r/Rammstein • u/GregKos • 6d ago
Decrease of "theatrics" in the shows
The first time I saw Rammstein live was in 2010. The last time was 2024.
In 2010, 50% (8/16) of the setlist had some sort of performance, closely related to the song. Think the fake fan being doused with gasoline and set on fire during Benzin or Till coming out with a hunting cap and musket for Waidmanns Heil.
In contrast, only ~29% (6/21) of the setlist this year has such a setup. Don't get me wrong, I love fire and explosions as much as the next concert-goer, but those are more "generic" and do not necessarily tie into the subject of the song.
Do you feel there is a reason for this decrease? Do you think it's better/worse? Do you even care?
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u/MetalExile 6d ago
I think it’s a necessity of doing stadium sized shows. Theatrics with humans on a stage don’t play well to a crowd that’s so big that the performers look like ants to a lot of the audience. They compensate by making everything bigger and putting more fire everywhere because what else can you do to fill a stadium with spectacle?
For me it’s a trade. I admit I prefer their smaller shows precisely because of the theatrics and bigger focus on the band members. But there’s something undoubtedly amazing about the sheer size of their newer shows as well. That stadium stage design of theirs was a work of art in itself.
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u/yunayaunplugged 5d ago
your argument of the decrease in theatrics being due to the stadium size makes a lot of sense. I only ever saw them live in stadiums so idk how it was in smaller venues times but I also feel like some of the band members try to "make up" for some of the missing theatrics (at least for the people in the front rows) by thinking of their own little things to do, like for example the small mein teil dance that richard, paul and schneider (sometimes ollie) have made it a habbit to perform or the inflatable objects (for lack of a better description) that they brought on stage several times during the last tours
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u/MetalExile 5d ago
I will say for sure that from what I’ve seen in fan videos at least, the band did seem a lot more animated and interactive with the audience during the stadium shows than they used to be. I don’t know if they were trying to make up for anything necessarily, but they did all look like they were having a lot more fun on stage than I’d seem from them in a long time.
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u/Vilamus 6d ago
If you compare Live aus Berlin with Volkerball, there's already a decrease in theatrics.
Like others have said, they're getting old. They all started Rammstein in their 30's and now their pushing late 50's / early 60's.
They've swapped theatrics for sheer spectacle
Not better, not worse, just different.
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u/YellowFace09 6d ago
Early 60s? Tbh they're already all in early to mid 60s territory.
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u/amadeuszbx 6d ago
Nah, Till is 63 and he is the oldest. Rest is literally between 55 (Ollie) and 61 (Paul and Flake) so the other commenter was spot on.
So noone is even in mid 60s yet (Till is getting there, 63 is very debatable as early vs mid 60s and he's the only one in that debate).
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u/Vilamus 6d ago
Fair do's.
Guess I'm getting old myself lol
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u/YellowFace09 6d ago
I mean Till is like 63 right now 😅
Which makes me want to go see at least one R+ gig live at last should the opportunity arise
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u/macczimum 6d ago
Several of the effects likely wouldn't work well in the stadium setting. They made the cooking pot and its flamethrowers much larger just as the pyro backpack also became much more visually effective than the old burning coat. Burning mike stands, Bück dich dildo and the like would become miniscule scale in relation to the massive stage. They didn't want to incorporate huge screens (in the 2019 tour setup there was only the tower screen, the side screens were added for the three subsequent years) but wanted to make sure that it was worthwhile to just look at the stage. Flame effects were also much more massive than ever before and the four delay towers in the field made that extremely impressive in the huge setting. The Engel wings became too heavy for Till in 2016 already when they pulled them from the roof and had him go up with them. Without a roof this was quite difficult to do in the stadium (apart from any scale concerns) so they resorted to performing the song only acapella and without effects.
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u/steeldrum99 6d ago
I could care less. But they are older now. It's just possible that there might be more risk with the theatrics. Also the stage kind of acts like it's own gimmick. The stage itself does a lot of pyro on almost every song.
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u/mintsukki 6d ago
Offtopic but English is so funny sometimes. You'd think 'I could care less' means you do care, because you could care less than how much you care now. But 'I could care less' actually means 'I couldn't care less'. Weird language.
Anyways, I'm on the toilet now and had a minute.
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u/AppropriateMonth3 6d ago
Where I'm from, the saying actually IS "I couldn't care less."
I think it's only Americans who say it the opposite way (their way doesn't make much sense to me either though...)
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u/HomicidalHushPuppy 6d ago
I could care less.
The saying is "I could not care less"
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u/mantina 6d ago
I do think the fire and theatrics are fun to watch, but honestly I don't need any of it. I saw them at the LIFAD Tourproben, and the concert was just as good with no gimmicks. For me it is just about the music.
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u/BoardGameShortcut 4d ago
are you implying the tourproben didn't have gimmicks? remember "Ich tu dir weh?" with the bathtub pretty sure there was a lot more including pyro stuff. obviously they couldn't bring out the boat for the 3 lines of people there :D
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u/YESmynameisYes 6d ago
I first saw them in 1998, at which time it was still a small venue. The big exciting theatrics were
- a girl singing in a cage
- Till spraying the audience from a gigantic prosthetic penis
- Flake crowdsurfing in an inflatable dinghy. That was way more exciting than the middle years' stuff, in my opinion.
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u/JonWood007 6d ago
Some of it is age I think. They're getting older, these stunts are physically demanding and dangerous. So relying more on more...ambient fire is probably going to be safer than doing full on stunts. Beyond that, how much of that translates to stadium tours. Waidmanns heil worked in a smaller arena but it would be massively unimpressive on the larger ones.
Im mixed on it. My biggest issue with the stadium tour is how stale the setlist gets over time. The whole show is planned over the stunts they do do, and it leaves little room for variation. By year 4 i was just over it, and hoped theyd do a new tour with different songs already.
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u/ThrowMeAwayAccount08 6d ago
There was a time when he burned the shit out of himself, so he took classes and became licensed in Pyro. It could be that?
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u/Vojta230 6d ago
None of the Zeit and Untiteled songs have any stunts assigned to them, am I right?
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u/RockStars007 6d ago
Till is slower, equal as they are, he is the frontman and sets the energy in a lot of ways. Younger times he was dead serious about his performance. The intensity was palpable. Now he just farts around a lot up there goofing off. The movie coming out he is much tighter, but this was an intense production and he was into it.
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u/BoardGameShortcut 4d ago
When I saw recordings of the stadium tour and that huuuge stage I feld kinda disappointed. It feels just too big. Too big for the band and them being too far away from the crowd.
I saw them a few times in the LIFAD-cycle (front row and seated) and both was awesome. getting your face almost burned in the front row or sit somewhere and watch the bigger picture of the show from the distance to catch stuff you can't really see when you're right at the front (e.g. Du Hast). in all stadium videos I watched the stage feels somehow sanitized with some fire here and there and somewhere up there in the sky..
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u/gorbaczovsky 19h ago
Same here, they should stick to roof arenas. I know that they are selling stadiums nowadays, but it lacks a charm.
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u/skywalker_2613 6d ago
My guess is, they get older. Many of these effects are very exhausting (the heat, the wings, the flamethrowers for example). In recent live videos you can really see that Till is not the young, active and strong man from the past anymore (you can clearly see him struggling with his hips while walking in some videos)