Abort.
Platz Eins started as usual with rainbow lights. Till was not on stage, he was being carried through the crowd while sitting on an open palanquin. Constance walked in front of him, with a keytar. About halfway through the audience, Till got down. While the rest of the band played from the stage, the two of them danced their way through the crowd. During all of this, Till had a GoPro on his head, projecting onto the screen on stage. After the main song ended, Danny Lohner played a slapping bass solo until Till and Constance were back on stage.
Next up was Fish On. The song itself left us with no surprises, though the back projection was altered a bit. At first it showed a few scenes from the music video, which was followed by footage of a – fish. A penis fish. Yes, you read that right. A swimming penis was shown on screen.
The next song, Gummi, was also as standard as ever, except from Till seemingly struggling with remembering the lyrics. He mumbled his way through the song, rather than actually singing it. In the same unspectacular way the songs Steh auf and Knebel passed by.
The next interesting thing happened during Ich hasse Kinder. Danny came on stage wearing a baby mask, and he kept it on for the entire song. This song also finally got back projections, which were missing in 2022. In these, all the band members were shown one by one. Everyone was doing their own thing, like Danny pointing both his hands to his head as if they were guns, Joe creepily staring into the camera, and Jes licking her lips. It had kind of a Mein Teil vibe with everyone doing whatever they wanted to. Later in the video, they were seen rocking out to the song.
Skills In Pills also offered an alternate backing projection. It started with Till on his knees, the camera moved slowly towards his buttcheeks, which he then spread open. The camera slowly moved into a hole on his butt (not the actual butthole). There were still falling pills in the video, but only with Tills face. Victoria Rose’s shaking butt was still used. A few very explicit scenes were added, like a vagina spitting out a big pill, and smaller pills actually coming out of butthole. Other than this, the video was the same as before.
For the end of the show, Home Sweet Home was played over the speakers, accompanied by the video of Till’s head in X-ray style. A red spot slowly grew in his head before breaking down to pieces in the end. During this song, the band bowed down to the crowd and left the stage.
Overall the show was a good mix of old and new. Five new songs were played live, entirely new or altered old back projections were shown. The crowd was enthusiastic and seemed to enjoy the concert a lot. On stage, the band was visibly having a lot of fun, too. Everyone seemed to be in a good mood despite the protesters standing outside the arena.
If this is any indication of how the upcoming tour will be, fans are in for a treat and will have a great time at whatever concert they will visit.
- Zunge (Live debut)
- Schweiss (Live debut)
- Fat
- Altes Fleisch (Live debut)
- Allesfresser
- Golden Shower
- Tanzlehrerin (Live debut)
- Ich weiß es nicht
- Sport frei (Live debut)
- Blut
- Praise Abort
- Platz Eins
- Fish On
- Gummi
- Steh auf
- Knebel
- Ich hasse Kinder
- Skills In Pills
Admin is the RammWiki founder who created the website more than 10 years ago. Fun Fact: Admin also went to a Lindemann show in 2020, but left early. This time he made it all the way to the end, and will visit a few more shows this tour.