Information
Date: November 16, 2004
City: Oslo, Norway
Author: Jakob
Review
We (me, 2 guys and a girl), arrived at the spektrum around 6pm. The doors opened 6.30pm, so we were pretty cold, since it was only around 0 degrees celsius outside. I'm glad we didn't wait for 2 or three hours like someone probably did. When they let us in, a guy asked me "do you have a camera?" I said no, just a cellphone and a wallet and he didn't touch me much. So if I wanted I could have brought a cam. I saw a lot of people taking pics in there.
When we got inside, we saw the stage, which was built around 1.75 over the floor. There were a drumset, bass amps, guitar amps and some mics placed there. On a poster hanging a bit in the back it was written "Exilia" with big red letters. The amps were pretty cool, they had a neon thingy on them, which looked like a hyena or something. Surprisingly there weren't very many people there yet, so we got places around 7-8m in front of Richard. That was good enough for me.
After waiting an hour inside, the lights lowered and everyone started to shout "Exilia". The audience reacted for every sound check, person on the stage, etc. Everyone was nice, and noone was hitting or pushing hard. Exilia appeared on the stage, and started playing. 7-8 songs, which all sounded the same, but they were pretty good in my opinion. The guitarist was cool (though he played the first song with a broken string, LOL), the bassist was cool and the singer (female) was pretty cool too. She sung like she had a hairball in her throat, though. She interacted a lot with the audience, made us jump, shout and show the \m/ sign. (What does it really mean??)
When Exilia finished, they immediately started rigging down the equipment. The Rammstein crew appeared, all dressed in shirts and ties, like on the promo shots, and prepared for R+. We waited around 30 mins with some crappy background music.
Finally, the REAL concert started. "Reise, Reise" was first out, with a long intro. The Rammstein crew appeared on the stage, with flashlights which they pointed at the crowd. One of them had a bat with a built-in flashlight. The crowd got really exited. The drums kicked in, and when the guitars kicked in, the big stage curtain fell, and revealed the stage. Richard and Paul stood on top of the stage (it was built in two levels), and they all looked quite cool in their costumes. Till appeared through the middle door, and walked slowly towards the microphone. He started to sing, and I think almost everyone was singing along. Flake played the accordion through the whole song.
Next out was "Links 234". The marching started, Schneider started with his drums, and when the guitars kicked in, 5 or 6 mushrooms of smoke exploded in front of the stage. The crowd went totally MAD! Especially in the first riffs. The song was quite extended, as before, maybe even longer. The crowd interaction was pretty good here too.
"Keine Lust" followed, with heavy guitars and good vocals. No pyro here as I can remember. People jumped along.
"Feuer Frei" This song opened as usual, with heavy riffs the first 2-3 minutes. It came to the quiet part, and I got SO exited when they lit their fire masks. Nothing like on the videos. Paul, Richard and Till wore the masks. Then they started to use them, and WOW, that was BIG flames! You could feel the heat in your face, and the crowd went mad again. The song ended, Richard held the fire a few more seconds.
"Rein Raus" Richard started shouting "Rein", the crowd answered "Raus" as usual. This song was nothing special, they could have dropped it, and used for example Dalai Lama instead.
"Morgenstern" The heavy riffs were extended a bit. Quite cool choir intro, but the song wasn't really that special live.
"Mein Teil" Started as on the single, and Ollie's voice at the start was kind of edited.. Don't know why. The song was heavy, and really caught the crowd. The song were extended in the middle, and Till went of the stage to get a HUGE cauldron. When he placed it, he continued singing, and Flake was sitting in the cauldron, looking up sometimes (to find a way to escape?) Flake has such a humor. LOL. Till got a flamethrower in his hands, and started heating up the cauldron. LOL once again. After some shots, Flake managed to escape, and Till chased him around the stage. LOL, LOL, LOL.
"Stein um Stein" Really dark and mysterious. Till's voice was great. This song is kind of hard to describe, it was kind of magical, but it didn't catch me very much. It was a good song live though.
"Los" Richard starts the song with his acoustic, while Schneider walks down from the top to use a drum set which was set up on the far right side of the stage. The other guys kicked in. Cool rhythm. Flake plays a strange solo. I really like how the members enjoyed this song, it was one of the best songs live. Realy COOL! Richard and Paul switched on playing the cool guitar parts, and Till played the harmoica. Über-COOL! When Richard played the guitar for himself, Paul and Flake was doing something in the middle of the stage (I think they were just talking), but LOL@Pauls face expression. LOL LOL! Schneider sat on the side of the stage, looking VERY much like a woman, and he was REALLY enjoying the song! He was smiling, laughing through the whole song.
"Moskau" The crowd once again went MAD through this song, and the light effects were fantastic. A HUGE wall of lights was revealed in this song, and it was used through the rest of the concert. Much glamour there. The song was very extended, and suited very good for the live setting. There were red fires burning from the top stage. Really cool pyro effects.
"DRSG" Mad crowd, everyone was singing along, and the pyros was fantastic. I guess you all have LAB, and this was nothing worse. Richard and Paul had 3-4 green flames coming out of their arms during the guitar solo.
"Du Hast" Do I need to explain? As expected, EVERYONE sung along, it rocked the whole house down, etc. A couple of rockets were shot from the stage and over the field area. I though they would hit someone sitting, but they were shot along wires, so it was completely safe.
"Sehnsucht" Great song too. The crowd sung along, the band rocked, and the pyros were fantastic. LOTS of explosions and green fires.
"Amerika" WOW. I think more people sung along to this one than Du Hast. The crowd was totally into it, and the band played great. Flake was driving around on the stage with some kind of electric vehicle, with his keyboard. LOL. Then it came to the keyboard solo, LOLOLOLOLOL HAHAHA HAHAHA! HAHA! Flake had positioned in the middle of the stage, and LOTS of confetti and smoke was coming up from the stage, right under him. He closed his eyes and held his breath. His hair was pointing upwards because of the air pressure. LOL again. This song totally kicked ass, 3 or 4 more confetti fans were activated, and the concert hall filled up with confetti. LOL!
Encore.
"Rammstein" WOAH, more flamethrowers! Till had two HUGE flamethrowers fit to his arms. HOT, HOT, HOT! The song was played great, with a long intro, nice solos. They played the extended guitar solo part (like it's recorded on Herzeleid), and Richard altered the solo a bit in the end, woah, he really pulled some crazy notes out of his guitar. He was pulling them out with his whole body lol (I bet the girls loved it).
"Sonne" Fantastic as always. Flames coming up from the stage, heavy riffs, eins-zwei-drei-vier was written with lights in the back. Amazing. Till messed up the text a bit
"Ich Will" Fantastic, like Sonne. Everyone put their hands in the air in the quiet part, everyone sang along. Till also messed up the text in this song. Haha.
Encore 2.
"Ohne Dich" Romantic song. Till and Flake appeared on the stage, and Till rested his head on Flake's shoulder. The sound was bad mixed though, so we heard a lot more of Richard's guitar than Till's voice. However, Till sang fantastic, and really showed his emotions during this song. Till had some really funny face expressions too. This was a song for the girls
"Stripped" Seems like many were surprised that they were going to play this song. For the last time of the day, people went mad again. Ollie took a trip in the boat, he was just a couple of metres away from me, but he sailed around. He really enjoyed that trip, haha. In the end, 10 or more small flamethrowers were shooting up from the stage, for a looong time. After the song was over, and Schneider was going down to throw out some drumsticks, Paul hanged on the elevator they used for getting up and down from the top stage, while Schneider stood at it and looked down at him. LOL
The concert was over, and we were exhausted as hell. My ears hurt, my back hurt, I was thirsty and tired. But it was worth it! A piece of advice to you other guys and girls, drink as much as possible when you are in there, because you get really dehydrated of the heat and jumping.
The band looked like they really enjoyed the night, especially Paul, Schneider and Till. Richard didn't smile at all, for some reason.. He also looked kind of bored some times. I tried to get his attention with "playing guitar" with my right hand in the air, and maybe he saw it, because he looked at me quite a lot. Hehe. Maybe he was just looking right out in the crowd though
The pyros were amazing, the lights were amazing x 1000, the stage was amazing, everything ran smoothly. The only complaint I have was the sound. The guitar sound was kind of trebly, and you could sometimes not hear Till very good. I brought earprops, but I didn't use them most of the time because I felt the sound got better without them. My ears still hurt.