By Simona Mihalca 
Last night’s Till Lindemann concert in Bucharest, part of his “Meine Welt” (My World) tour, was an absolutely unhinged spectacle that tore down every last boundary of decency and expectation. If you thought his work with Rammstein was… provocative, his solo performance turns the kinky, the sexy, and the downright fucked-up theatrics up to an eleven. It was an industrial-metal cabaret of the grotesque.
Now that I have thrown some big words around… is it actually good? Even a full day after the show I’m undecided. If someone wants to take it seriously, then it’s probably not. This spectacle deliberately annihilates the concept of ‘serious art.’ It forces a choice: you either surrender to the absurdity, treating it as high-budget, industrial-popcorn cinema, or you leave, offended, believing the music was secondary to the fetish show.
It’s something that goes all out on porn, and not the vanilla type… and frankly we’ve all seen worse. Perhaps this is the show’s biggest commentary: its shock value is nearly obsolete. If this exact production had dropped in 2005, it would have been globally scandalous. Today, in an age where extreme content is a click away, Lindemann has to throw actual rotting fish and screen endless genitalia just to earn a reaction. The true outrage is how little it can truly outrage us now.
I don’t think I’ve seen as many vulvas in my life as I have seen projected in this concert. Frankly, if the word “vulvas” offends you, the show definitely would have offended you. The endless, high-definition collage of vulvas on the LED screen it was desensitization by sheer volume and pushed the limits of what one expects (or even knew was possible) in a live music setting.
The best way to describe is that it’s live theater. Each new song brings something else, some new stage setup, video projection, one weirder than the other.
But before I tell you more about each moment of it, let’s record scratch to the beginning and getting into the arena. We sure saw a lot of from the outside as we had to circle it until we found the press entrance. We could have done with a little more organization. But after a small delay, the crowds came in and the arena filled. Despite the lack of aggressive promotion and non-cheap tickets, the Romexpo hall filled up to the brink. It speaks to the power of Lindemann’s cult-like following, especially during an autumn-winter season light on major concert offerings. People came for the spectacle, and they sure got it.
The opening act was Aesthetic Perfection, and boy did they perform! It’s been a long time since I have enjoyed an opening act I hadn’t even heard of this much. They were the perfect choice of sounds, style, energy. As I was standing all the way in the back and I don’t have the greatest eye-sight, I initially thought they were young kids, preparing to write about how “the kids are alright”. I was genuinely shocked when the frontman, Daniel Graves, mentioned the band had been around for 25 years. And now to make you feel really old, that just means they started in 2000.
Their sound is a brilliant, eclectic blend of genres, mixing industrial pop, EBM, and synthpop, which made them the perfect fit to open for Lindemann. The energy was infectious, and their ability to blend danceable rhythms with gritty, aggressive undertones really set the stage for the main event. Summer Goth was definitely my favourite song of theirs and I think you should check it out.
But let’s give it up for the one, the only, Till Lindemann. His solo career, separate from Rammstein, has become an outlet for his most extreme and personal artistic impulses, encapsulated in the album Zunge and tracks featured on this Meine Welt tour. His shows are theatrical, intense, and often unpredictable, combining heavy industrial beats with highly visual, narrative-driven performances.
The show was an assault on the senses, both thrilling and almost physically painful: I had to look away from stage lights because I genuinely think they caused eye damage.
The stage production was defined by its aggressive absurdity. During the track “Allesfresser,” I have to believe this is a first: people in the front rows got thrown pasta at and were sprayed with champagne.
It has to be a first when people in the front rows got thrown pasta at and were sprayed with champagne during the track “Allesfresser” (Omnivore). But just as everything about this show, it can always get worse: on Fish On, the stinky fish came out.
Have I mentioned the stripper poles? Hot damn! I vote we have pole dancers more often at shows. They make it look easy but that’s some intense acrobatics right there.
I also gotta give it to him for the number of female musicians on stage. It might be a fetish, but it’s more women musicians than we usually see. I definitely don’t like the objectification of it… . It’s an uncomfortable contradiction. I knew what I was walking into, but accepting the artistic premise doesn’t remove the cringe of seeing talent filtered through a hyper-fetish lens. The show forces the audience to confront their own tolerance for this specific kind of exploitation, even while acknowledging the performers’ impressive skill.
I know I should be good with words and try to describe everything that went through this show, but all I can say is that you had to be there. The absurdity of it, the kinkiness, the fucked-up-ness. It goes beyond words. But it’s surely a well oiled production machine that delivers. People come expecting the crazy and they sure get it.