Freezing For Fun

There is a plethora of different memories one can think of when wanting to look back at a concert. Funny moments, emotional moments, musicians going crazy… but in truth, the thing that comes to mind first about the Till Lindemann concert in Helsinki is just how freezing cold Finland truly is. Tallinn the day before had already been quite cold for your regular German, but Helsinki dropped the thermometer by another few digits to about -12 °C. This is the kind of weather that is actively telling you to arrive at a venue as late as possible, because even an hour outside is gonna be uncomfortable to stand through. Surprisingly, however, it looked like more people were lined up in Helsinki shortly before doors than in Tallinn the night before. Finns are simply built different, it seems.

Helsinki Ice Hall has a capacity of 8 200 people and is normally used for ice hockey events. As was the case in the previous concert, the ground was covered in mats to allow people to stand without freezing or slipping. This time, we weren’t quite as lucky with the entry and found ourselves positioned on the right side of the stage in second, third and fourth row. This did very little to dampen our mood though, as we still had a good view of the stage and were just enjoying being there amongst good friends. As we were standing in our little group before the show, a wild Joe Letz suddenly appeared out of thin air in front of the crowd, handed a mysterious object to a friend and disappeared just as quickly. Our confusion quickly transitioned into hysterical laughter as we inspected the object and identified it as a big silicone vagina – like the ones Joe’s feisty drummer alter ego Sandy Beaches wears as part of her stage costume. What a lovely gift!

21:00 came lightning fast with us caught up between laughing at Joe’s gift and having very serious discussions about the differences in definition between boats, ships, and ferries after travelling to Helsinki on a boat ferry. As the lights were dimmed, everyone turned to the stage, cheering in anticipation. It was time for some live music to start!

Phantom Vision delivered another rock-solid performance. Even after only hearing their music two times, keyboardist Tiago Barbosa‘s dramatic “Tiiiiiime is the master”-background vocals have already created an earworm I can’t seem to shake. Singer Pedro Morcego Santos‘s stage antics continued to entertain as he found new creative ways to shake his microphone around. Holding it far away, then approaching one’s face, passing it and moving it away to the opposite direction again while singing a long note is certainly something I haven’t seen before. Phantom Vision are truly fun to watch. The general audience seemed a little reserved during the opening act, which might be attributed to there being some truth to the prejudice about “polite nodding” being the height of Finnish concert audience’s excitement.

In any case, Aesthetic Perfection entered the stage at around 21:40 and raised the heat of the slowly warmed-up audience. Singer/rapper/growler Daniel Graves brought his usual level of contagious frantic energy that, combined with guitarist Lore Jarocinski‘s dynamic movements across the stage, motivated everyone to let loose and follow along. It is very impressive how Lore can play so well while running from side to side, shaking her head with her long ponytail in all directions imaginable. A friend has dubbed her “the helicopter” before and I can see why. Drummer Mike Schopf gave it his all once again and gave the Aesthetic Perfection set the rhythmic backbone in the midst of his hair-nado. The band delivered a great performance and hyped the audience up for the main act of the evening.

The silhouettes of Till Lindemann band appeared before the red backdrop at around 22:20 and made the crowd finally fully commit to the ensuing insanity. It has to be said that it felt like the band wasn’t quite as playful as the day before in Tallinn. They might have been tired since there was no rest day between the two shows, so the band members didn’t have a lot of time to recover from the previous night. Still, they put on one hell of a show and made sure the Helsinki crowd had an amazing concert night, no matter if you leave the show as a walking advertisement for a cake factory or not.

After Fat, Till went to hump one of the innocent microphone stands as Danny Lohner stood in the back, watching the singer with a look of disbelief on his face. Till’s antics are often funny to watch, but in this case it was actually a lot funnier to simply watch Danny watch Till be Till.

Allesfresser came around and flashbacks from the cake carnage in Tallinn came rushing in with it. Joe made Till taste one of the cakes and then sent it on its way to the audience. Constance Day did a great job of playing it innocent before slam-dunking a cake into someone’s face. A girl in front row actually caught one of the cakes and continued to eat from it during the rest of the show. One of our major goals this time was to not end up in a cake situation as bad as the night before. To ensure that, we came prepared – raincoats is the answer! They were red, so we could even hide from the elements while following the aesthetics of the band at the same time. Of course, not being in front row also helps reduce the risk of getting plowed down by a flying cake drastically. No matter if it was the position in the audience or the raincoats, but our plan actually worked and we remained cake-free and during Blut even mostly dry this time.