Review: Till Lindemann at Metro City

Till Lindemann at Metro City
w/ Melancolia
Thursday, January 22, 2026

It’s fitting Till Lindemann played on the first day of Fringe World. Bringing the carny to town with clowns, contortionists and gimps amongst a fair serving of kink, there won’t be a better or more grotesque circus at this year’s festival.

The 63-year-old Rammstein frontman is one of the more unique performers on the planet. From the excellent costume design to his signature lumbering, almost Frankenstein-like movements, the constant fetishism of the performances and visuals suggested an orgy could break out onstage any moment.

But a circus is also fun, and from opener Fat onwards it was often downright hilarious. Sure, sometimes we laughed in awe at the sheer magnitude of the spectacle, but more often it was the completely excessive visuals and clowning around onstage that were clearly designed to provoke.

Take Golden Shower. Even the title can’t prepare you for its lyrics (“Let it rain from your pretty cunt”) but they in turn were superseded by perhaps the most obscene visuals ever staged in Perth as nudity and actual footage of urination gave way to what can only be described as a “wall of vaginas” (in the tradition of the famous MoMA exhibition Cunts and Conversations), flashing exponentially before our eyes. We nearly pissed ourselves at the audacity.

But Lindemann has never been one for playing it safe (note his aversions to safe sex on Praise Abort) and it was clear looking at the crowd that they were there for the fetish, they were there for the kink, and they were there for the outrageous. Sometimes he pushes it too far, and the “Row Zero” group of young girls side of stage is a tradition best left in the 80s, more gross than grotesque. But at others it was oddly heartwarming, like when a fan threw their prosthetic leg onstage and asked Lindemann to sign it (he did, but not before simulating a sex act on it first).

With much of the set sung in German as per his latest solo albums, for those of us who couldn’t understand the lyrics, the spectacle did the talking. Just like a Rammstein show, the staging and production were on another level. A theatrical performance in the best of ways with plenty of female representation on stage and a drummer/clown in drag, it’s industrial metal for open-minded folks.

Also nailing the theatrical brief was support act Melancolia out of Melbourne, who wore enough makeup and costume art to warrant a closer look under the dark lighting and constant flashing strobes. Musically a mix of nu metal grooves that occasionally pitched the vocals into the piercing screech of black metal (think Korn crossed with Deafheaven), it was abrasive stuff but too often settled into a screamo rut. More memorable and melodic songs like last year’s Lithia, and these guys could be worth keeping an eye on.

But the horrorcore and shock metal was a perfect preview for Till Lindemann, who exceeded expectations and suggested that a Rammstein hiatus for a few years wasn’t such a bad thing. Fish on.

HARVEY RAE

Photos by Adrian Thomson