Live Review: Rammstein Front Man Till Lindemann Goes Solo And Brings His Chaos, Calamity and Carp To Aragon Ballroom

Oct 02, 2024 admin_bitlc Features, Music News, Reviews 0

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By Christopher David

The Aragon Ballroom saw one of the most bizarre nights of performance art in recent memory when Till Lindemann, frontman and guru of industrial giants Rammstein, arrived for his first solo outing with wild costumes, explosive staging and…fish guts?

Well…yeah. 

Taking the stage to “Zunge” with a hail of strobe lights and percussive beats low enough to shake the floor courtesy of drummer Joe Letz, who looked like a psychotic female clown, which was even more disturbing when he later simulated the removal of what looked like tampons (he was wearing a full body female form complete with breasts and vagina) before throwing them into the crowd.

Lindemann—dressed in red from head to toe, including his painted skin—led his well crafted five piece band, that included Letz of Combichrist, as well as Constance Antoinette, Emily Ruvidich, Jes Paige and Danny Lohner of Nine In Nails, through a razor-sharp sixteen song setlist. 

The band is as tight as one could hope for a band to be, and the sheer bombast of their performance was enough to distract away from the relentless unsettling visuals (most of which we can’t show here).  Women in lingerie being force-fed various foods?  Check.  Three obese, naked mechanical bull riders engaged in some sort of cowboy orgy?  Check. 

Close-up of genitals in various states, oral sex…I could go on, but you get the idea.  The order of the day was keeping the crowd on edge, and Lindemann’s performance was certainly designed for a healthy dose of interactivity. 

This was most apparent when, during “Fish On” from 2015’s Skills in Pills, Lindemann had keyboardist Constance Day and guitarist Emily Ruvidich load up a ‘t-shirt gun’ and fired it into the crowd.  What rained down upon the Aragon floor was not a barrage of t-shirts… it was fish guts and mutilated fish carcasses—a lot of them.  And some fans actually clamored to capture them!

Threads of sexual deviance and oddities of all manner, including Lindemann’s own lips being sewn shut, pervaded the imagery behind the band, adding a layer of visual overload to the band’s searing performance.  Lindemann connected with the fans even more by strolling through the venue with a GoPro camera attached to his hat causing the house to go wild.

Was there social commentary at the heart of it all?  Was it satirizing the role of sex in culture, portraying it as awkward and gross instead of exciting and desirable?  Honestly, it’s hard to tell – which, perhaps, was the point, as it is with some performance art. 

One thing is certain—getting pelted with fish at the Aragon can be scrubbed from the bucket list.  

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• aragon ballroom, Chicago, concert review, Danny Lohner, Germany, Joe Letz, Live in Chicago, Performance Art, Rammstein, solo tour, Till Lindemann, Tour 2024

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