Growing Together – RammWiki

Zalgirio Arena, Kaunas & Arena Riga, Riga – 28 & 30 November, 2023

As the half point mark of the 2023 Till Lindemann tour flies by, the band continues to baffle their audiences in different ways – be it with a stage antics, sound quality or just the sight of a group of musicians that has managed over several shows to grow together into one strong head-bang-inducing unit.

by Urtė Jonkutė @urte.jonk (Guest Reporter), Eliass Kevrelis @rammsteinfanslatvia (Guest Reporter), Rihards @richuslv (Guest Photographer), and Sez

After attending the concert in Katowice, Poland, the RammWiki blog crew had to sadly pass on the next two concerts taking place in Kaunas, Lithuania, and Riga, Latvia. Thankfully, guest reporter Urtė Jonkutė and Eliass Kevrelis kindly provided their written two cents (or as we Germans like to say “their mustard”) to be published in this blog post combining both shows.

Let’s not waste any time, pass the microphone on already and first see what guest reporter Urtė Jonkutė had to say about the concert in Kaunas:

The concert was in the biggest arena in Lithuania, Žalgirio arena. The full capacity of this arena is 17 500, but only about two thirds of the floor and middle tribunes were used for Till Lindemann‘s concert.

Me and a few new girl friends that met and grouped up because of this concert started our waiting at around 18:00. There was a line forming already at that time, even though it was cold. The doors were opened to the arena itself at 18:30. Sadly, no tour cups or Zunge CDs were available. We were let in to the concert hall just after 19:00. Some of us from the group ran to secure General Admission barricade places and we got them just to the left from the middle. There was one guy with this scary clown-like makeup and Zunge album cover t-shirt, and he was very popular among the audience to take photos with. Only later on we realized that he was actually an undercover security guy!

The concert sadly wasn’t sold out. As the time for Tills appearance approached, more people came, but there were lots of empty seats and the back of the GA and Fanzone areas were also quite empty. However, that came with the advantage that we didn’t have to stand so compactly.

Phantom Vision didn’t move a lot of people, but Aesthetic Perfection got the floor moving! Their performance was also louder than Phantom Vision’s. The vibes were good and everyone was excited for Till’s set to start.

At around 21:15 the first notes of Zunge started and the crowd went wild! When the chorus started, we could see Till with a moustache again, at least kind of. Altes Fleisch sounded so good live, but something happened during the second verse, maybe something with Till’s In-Ear-Monitors, so that he started singing too early and was out of rhythm, but when the chorus came, everything was in order again.

Then Allesfresser came. The cake-throwing-part started with drummer Joe Letz coming to the front with some sort of magnifying glass with a light-up frame and he was presenting some of his body parts. Till was pointing at people with a flashlight like always. Someone got double-caked by the girls and someone else got a big hit at the end from bassist Danny Lohner.

During Ich weiß es nicht, Till was messing with the monitors and other equipment on stage. It looked like he unplugged multiple cords from them, and the assistant was trying so hard to fix everything. In the meantime, Till was observing, even skipping some lines from the song, and continued messing with the equipment again, so the assistant finally gave up and left the stage until the song ended to fix everything unbothered by Till.

When it was time for the fish-throwing-part during Fish on, Till put his top hat with the attached GoPro on, but we only saw an animation of a fish swimming on the screen. Fish were flying everywhere, even to the back of GA and seats thanks to the new fish cannon. We got lucky and didn’t get hit by any of them.

Steh auf was a hit; the crowd was loud and enjoyed the song. After it, Till thanked everyone and the band left the stage. We got a little scared that the concert had already ended, but after a short break, Knebel started.

Skills in Pills had some lyric changes again. Instead of repeating the line “Skills in Pills”, after one or two times, Till said “Pills in Till” instead. And at the end he again said “And I say goodbye” instead of the regular “And I hope to die”.

Then after some moments in the dark, the whole band went to the back of the stage for the final bow. Till requested some more cheers with his palm and thanked the audience in several languages. Only after the majority of fans left the hall, the fish scent became more noticeable. Outside the arena, there was a guy with his speaker and he sang some Rammstein songs – he might even be the same guy that was singing to the passing crowd after the Rammstein concert in Vilnius earlier this year in May! Overall the concert was great, filled with funny moments, great music and effects!!!

After a day of pause, the wonderfully crazy circus family that is Till Lindemann Band moved on to entertain the people of Riga, Latvia for one evening. Here is what guest reporter Eliass Kevrelis has written about the show:

The Till Lindemann concert took place in the hockey arena Arēna Riga in the capital of Latvia, Riga. Tickets for this event began to be offered two years ago – since October 20th, 2021, and the organisers of the concert were “LV-RKGM”. It is interesting that at first the concert was announced in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia, but after a short time it was removed and the city of Riga was announced. The concert was initially scheduled for January 23rd, 2022, but it was postponed to November 18th, 2022 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. Of course, as the date of the concert approached, it was unfortunately announced again that the concert would be postponed due to Covid-19. The new date would be November 30th, 2023. Finally, the year had come full circle and November 30th, 2023 arrived. To be fair, there were no extensive advertisements, videos or any other media information about this concert, which was the reason why the concert was not completely sold out.

Arēna Riga opened its doors at 18:00. Unfortunately, the concert venue did not sell the stylised cups, as it had been the case in previous concerts. The cups were instead made of soft plastic, offered by the local brewery Mežpils. Also, in order to buy tour t-shirts or other merchandise, it was not possible to buy them with a credit card, which held a lot of people up.

Upon entering the arena, the stands on the 3rd floor of the arena were covered with curtains. This could have possibly been done to avoid disappointment that the concert was not sold out. According to observations, the concert was sold out only to about 45-50%. It was interesting to observe that the fan zone was created in a rather small area. It extended only around 10 meters into the arena. This was a very positive thing for those with a fan zone ticket, who got very close to the stage – for the same price as a general admission ticket.

At 20:00, the first band entered the stage. It was Phantom Vision. After the concert itself, we had the opportunity to meet the group and to talk with them. As we found out, the group is from Portugal and this was their first time in Latvia. They praised the city very much, but admitted that it was very cold, as they do not have this kind of weather in Portugal. On this particular day, there had been about 30 cm of snowfall and the temperature was around -4 degrees Celsius.

At 20:35, the group Aesthetic Perfection took the stage. To be honest – when the first song Gods & Gold started, the sound was very impressive – loud and clean. I haven’t heard such sound quality in a very long time. While performing on stage, the band admitted that they were visiting Latvia for the first time and were excited about the city. They thanked the fans who came to the concert as well as loudly thanking Till Lindemann for the opportunity to go on tour.

At 21:00, after the performance of the second band, the instruments were quickly removed and the stage was arranged for Till Lindemann. The concert started at 21:15 – as it was publicly announced. The first song was from the new album Zunge. The sound was super impressive. To be honest, having attended some previous Rammstein concerts, this level of sound was unheard of.

The whole concert took place mostly without any changes – the setlist and band members were without changes. As you know, the concert does not use pyrotechnics, but cakes and raw fish are used. The fish smell very, very bad. At first, watching videos of other concerts, it seems that fresh fish are being thrown into the fan zone, but thats not the case here. Everyone reading this report who is still waiting for the show in their own country: prepare for the worst!

While there may not have been any major changes to the actual set or performances, there certainly was one after the main set. Up until this point, Till had always thanked the audience by himself at that point, while the band left the stage to enjoy a small break before the encore. In Riga, however, the entire band came together at the front of the stage, putting their arms around each other’s shoulders while Till spoke his thanks. Even when just being able to observe from images and videos, this special moment manages to evoke a deep sense of joy from the RammWiki blog crew. It is amazing to see Till Lindemann band grow together over the course of this tour – this is not simply Till Lindemann with a musical entourage. This is a band having an absolute blast on stage, delivering superb performances, playing off each other’s energies and pulling the audience in – even from afar.

28. & 30.11.2023