A friend who has followed Rammstein since their days of performing to a crowd of two Hell's Angels and a Rottweiler complained that the German death-metal sextet aren't what they used to be. Apparently, their three Brixton shows - their biggest London gigs to date, shifting 15,000 tickets - were "toned down". Having seen the hellfire-and-damnation extravaganza on its second night, however, I can attest that even a half-strength Rammstein are several bassoons short of an orchestra.
"Ludicrous" doesn't begin to describe what happens up there. The music, which is the sort of transglobal earache produced by black-robed misanthropes from Berlin to Boston, is just a pretext that lets our boys have a wheeze with guitars. Despite the occasional swinging tune - such as Amerika, notable as both their only English-language number and the only one that doesn't sound like the gates of hell clanking open - the real meat of the performance is the visuals. Rammstein were almost certainly the quiet ones who sat at the back of the classroom in Berlin, doodling pictures of guillotines, and here is where they get revenge on the popular kids.
First, there are the pyrotechnics: jets of flame, immoderately applied, whose heat can be felt throughout the room. There is a self-igniting crossbow, wielded by corset-wearing singer Till Lindemann, and fireworks that threaten to set the place alight. Lindemann presides grimly over this: as he sings, each guttural syllable is literally pounded home - with a sledgehammer.
The pyro-action is complemented by set pieces: during Mein Teil, the lederhosen-wearing, nutty-dancing Flake Lorenz, who fills the group's Bez niche, is cooked in a cauldron. He survives and, during another number, roars around the stage on a souped-up keyboard, pursued by colleagues armed with flame-throwers. And so on, and so on. The ham factor is ramped up so far, it's amazing that they don't have their own cartoon series. What larks. The question remains, though: if this is "toned down", what on earth are they like when they pull out all the stops?
· At the Arena, Nottingham, tonight. Box office: 0870 121 0123.
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