“Ahoy” to the Dutch

After a summer in which we had the privilege of hosting Rammstein in our backyard, het Stadspark, my girlfriend and I now had the honor of traveling again for hours before arriving at the concert of our choice, as we are accustomed to doing. In the Rammstein-related shows I’ve been to now, for both the shows I saw with and without my girlfriend, there are a few constant factors that always come back: hassles with public transportation and botched entrances. I am happy to mention that our concert experience was a complete one: train delays and a chaotic entrance. 5 hours after departure (for a trip that should take 2.5 hours maximum), we arrived at the entrance around 3 p.m.

What a difference to Rammstein! There weren’t that many people sitting around at all; probably the cold contributed to this. The real diehards were sitting in front of the venue with camping chairs and blankets in front of the barrier; we didn’t find out how long they had been sitting there, but the atmosphere was convivial and people had music playing, they were eating homemade sandwiches and played some card games with each other. The closer we approached the time of the opening of the doors, the more activity we noticed behind the glass wall of the venue: managers walking with time tables, security guards looking at us and the last briefing for the ticket scanners. The more activity, the more the now significantly grown crowd of people began to buzz with hype. A news program came along with a camera and the picture was complete: people were ready for the concert. The venue however was not. About 15 minutes after the announced time, they finally opened the multiple double doors with some awkwardness (our double door only opened 50%, making our queue half as slow to enter) and Ahoy filled up. ‘Don’t run’ was said by security as people ran. 

At least the wait was rewarded for one of us: I managed front row. My first ever front row experience! My girlfriend hurt her ankle while running, so unfortunately there was no more room for her next to me, but there was room right behind me. The ankle wasn’t too bad, so now the final phase of waiting began. Piece of cake for us (pun intended). 

Zunge is a beast of an opener. The slow descent to the microphone and the band’s own spin on the instrumental gives the song so much punch. Till always being fairly static and unmoving during openers gives a specific sense of epicness that doesn’t return later in the concert. Not so much that it’s not epic later, but his openers have a rousing and imposing persuasiveness that is underscored by the simplistic non-verbal demeanor he then adopts.

While I’m not unfamiliar with standing very close during Rammstein concerts (always rows 2-4), it’s still somewhat curious to stand so close to Till and the band. Eye contact has also happened on occasion, but looking face to face into Till’s mug is really quite strange. This started happening during Schweiss and didn’t stop since. I noticed that the rest of the band was also extremely engaging to watch and I had several moments with Emily Ruvidich including one time laughing because I was singing along to everything. Schweiss was a banger live. The crowd really went wild then, and I didn’t expect to find it so good and invigorating live.

I won’t go through all the songs, but Allesfresser also left an impression. It doesn’t happen to you every day that Joe Letz, uh I mean Sandy, who is Joe?, is right in front of you and plays “Eeny, meeny, miny, mo” with you and 2 others to throw a pie in your face. The pie didn’t get in my face. Thanks.

In addition, it is also tradition that Till forgets his lyrics during Ich weiß es nicht. Sometimes I wonder if this is intentional. Anyway, this was also the moment he was closest to us (he half stepped over the left sound box) so although I show this video to all my friends while proudly saying “look how close he was!!!”, at the same time he also forgets his lyrics and mumbles some phonetic German into the microphone. You can’t have everything. 

Sport frei didn’t pack the same punch as the studio version, but Till was very good during the bridge. To put some playback discussions to rest, I only noticed playback twice during the entire show and I was looking attentively for it. Not saying that it’s always like this, but if he wants to, he can do it. 

This is guest reporter Falco’s report:

Before we get to the actual event of the concert in the report, I would like to start by saying a few words about the concert hall: The entire facility around the Ahoy Rotterdam is very modern and inviting. Instead of queuing for ages at a checkroom as usual, you could simply rent a locker online and store your belongings there. The look of the hall itself is very unique. The walls are black and you feel like you’re entering a huge black box. Theoretically, there was also the option of eating in the in-house restaurant before the concert started, but we decided not to take up this offer due to time constraints.

The first support act, Phantom Vision, left little to no impression on us. They were just there, but that was it. Aesthetic Perfection, however, picked us up from the very first second and really got us in the mood! In the end, I even thought it was a shame that they had to stop so early, even though we now knew that Till would soon be taking the stage. You wanted to hear a few more songs with this energy.

Now the actual concert began and we were like in a movie from that point on. The sound was perfect, the band was in an extremely good mood and Till dominated the hall with his aura. Unfortunately, we were standing too far back for the cakes thrown into the audience, but we did manage to catch one of the fish that was fired. This is not recommended, however, as they are real fish and we had a disgusting fishy smell in our noses and on our skin for the rest of the concert. There were a few songs from the current album missing from the setlist, but the songs that were actually played were still all great fun. We and the people around us danced to the music almost all the time, but you could tell that the Dutch weren’t quite as sure of the lyrics as us Germans.
The departure after the concert was very relaxed. The people left the hall in a civilised manner; you quickly collected your jacket from the locker and then took the train station directly in front of the arena back to the hotel.