Till Lindemann : Stockholm (Hovet Arena) December 5th 2023

It was a very cold evening as I set off for my first Lin­de­mann con­cert in Stock­holm; Minus 19 Cel­sius accord­ing to my car tem­per­a­ture gauge, So I was glad the wait out­side was short. The venue itself is a good one with a capac­i­ty of around 9000 peo­ple. There weren’t many stand­ing in the queue, which is prob­a­bly due to the cold tem­per­a­ture more than any­thing else, so get­ting in and to the front was rel­a­tive­ly sim­ple. I posi­tioned myself at Emily’s side of the stage and wait­ed.

Phan­tom vision kicked the whole event off and were received warm­ly by the crowd, even though their music was new to many, cer­tain­ly to me. It was enjoy­able and their Goth­ic / Dark­wave style sat well with the Stock­holm crowd.

Next up was Aes­thet­ic Per­fec­tion, who were excel­lent. Daniel Graves doing an amaz­ing job of pump­ing the crowd up. Recent posts have hint­ed that the band are not used to play­ing in Arena’s but that real­ly wasn’t evi­dent as they tore through their set, to the delight of the Stock­holm crowd.

Then the wait was over and Till Lin­de­mann took to the stage. The band appeared along the back of the stage, behind the drums. Sil­hou­et­ted against the video screen as the intro to Zunge start­ed. The band made their way down to the stage with Till tak­ing up the cen­tre and singing the soft intro, then the band explod­ed into the song in full. The gui­tar sound was incred­i­ble, and Emi­ly Ruvidich flavoured the whole thing with an impres­sive riff played over the main song. The whole sound was big and heavy, and it was clear the band were ful­ly into their groove as they moved from song to song with ease.

Alles­fress­er start­ed and it was time for the cakes. I had it on good author­i­ty that I may be tar­get­ed for a cake, and sure enough, as Emi­ly picked up her sec­ond cake she moved right towards my sec­tion of the crowd, called my name, and threw the cake. I am grate­ful for the 2 peo­ple who semi shield­ed me from the full force of the impact, but I did get cov­ered, as did most of the front rows from oth­er band mem­bers, who were hav­ing so much fun launch­ing the cakes at peo­ple. I was grate­ful for Blut and the water spray as I was able to use that to get most of the cake rem­nants off me, even though I was now damp.

Platz Eins saw Till parad­ed around the out­side of the stand­ing area on a seat, car­ried by staff with Con­stance danc­ing around in front of him as the rest of the band wore flash­ing glass­es and played from the stage. Dan­ny Lohn­er played a great bass solo from the ego ris­er to end the song. Fish on was next, which saw Till, Jes and Con­stance move around the stage, throw­ing fish into the crowd. Some peo­ple threw them back and they were duly returned to the crowd by the stage crew. Then the fish can­non came out. Jes and Con­stance load­ing it up and Till fir­ing it over the heads of the peo­ple in front, at one point toy­ing with every­one at the very front by point­ing the can­non towards them before fir­ing it high and over their heads again.

Knebel saw a very ani­mat­ed Jes Paige smash the acoustic gui­tar and hurl it to the side of the stage, rapid­ly fol­lowed by a mic stand. The mic stands were get­ting plen­ty of abuse tonight. Dur­ing Praise Abort, Emi­ly kicked one out of the way so she could get her foot on the mon­i­tor to play.

I have been to many con­certs in my time, but this one will rank right up there as one of the very best I have ever attend­ed. It was a whole expe­ri­ence visu­al­ly and audi­to­ry as well as phys­i­cal­ly with the cakes, water and fish that were lib­er­al­ly fired into the crowd. Till’s vocals were on point and the band were super tight togeth­er. The Gui­tarists being, for me, the focal point, per­son­al bias aside.

My advice to any­one read­ing this. If you haven’t seen this show yet, then go and see it. Even if you don’t know the songs well. The whole show is a huge event in its own right as Till brings his unique vision to the stage and is backed up by five of the best and most dynam­ic musi­cians you are like­ly to see.

My only regret is I am unable to get to any­more shows on this tour, but the next tour, I will make a point of attend­ing as many as I am phys­i­cal­ly able to. I also want to send a huge thank you to Emi­ly Ruvidich. You total­ly rock.