Fee. Fi. Fo. Fum. Here come the boys with the big bad noise. And subsonic lead vocals which, like inverse dog whistles, are fully audible only to icebergs. And lederhosen. And lots of things that go “blam” and “whoosh” and catch fire.
There’s a rainy-day parlour game in considering the extent to which bands – all rock boys, but those who wear leather and growl for a living in particular - are intentionally ludicrous and homoerotic. And whether this knowingness is specific to industro-goth-doom-metal, or just a feature of our ironic age. Meanwhile, however, our Teutonic friends have sent out some torch-waving roadies dressed as prison guards to get this totalitarian party started. As, backstage, perusing a mail-order catalogue of all possible overkill-durch-technik special effects that go “blam” and “whoosh” and catch fire, growly muscle-boy-run-to-seed Till Lindemann and his Rammsteiners have ticked all of them. Twice.
It’s rather sweet, actually. Admittedly, the sweetness takes a few numbers to sink in. Especially if you arrive thinking about Wagnerian overtures, jackboot tempos and obviously deliberate sieg heil-ish choruses. And the sight, tonight, of Hun helmets, Bavarian hats, schlager-from-hell accordions, aforementioned leather hotpants and songs with blunt, grunting titles like “Ich Will”, “Du Hast”, “Keine Lust”, “Moskau” and “Reise, Reise”. Which, collectively, have a distinct whiff of something most of us (Prince Harry excepted) don’t actually want at parties.
Bereft of even GSCE-level German, however, we’ll have to set aside questions about Till’s lyrics, and whether they’re just the usual frowny stuff about gloom, death and despair, or something worse. In the meantime there’s the surprising news that, live, Rammstein are an oddly unscary mix of goofy and matter-of-fact. Goofy when a loudly-cheered “Mein Teil” replays the infamous schlong-slicing cannibal’s story as a cartoon caper, as a chef’s-hatted Lindemann pursues a squeaking 'Gareth'-from-'The Office'-esque keyboardist. Matter-of-fact when 'Gareth' reappears, idly zipping about on a Segway scooter and still tinkling the ivories. As bits of the stage go up in flames. And the band strap on contraptions that shoot more flames. And more roadies stomp sturdily on delivering more equipment that shoots more flames. And, during “Amerika” – not the 'West Side Story' showstopper – a fifty-foot-high shower of red, white and blue confetti. And flames.
This much we learn, kinder: that for a band with headbanging guitars and a headbanging audience, their chilly black-and-blue synths leave Rammstein sounding a lot like Depeche Mode with Kraftwerk knobs on under the metal onslaught. That everyone onstage seems as benignly obsessed with making mechanical things run just so as weekend model-train hobbyists. And that their windswept ballady moments have a lovely, lilting, bleak charm.
And, finally, there’s a moment during the encore that knocks every bit of pyrotechnics for six. One of the baldy Rammsteins appears in a giant inflatable life raft, and sails blithely forth across a moshpit ocean of hands. LAUNCH laughed and laughed and, in that moment, loved them to bits.
