Review: Till Lindemann @ AEC Theatre 20/01/26
Rammstein icon Till Lindemann shocked an unprepared Adelaide with his graphic, theatrical live show.
Words Thomas Jackson // Images Michael Lockheart
Till Lindemann w/Mélancolia @ AEC Theatre 20/01/26
It's all hands on deck tonight at Adelaide Entertainment Centre. In the arena is Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds and in the theatre is Rammstein frontman Till Lindemann. People in full goth attire and face paint politely squeeze past the confused Nick Cave attendees to get to the different entrances. It’s quite clear which line is which. Black t-shirts are shepherded to the right, out of sight, to the side entrance, while mum and dad go through the main entrance.
Everyone has gathered for the Adelaide leg of Lindemann’s Meine Welt tour, a night of solo material. Unless you’re a follower of Lindemann’s solo career, you may not be prepared for the graphic theatrical show that’s about to commence. Lindemann’s brain is one of a kind.
Mélancolia, Melbourne's melodic deathcore five-piece, open the show. Their stage outfits can only be described as a Frankenstein's monster version of Slipknot’s jump suit era, Limp Bizkit’s Wes Borland and Motionless In White. Vocalist Alex Hill removes a white fur coat; his costume channels a zombified Jeff Hardy with face paint and ripped armbands. You can't take your eyes off them.
All of tonight's songs are from their second album random.access.misery (2025). Like their clothing, their music takes a drop of the millennium’s nu metal and combines it with modern deathcore. It creates a sound which is contemporary but nostalgic… new but still nu. The band has this contagious, blood-boiling and ferocious energy. They’re making the most of the minutes they have on stage and their technical ability and vocal chops are spotlighted through the likes of ‘Picking Scabs’, ‘SPIT!’ and ‘Lithia’.
They end with the title track, ‘random.access.misery’. Despite Hill ordering the crowd numerous times to give them signs of life, either from a call for a circle pit, mosh pit or even just fists in the air, his final request falls on deaf ears. It’s hard to tell if the crowd just aren't into it or if it's an older, tired Tuesday night audience. It’s no fault of Mélancolia's, they’re doing everything right and leave their sweat on the stage. “Love us, hate us, you will fucking remember us,” proclaims Hill before thanking the audience and walking off stage.
READ MORE: Review: TOOL @ AEC Arena 28/11/25
The room is filled with haze as Lindemann and his band take their positions on stage. The band are all in matching outfits, taking the appearance of leather-bound uniformed military officers. They go straight into ‘Fat’ as giant human bellies fill the LED screens behind the band and shake together hypnotically. The keyboardist is positioned on a podium at the back and contorts their body throughout the show, doing splits, back bends and folds. While the drummer, Joe Letz, drags your attention with his chaotic and aggressive drumming. He punishes his kit like it owes him money. His costume looks like a combination of a clown and Ryuk from the Death Note series.
Lindemann casually strolls the stage while the band marches together in unison, guitars held like rifles. It’s an industrial metal, theatrical fever dream. Although the venue is full of about 2,000 people, seeing the Rammstein frontman in such an intimate room is an unreal experience. He's a figure you're used to seeing perform at stadiums and being barely visible in a crowd of tens of thousands when he's beside Rammstein’s living mechanical beast of a live production.
Does it matter that the audience doesn't understand 90% of the German lyrics he’s singing? Not in the slightest. Through his solo career, Lindemann has produced some of the nastiest, bottom-lip-biting riffs that are on par with the best of Rammstein. Anyway, tonight isn’t just about the sound; it’s also about the visual theatrics. Sometimes it’s the little details, like the stagehand who is dressed in full black tactical gear and confusingly has a mic holder on top of his helmet. In the middle of the set after Lindemann has knocked down all of his mic stands, the stagehand submissively crouches down and uses his body as the stand. As ‘Platz Eins’ begins, Lindemann appears in the crowd wearing a top hat that has a GoPro attached to it. The point of view fills the screen as Lindemann makes his way through the audience, greeting people like a politician and shaking hands.
At other times, it’s just the shock horror element. During ‘Allesfresser’, a table is wheeled out that has old vaudeville-style slapstick cream pies, which are thrown into the crowd. This is all received with howls of laughter from the crowd until Letz pulls - fake - used sanitary products from his prosthetic genitalia and hurls them at people. Letz is then wheeled out on the table wearing a horse mask and a skirt for ‘Fish On’. A doctor goes under his skirt and proceeds to pull out, you guessed it, fish. Lindemann then tosses these into the crowd.
Lindemann is known for his graphic music videos. During the song ‘Golden Shower’... well, you can work out what’s on the screen. ‘Knebel’ is accompanied by a video of Lindemann having sex with a woman; it’s unclear if it’s shot in a Hollywood magic sex scene style, making it look real, or if it’s just literally happening.
They farewell the crowd with ‘Ich hasse Kinder’ and gather on the stage for a final bow. The audience might not have known it before - maybe they came tonight based on the Rammstein frontman’s icon status in metal - but seeing a Till Lindemann show is a bucket list item. Complete chaotic fun from start to finish that you won’t see anywhere else.
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