Chanting Through the Cake

Griaß Gott! That is a Swabian way of saying hello, which I couldn’t resist doing considering Stuttgart being the capital of Swabian culture – and me being one. When I originally heard that Till Lindemann would play in Stuttgart, I was beyond excited. For some reason, nothing exciting ever happens down here, in the South-West of Germany, at least when it comes to Rammstein or Till. So I am used to having to travel multiple hours for any kind of concert (or the occasional Rammstein Store opening). We will ignore the fact that Rammstein played two shows in Stuttgart in 2022, because for some unknown reason, I went to all kinds of shows that year except for the one that was actually close to me. In any way, Till Lindemann would finally play in the city and I was thrilled.

I had been to some concerts in the arena complex that holds both the Hanns-Martin-Schleyer Halle and the smaller Porsche Arena before, so I knew the venue itself. However, that never included being in the standing pit in the Porsche Arena, which made me just as unsure of how the way to into the venue would go as the majority of the big crowd that had formed around the entry gates shortly before 18:30. Fortunately, entry went really well and our group managed to get to the front barrier center-leftish, for a great view of Joe Letz‘s manic playing style. The concert was sold out and the arena was filled to the brim – Till surely could have also sold out the bigger neighbouring Schleyer Halle if he wanted to.

We were in a great mood and therefore gave it our all for every act of the night. Starting this off on time at 20:00 was, of course, Phantom Vision. The band delivered a thoroughly entertaining performance as usual, and blog crew colleague KidArctica and me continue to find great joy in dramatically singing along to synth player Tiago’s “Tiiiiiime is the master”-backing vocals. Singer Pedro was his usual extravagant stage-self, including shaking, swinging and swallowing his microphone. Phantom Vision did a great job of getting the crowd ready for a fantastic evening.

Some time around 21:20, the lights went out, cheers erupted, and everyone knew what was coming: Till Lindemann! In usual fashion, the whole band lined up at the back of the stage for the grand epic intro that is Zunge, and the song hit just as hard as it did the first time – maybe even more, because throughout the show, the energy of the crowd was palpable.

For the sake of keeping this a (somewhat) reasonable blog post and not a novel, I will not go into detail about every song this time, but instead focus on a few standout moments that made the show for me. One of those happened during our beloved Allesfresser, where Joe truly made use of his silicon vagina prop and pulled soaked red tampon out of it to then throw it into the crowd. What a souvenir to take home! When talking about Allesfresser, one cannot go without mentioning how the caking went. This time, it went really well! For me, that is. Somehow the people next to me got absolutely covered in cake, especially KidArctica by Jes Paige and Admin by Danny Lohner. Somehow I managed to get away mostly unscathed – even though a friend who had gotten a cake catapulted smack in his face by Joe tried very hard to smear it into my face for justice.

During Platz Eins, Till went on his usual journey through the audience together with the always dancing Constance Day, but instead of returning to the stage immediately, he walked past the front barrier and stopped in front of Danny for a while to admire the bassist up there on the ego riser in the spotlight.

Fish On saw an interesting, unexpected turn of events. After throwing his bowl of fish by hand, Till seemingly forgot about the fish cannon and the band slithered into the continuation of the song somewhat awkwardly, clearly confused as to what was going on. At some point during the rest of the song, a lightbulb must have turned on above Till’s head, reminding him of a big, cannon-shaped vacuum in the song performance, so he went to grab the cannon after the song had ended and the lovely fish-shooting-assistants Jes and Constance helped Till distribute the rest of the fish throughout the arena.