Reykjavík Grapevine - 02.06.2017, Qupperneq 62

The Sound
And The Fury
Rammstein come to Kópavogur
Words: Valur Gunnarsson Photos: Art Bicnick
MUSIC
62 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 09 — 2017
The German language, usually
ranked alongside algebra and
hangovers as one of the main tor-
mentors of secondary school exis-
tence, became briefly fashionable
amongst Icelandic teenagers in
the late 1990s. Language teachers
looked on, puzzled as adolescents
delivered their homework filled
out and on time, and wondered
what they were doing right. But
the real reason was six muscular
thirtysomething German men,
who looked imposingly from the
cover of their debut album ‘Her-
zeleid’. Success continued with
‘Sehnsucht’, and “Du hast” became
one of the songs of the summer of
1997—almost, but not quite, what
Justin Timberlake’s “Can’t Stop
the Feeling!” was to the summer
of 2016.
The height of Rammstein ma-
nia in Iceland was reached in 2000,
when they graced our shores with
a memorable concert in Laugar-
dalshöllin. The following year saw
the release of ‘Mutter’, which even
the disco girls like, but since then,
their popularity here has abated
somewhat. That is, until this May,
when they finally returned to play
a sold-out show at Kórinn in Kópa-
vogur, a place well outside the out-
skirts of the outskirts of town. This
is the homefield of the Kópavogur
handball club, and also where that
other Justin, Bieber, played Ice-
land’s biggest-ever indoor shows
last summer. Outside are hills and
the horses. The smell of manure
inundates your senses as you enter
a concert hall in the middle of no-
where. This seems an appropriate
setting for a Rammstein show.
The German Kiss
And what a show it is. The boys
grew up listening to Kiss, and this
in a sense is a heavier, German
Kiss for the 90s (yes, I am aware
that that decade has passed). From
the first minute, we get fireworks
galore, flamethrower masks and a
burning longbow. Something for
all senses but sadly, there are no
giant penises this time. Now in
their 50s, maybe this is the new,
mature Rammstein? Not quite,
for they soon set their keyboard
player on fire. Which anyone who
has ever been in a band can surely
relate to.
If you feel that all you need is
a red guitar, three chords and the
truth, this ain’t that. But the mu-
sic rocks, along with the pyrotech-
nics. There aren’t many non-Eng-
lish, non-Icelandic speaking bands
who can get a home crowd to sing
along, apart perhaps from Danish
wonder Kim Larsen. But they do
on “Du hast.” However, the Viking
clap during the encores might
have been better left out, belong-
ing squarely to last summer.
Over All Too Quickly
Rammstein might not have many
radio hits, but there is a little
dismay at how much is left out.
No “Mutter,” no “Mein Teil,” no
title song. Thankfully, however,
“Pussy” does not make an appear-
ance, with its rather juvenile and
slightly rapey “You have a pussy/ I
have a dick/So what’s the problem/
Let’s do it quick.” Maybe it sounds
better in German…
The show barely clocks in at one
and a half hours. One feels that
after having come all the way to
Kópavogur, the spectator should
be entitled to a little more, even
accounting for a warm-up set by
the band of the Health Minister
(seriously).
But we do get Depeche Mode’s
“Stripped,” “Hallelujah” (no, not
that one) and it all ends with “En-
gel.” If brevity is the one complaint
after a show, something is being
done right. And it’s strange to
think that all the people conceived
just after the last Rammstein
show here are now turning seven-
teen. Let’s hope we don’t have to
wait another seventeen years for
the next Rammstein visit.
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