Attack All Equipment

After having bought the tickets for Hamburg due to the proximity to my girlfriend’s home, I felt slight envy towards everyone who was able to visit an earlier show within the tour schedule. Coincidence and luck made me revisit this thought as I eventually got invited to the second and third show of the tour, as both looked pale in comparison to the fest that Hamburg would offer four weeks later.

But first things first, the location in Hamburg was the infamous Sporthalle. Like many venues of the Till Lindemann tour, it was one visited by Rammstein in earlier days during the Mutter tour. Our queuing started at around 13:00, putting us among the first twenty people. Both our dogs enjoyed the snowy and cold weather far more than us humans, although there was a slight disadvantage for them, I fear: an ugly, slightly acid smell stayed throughout the first hours of queuing and rose many eyebrows among the fans. It was suspected by local security that some protestors may have put a “stink bomb” near the venue as some opened jars were found before our arrival.

The entrance went smooth and we found ourselves in the first row right in front of Danny Lohner‘s position. Time flew by as Phantom Vision performed their 6-song set of gloomy rock to warm our souls up, making place for Aesthetic Perfection who took the crowd by storm with the first riff of Gods & Gold. Similar to the reaction during the Lindemann tour in 2020, they instantly turned some skeptics into people head-banging to their music.

And then came the short wait of changeover and line-checks for Till Lindemann. The intro sounding and looking like a glitch at first never ceases to worry me, but it eventually always resumes in the first notes of Zunge with the familiar descent of the band members to their respective spots on the stage. I was relieved seeing Till Lindemann sporting his moustache in full bloom again, after it went “missing” a couple weeks ago – right after the date in Münster. (This scenario would repeat itself soon after Hamburg, I heard.)

Fat saw some slight lyric change with its “flubby asshole” and so did Sport frei with its closing “ein Instrument wäre besser gewesen” [an instrument would have been better]. The frenzy of mic-stand kicks would start at the end of Fat, where one always gets broken and humped, and it made me curious about which stand is the most targeted one – the results will be revealed at the end as I started counting. What’s impossible to count is who got to throw the most cakes… but that’s in the nature of standing in the front row, where you’re an easy prey to those strawberry cakes.

By the way, did anyone notice that compared to Lindemann, the top of the cakes changed from white to red, matching the overall aesthetic rebranding even there? Although I like strawberries, I managed to escape while cakes landed left and right.

What one can’t escape up there is the cold water spray during the first riff of Blut, however. Thankfully it was only triggered twice and not repeated during the chorus. Platz Eins saw Till keep the change he started in Malmö: He walked in front of the stage during the drum and bass jam, catching almost every hand of the first row in the process. Fish On is where one is needed to be on the lookout from the band members again – even security forces. Jes Paige managed to throw a fish quite high up, and it kissed the huge PA sound boxes to the side only to narrowly miss a security man’s head in front of it. I laughed, and the facial expression that followed didn’t help either, then I saw her immediately run and tell Constance Day about it. The infamous fish cannon followed which reminded me that some media reports take this for a shirt cannon, which could be a nice option if they’d wrap the fishes in some shirts: you win some, but get the sacrifice of it smelling like fish, haha.

Even Till, who resumed the song with a fish in his mouth looked ever so slightly disgusted by the taste during his singing until he finally rinsed his mouth with a bottle of water. Another novelty for me was Till highlighting Joe Letz during the intro of Steh auf as he took the GoPro hat – previously used to stream the footage on Platz Eins and the Fish On cannon – to put the relentless drumming onto the big screen.