RAMMSTEIN in LYON!

So in January 2011 I went to my first and last Big Day Out style concert… and the only thing that enticed me to go was Rammstein was on the bill.  The 20-25 mins they were on stage was easily the BEST music gig I have ever been to (second runner up would have to be Pavarotti’s Farewell Tour – ooh goosebumps just thinking about that one), and sadly felt like a teaser trailer with such a short set.

Anyway, I have this one photo taken when we saw Rammstein in 2011, and I’ve always loved it; blurry mess of non-image forming blown out highlights, that it is… myself, BigSal, Yale and DA were at the show and man, did we pity poor Tool who came on after them and seemed so completely flat and boring in comparison.  Ever since, I have always wanted to go see them do a big stadium show in Europe – preferably Berlin, (but the dates just were not going to play nice – and I’m so not gonna be fussy on this one).  This has literally been on my ‘Things to Do Before I Die List’, and last night I finally got to see them in Lyon, France.

It was a fucking amazing, visual and visceral spectacular… and so worth the wait.  I have uploaded a pile of photos here – mostly because this page has slightly less crap image compression than when you share images on FB.  Most of the pics below are mine from last night, and ah and full at the end are some from a Rammstein Forum where they encourage people to steal/share and spread the fiery goodness.   🙂

One thing that is particularly evident – mobile phone image capture quality has improved considerably int he last 11 years!  😀
Stephola and I having a few ‘no shit, here we are!’ moments when we arrived and found out that (due to language barriers) I had booked us seats in a corporate box and the view was excellent of the entire stadium! Spent half the night wishing I was in the mosh pit; the other half of the night thanking fuck I wasn’t!  😉 When these huge flames leapt into the air, seemingly punctuating the music, I swear it felt like our eyebrows had been singed off!  The heat was intense.There was a small stage half way through the GA area that the support act had used earlier in the evening – a duo of pianists playing effectively, Rammstein Unplugged.  It really got the crown going.  The band also turned up on this stage to sing, ‘Engel’ which was beautiful, the crowd sang along (German surtitles provided) and lots of mobile phone torches made for a beautiful backdrop.After they finished that song, they crowd surfed back to the stage on rubber dinghies. Caught this pic of Till Lindemann’s flaming backpack, you can see the accelerant has sprayed out, right before the streams are ignited.  Way to go iPhone 13 Pro… not bad under difficult lighting.It’s a crazy thing to do – fly 15,000 kms to go see a band, but was so totally worth it.  After seeing this stadium gig, I imagine we won’t ever see anything like this in Australia.  We don’t have the populace to warrant the equipment, expertise and expense of bringing this show or anything like it, Down Under.

So glad we went. Even the walking and try to get an Uber for an hour couldn’t dampen our elation…. Though I was having second thoughts when we didn’t get back to the hotel until 0130 and I had to be up for my flights at 0445.