Rammstein announced near the end of last year that they’d be coming to SA and I dragged my feet, so that, by the time I decided I wanted to go, it was too late and the concert was sold out. I tried not to dwell on it and just reasoned, ‘oh well, it’s fine, it’s just not meant to be…’

Months elapsed and suddenly it was Wednesday February 9, the day of the Cape Town concert. Having made my peace with not going some while back, it took me a while to react to the news that Big Concerts had released some 60 canceled tickets that morning – but not too long a while. I think the whole procedure that followed took around an hour, but it was both so frantic and intense that it oscillated between feeling quicker and slower; basically there were a lot of panicked and broken (apparently the reception at UCT seriously sucks) phonecalls back and forth until everything was confirmed and 2 of my friends and I were officially off to Rammstein that evening.

It was the first time I’d been to a concert at Grand West Casino’s Grand Arena, and the first ‘proper’ concert I’ve been to too (I mean with designated standing/sitting areas – I’m more used to standing where I like in a dingy club…); the security lady who took our tickets said they were expecting 7000 people, and that some had been waiting at the venue since 11AM…now, I was super excited, but definitely not enough so to camp out 9 hours early.  But this was Rammstein, and they had some diehard fans, which is why I was actually a little disappointed, as I was totally expecting more dressing up than there actually was. Sure, there were a few old-school corset, boots and scary-haired goths but they seemed to be in the minority, at least from what I saw. There were a few weekend goths, who sort of tried a bit too hard and weren’t very convincing, there were even a couple of peak caps and golf shirts, but mostly the crowd seemed to consist of long-haired, jeans and black/band (Rammstein, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin even…) t-shirted metalheads.

Still, we made an effort! (Well, Mikhaila said she’d leave the dressing up to me and Jess, so we had fun with that…)

And so did the band – we were quite far away so couldn’t see them too well, but they had some crazy outfits and props – I guess when you’re veterans who have the music side of things down, you can focus some time and energy on that extra stuff to enhance the overall experience…and what an experience it was; all I can say is WOW – I am so, so glad that we were able to see them in the end.

The band and sound were awesome, the lighting incredible and the pyrotechnics flat-out crazy; so theatrical and dramatic – both visually and musically – amazing, world-class stuff.

They didn’t play my favourite tracks, but it was still a good setlist (courtesy of some guy on Facebook):

1.     Rammlied
2.     B********
3.     Waidmanns Heil
4.     Keine Lust
5.     Weißes Fleisch
6.     Feuer frei!
7.     Wiener Blut
8.     Frühling in Paris
9.     Mein Teil
10.   Du Riechst So Gut
11.    Benzin
12.    Links 2-3-4
13.    Du Hast
14.    Pussy

*clapping and screaming for an encore that just lasted long enough to start feeling uncomfortable*

15.     Sonne
16.     Haifisch
17.     Ich will

After the incredible ‘Ich will’ (during which the entire crowd raised their hands when prompted, in German), they ended for real, saying ‘Zenk you Cape Town, Danke Schön, ve love you very much’, and I think I can speak for Cape Town when I say ‘Thank you Rammstein, we love you very much, come back soon!”

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I also just want to mention how impressed I am with my little IXUS 95 IS camera – I rip it off all the time, but I think it handled the concert really well.