We head to Berlin to find out what goes in to putting one of the greatest shows on Earth together.
If you've ever been lucky enough to witness a Rammstein show, you'll already know that there’s not a band on Earth who can put on a gig quite like ’em. It's why, in this week's issue of Kerrang!, we headed to their home country of Germany to learn exactly what goes into such a jaw-dropping live show.
The six-piece – Till Lindemann, Richard Z. Kruspe, Paul Landers, Oliver Riedel, Christoph Schneider, and Christian "Flake" Lorenz – hit Berlin's Olympiastadion on June 22 as part of their current European tour in support of their new untitled album, and as they have done on absolutely every touring cycle, they completely outdid themselves in terms of production.
While we were there, we caught up with lighting designer Roland Griel, as part of production company Woodroffe Bassett, who came on board with Rammstein a year ago to create this very tour's production.
Roland reveals that work for these shows began almost as soon as they joined forces – and that Rammstein gave pretty much no instruction as to what they wanted; it was up to him to bring his vision to them.
“That was good, because it gave them confidence that we understood their Rammstein universe and way of thinking,” he explains. “The band are very involved and close to the process, but in a very positive way. You always end up with different involvement from an artist. One artist might not be involved at all and trusts you to do whatever you want, but then you can have the other extreme who dictate everything. Rammstein are in between. They come up with great ideas by themselves as well, and they get quite a clear picture of what they want, and that’s the perfect case, because you’re doing it in collaboration.”
It's not all down to Roland, though: around 400 people work on the setting up, taking down, transporting, operation, maintenance, feeding, management, and blowing up of each and every gig. Moreover, there's even a second team on hand to start work at the following venue, getting ready to set up and build the stage.
“Going into stadiums, you can only bring in about 10 trucks at a time, so you have to make sure you bring in the right one at the right time for what it’s got in it, that there are enough people around,” says Roland. “I think they’ve got the load out down to four and a half hours now. Then they get in the trucks and drive 500km to the next show. Then they load all the pyro and lights, which takes about eight hours. Repeat that until the tour is over!”
See Rammstein live at the following dates this summer:
July
2 Hanover HDI Arena
6 Milton Keynes Stadium MK
10 Brussels Stade Roi Baudoin
13 Frankfurt/Main Commerzbank-Arena
16 Prage Eden Aréna
17 Prage Eden Aréna
20 Luxembourg Roeser Festival Grounds
24 Chorzow Slaski Stadium
29 Moscow VTB (Dynamo)
August
2 St. Petersburg Zenith
6 Riga Lucavsala Park
10 Tampere Ratina Stadion
14 Stockholm Stockholm Stadion
18 Oslo Ulleval Stadium
22 Vienna Ernst-Happel-Stadion
And catch them at one of the dates below next year.
May 2020
25 Klagenfurt Wörthersee Stadion
29 Leipzig Red Bull Arena
June 2020
2 Stuttgart Mercedes-Benz Arena
6 Zurich Letzigrund
7 Zurich Letzigrund
10 Ostend Event Site
17 Belfast Boucher Road Playing Field
24 Nijmegen Goffertpark
27 Düsseldorf Merkur Spiel-Arena
July 2020
1 Hamburg Volksparkstadion
4 Berlin Olympiastadion
9 Lyon Groupama Stadium
13 Turin Stadio Olimpico Grande Torino
17 Warsaw PGE Narodowy
21 Tallinn Song Festival Grounds
26 Trondheim Granåsen
31 Gothenburg Ullevi Stadium
August 2020
4 Aarhus Ceres Park
