Rammstein [Paramount, WA]

Alright, here goes.

I got out of school on Thursday and shortly after I got home my dad, my friends Lars, and my friend Josh, all left for Seattle since I live a little south right by Tacoma. Anyways, right as soon as you could see the main city of Seattle as you were coming up on the freeway, I began thinking to myself, "Rammstein is somewhere in there!"...A very exciting thought =)

We got to the Paramount about 5:20PM and there was pretty much no line what so ever. We all sat down in line (except for my dad who didn''t actually go to the concert...) waiting. Somewhere around 10-30 minutes later as we were just sitting there, none other than Oliver himself came skateboarding by. By the time I snapped out of shock he had turned the corner and gone away. I had Lars stay and Josh and I went after Oliver.

We walked to the corner where he turned and went up the side of the building. This is where the busses and the back stage entrance was. We went all the way up the side hoping to catch some one. But all we found was a guy who was waiting by the backstage entrance who had 2 drum heads and Sehnsucht singed by all but 2 members (Till and Flake). He said that they had all just come by there.

So, we waited and eventually Paul came out. We got 2 pics of him (and they even came out!) and an autograph. He was just sitting by the backstage entrance on some stairs, talking to the opening band (Mindless Self Indulgence), eating cherries from a bowl. He was the only member that we ended up meeting, but I sure am glad I got what I got.

Now, as for the show, Mindless Self Indulgence straight-up sucked in my opinion. I though they were alright musically but the singer made all sorts of weird noises and such and was very annoying. After they left Soulfly came on. They were alright, but I am not a fan and have never really heard much by them so I didn't really enjoy their music. But, they were pretty good.

After they had finished I had worked my self to like 2 people back from the railing. They had put down a curtain, hiding what was going on behind the stage. After a little while a wind-like blowing sound started coming from the speakers. It was more a deep rumbling sort of noise than a high, whistle like one. Anyways, it kept going on and on, getting louder and louder..hightening the suspense....Then after you knew it had to be any second you saw two fuses catch fire on either side of the curtain. The fire climbed up and -BANG, an explosion. Then the curtain fell down to the ground and you saw the stage

You could barely make out the outlines of the band here or there but they were all crouched down. You heard some music and then an explosion and some light, and in the place where the explosion came from Flake stood up. The same was repeated for all the members, except for Till, who was still missing when the opening song began. As the music to Spiel Mit Mir started you saw a bass drum start to catch fire. It was on top of what looked like some kind of barrel. After it had burned away Till was raise up and out of it. He got out and started singing the song with his laser goggles, walking around and half crouching, looking around as if he though some one was after him to some extent. The stage and their clothes reminded me of some kind of post-apocalyptical war remnants...with a large fan behind Christoph and his drums and other strange thing here and there.

The rest of the songs were truly wonderful. During the song Bestrafe Mich (which has been one of my favs for a while) Till really gets into it and actually sings a lot better than in the song especially on the last "Deine grosse macht mich klein, du darfst mein Bestrafer sein...".

Till used all the normal stuff in all the songs like the sparking boots and hands and the bow and arrow thing. And the microphone stands caught fire and Christoph used his flaming drum sticks. I am real glad that we got the boat during Seemann because it was real cool to see Flake get crowd surfed. It went real well too because he made it pretty far and back and was never dropped =) When he got back on stage he did a little bit of a bow and got back to the key boards. I loved how at the end of Seemann Till was kinda acting if he was trying to warm up his arms as he said "und mir ist kalt...kalt...kalt...". It was kind of strange to hear and see Till speaking English during Stripped but it was great...although I didn''t see anyone taking his suggestion to heart =) During Du Hast Till said the chorus into the phone at one part and then threw it up into the air and it exploded, which was cool. For Bueck Dich I didn''t see the keyboard on fire or Richard playing the music at the beginning but they did do the thing where while the beat was playing whoever was on there would hit a key and the crowd would yell back that many times...The whole Bueck Dich performance was great! I had never quite gotten to see what Flake wore during it before in pictures. He wore a kinda muzzle and a leash. For Engel there was lots of fire spewing up from the stage and during the chorus Bobo was in a cage that resembeld that of a bird cage except large enough for a person. The cage was on fire and looked great.

After Engel was finished they all came out and bowed and said "thank you very much, we love you, Danke" which I though was real cool....Then they left the stage. Right away people came out and were fiddling with things on stage and then no one was there. The crowd began to chant "Ramm-stein!, Ramm-stein!" over and over until they all came out again to do an encore. Flake was wearing a bizarre hat that resembled a disco-ball cut in half. It reflected back light and was pretty cool...After performing Rammstein with the burning coat and Laichzeit they did their last song of the night, Wollt Ihr Das Bett In Flammen Sehen? . Till used the flame thrower in this and I can only imagine how hot it must have felt on stage because of the heat that I felt. After they finished up they left for the final time, leaving me in awe.

Here is the set list: Spiel Mit Mir Tier Bestrafe Mich Weisses Fleich Sehnsucht Asche Zu Asche Seemann Du Riechst So Gut Stripped Du Hast Bueck Dich Engel

Encore: Rammstein Laichzeit Wollt Ihr Das Bett In Flammen Sehen

I had managed to sneak in 2 disposable cameras and I used up all of the pictures. A few nice ones came out, including 2 of Paul outside before the show. About 14 in total weren't horrible...I will put them up on my page (http://netcult.org/jobarr) soon.

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