Welcome to New England

So . . . this happened:

And I loved it :)

Nun, das Warten hat ein Ende

As cliché as it sounds, I’ll never forget the first time I heard a song by Rammstein.

I was driving my sister and her friend back to her house when she found out that I’d recently discovered a German-language band called “E Nomine” and asked me if I’d ever heard of Rammstein before. At that point, I had not. She had a burned CD with her that contained several of their songs and as I continued to drive she played “Sonne” for me.

I knew instantly that Rammstein was going to be no one-hit-wonder; there was no way that a band who could produce a song that powerful could only do it once.

A few days later I went out and bought a copy of “Sehnsucht” and “Mutter”, about a week later I purchased “Herzeleid” and was then was ready for the release of “Reise, Reise” which happened shortly after. Over the next few months I immersed myself in their world – watching music videos, reading interviews – and after some initial hesitation (Rammstein can be intimidating if you’re coming off the heels of alternative rock afterall) I declared them to be my number one.

Ever since then it has been a continuous, unshakable love affair.

I’ve never in my entire life been able to listen to one artist for so long. There have certainly been bands that meant a lot to me in my past but I’ve never been so content just listening to one artist’s work over and over and over again. Their music can be very raw, coarse, and angry and then somber, beautiful, and euphoric but it’s always emotional.

Really, the only thing you need after that is a great live show and for that, Rammstein is truly legendary.

Flamepots, rocket-shooting rifles, fire-spurting metal angel wings, exploding dolls and flame-thrower masks are commonplace.

The first time I saw a DVD of their live performance I was blown away and then quickly became obsessed with seeing them live. The only problem was that – short of flying to another country – I was never given the opportunity. The last time Rammstein toured the United States was a decade prior. In all that time the band had maintained that they were unsure of their fanbase in the United States, that they figured we had all forgotten about them following their 1997 hit “Du Hast”. However, when their last album hit number 13 on our charts with absolutely no promotion whatsoever they decided to test the waters and their one-night-only concert at Madison Square Garden sold out in under 30 minutes.

I got my seat, bought a train ticket to New York and on December 11th, 2010 finally experienced what I had slowly started to believe would never happen.

There is no possible way I could explain how amazing the show was. It was absolutely everything I ever thought it would be from the pyrotechnics down to the raw emotion and perfection of the music and vocals. One of the best moments of the show came during the performance of “Benzin”- check out mark 3:50 if you're curious.

The performance itself wasn’t the only fantastic thing about the show – the crowd and the energy was incredible. I meet people from all over America who’d spent thousands to attend the show and the stadium was vibrating from anticipation well before Rammstein took the stage. Even though the show sold out as quickly as it did, I myself was somewhat skeptical about the audience – maybe all anyone would care about was “Du Hast”. That was most definitely not the case: everyone freaked out when they played songs from their first album as well as their latest and everyone knew all the call-backs despite them all being in German.

It was like being in a room with 20,000 of my best friends.

The worst part of the show was watching them leave.

Hopefully though, our enthusiasm will given Rammstein the encouragement to come back and show America more love.

I will most certainly be there if they do.