So having spent most of the day travelling from London to Berlin, we get to the O2 shortly after support band Deathstars have taken to the stage.

Live Picture Slideshow

The Swedish Industrial Gothic Metal band do have some interesting songs with some good hooks and a decent image that taps into the whole goth horror vein, but somehow lack a certain something. It also has to be said that lead singer Whiplasher Bernadotte (do you think his Mum calls him that? "Whiplasher stop mucking about and come downstairs your tea's ready") telling the audience that he would like to kill beautiful Swedish blonde girls is a bit tasteless. He then ramps up the dumbness by asking the audience, if they would all like to do the same, firstly alienating most of the women in the audience and then confusing the blokes who are all thinking of several things they would like to do to beautiful Swedish females, while working out that killing them is bottom of the list. That aside it must be a pretty thankless task opening for Rammstein, but mentioning them 3 times during a 40 minute set to get a cheer is a bit Unnecessary and smacks of a lack of confidence in their own material, which is a shame because Deathstars do have potential.



It must be very difficult, when you design a live show as spectacular as Rammstein's to keep on trying to top what you did last time and surprise and amaze your audience, yet this is what Rammstein try and succeed in doing with each new tour. Designing the opening alone must be hard. This time deciding to walk through and over the audience, using a bridge that is lowered from the ceiling, to the stage and all the time maintaining the tension and excitement as each member takes his place, Oliver and Richard use the flaming torches that they have carried to the stage to light two cauldrons either side of the stage and we are up and running as Till counts up eins,zwei,drei .... Neun, aus and they kick in to "Sonne", swiftly followed by "Wollt Ihr Das Bett in Flammen Sehen".

As we all know by now a Rammstein show is a spectacle of fireworks, flames and the odd rubber cock, but what gets overlooked in all the razzmatazz is just what a talented and incredibly tight unit they are. I never cease to be amazed at just how much work and pre-production must go in to making a show like this look so slick, smooth and professional.

The tour is to promote the new "Made in Germany" best of album and so is a kind of best bits form all the previous tours. So all your old favourites are in there from " Du Riechst so Gut" through to "Haifisch" which along with "Pussy" are the only two songs from "Liebe Ist Fur Alle Da". In fact most of the set comes from the "Sehnsucht" and "Mutter" albums.

For me it was great to hear them play "Mein Herz Brennt" again and surprising that the new single "Mein Land" was missed. There are so many highlights to the two hour set that it would fill several pages for me to tell you all that goes on.

There are only a handful of bands that could put on something like this Metallica, Iron Maiden, Kiss, U2 and there are also a few bands that could but don't and will charge you £100 upwards for a damn site less while they play out being a complete parody of their former selves.

Rammstein always give you plenty of bang for your bucks and deserve enormous credit for what they deliver. If you haven't already got your tickets for the UK leg, go and buy them now, because come March you'll be kicking yourself if you miss this.

Review By Darayus Kaye