Rammstein fires up Metaltown

The 2009 edition of Metaltown saw artists such as Marilyn Manson and Slipknot, but I was looking forward to this year, since it was time to finally be welcoming back the German fire monsters of Rammstein.

The last time Rammstein was in Gothenburg was here on the same pier in 2005. There was a lot of rain that time and front man Till Lindemann hurt his knee during the song Amerika, as keyboard player Flake accidentally ran into him while driving a Segway on stage. But neither injury or heavy rainfall could extinguish the fires that night.

However, that concert was during the Reise Reise tour, perhaps my favorite era of the band. Since then they’ve managed to release two lackluster albums, so my hopes were not too high this time.

As expected, the other bands at the festival just felt like warmup. John Garcia played Kyuss songs on the small stage, Dark Tranquility did their best and Sabaton desperately tried to light a few fires on stage, which felt like small crackers compared to what was to come later.

Till Lindemann, the firestarter himself.

At dusk it all started with a large German flag that fell and revealed Till Lindemann, wearing a red butcher’s robe and starting the concert with Rammlied. As expected there was a lot of songs from the latest album, Liebe ist für alle da, which unfortunately is not interesting at all.

Feuer frei! Rammstein live at Metaltown.

But halfway through they naturally turned to their older song catalogue, which managed to get the audience going. Ending with Sonne and Ich Will is playing it safe, but it always works.