October 1998

ANATOMY OF A SET LIST

Rammstein: Silly German Pyromaniacs…on tour!

By Tim Kenneally

Think Kiss. Think Big Black’s "Kerosene." Add German vocals that sound like they’re being sung by The Simpsons’ McBain and you’ve got Rammstein, a Teutonic metal-industrial sextet that’s always set for burning down the haus. With their second album, Sehnsucht, climbing the US charts, the band is packing up their whips and flamethrowers and planning a full Stateside putsch for this fall. "Rammstein is not very fond of the normal rock concert," guitarist Richard Kruspe says with atypical understatement. "When you look at our show, it’s very visual." Indeed—especially compared to when you don’t look at it.

1. Ramming Stone (coat)
With typical German efficiency, vocalist Till Lindemann emerges from the wings with his chain-mail jacket already ablaze. Makes Joseph and his Technicolor Dreamcoat look like a wuss. (But Beavis, don’t try this at home: After a few mishaps involving gasoline, a match, and severe burns, Rammstein dumped the D.I.Y. approach. They now hire pyrotechnics professionals)

2. Punish Me (whip)
The strapping singer (he swam in the 1988 olympics) begs for humiliation as he whips himself, then proceeds to flog the bare heiney of skinny keyboardist Flake.

3. White Meat (feet)
Enter a flaming shoe. This song has been cited as proof of a neo-nazi agenda. It might also be interpreted as an endorsement of pork or poultry. Significance of blazing footwear is unclear; possible variation on the old "hogfoot" gag.

4. Sailor (boat)
Flake crowd-surfs aboard an inflatable raft. An existential acknowledgement that we are all adrift, even in a sea of humanity? Ja, right.

5. Marry Me
Uncharasticic moment of sentimentality, hence lack of fire.

6. Idiomatically Good Sense (bow)
Flaming arrows are shot across the stage from a crossbow. Ted Nugent also favored this stage antic. He, too, has been accused of harboring right-wing views.

7. You Have (telephone explosion)
Lindemann gets a call on his cell phone, which blows up and bursts into flames. Gives new meaning to the phrase "crank call."

8. Bend Over (er, dildo)
Lindemann pulls out a giant rubber penis out of his pants, pretends to shtupp Flake, then spurts and unidentified white goo into the mosh pit. Insists in interviews that he’s straight.

9. Angel (gunpowder sticks)
Flaming drumsticks. Once in a while, you gotta give the drummer some. A decided improvement over the traditional solo.

10. Messenger (flames/exploding hands)
Effect in which Lindemann seems to fire blanks out his fingertips (Puff Daddy uses the same effect on his "Puff Daddy & the Family" tour). As an encore, Lindemann wheels out a military flamethrower and shoots balls of fire into the sky.