Rammstein did crowd surfing on an inflatable boat for many years just fine, in the middle of a song one member goes around the dance floor and it takes a couple of minutes to get back to the stage. I guess Rammstein fans are not the same as Katy Perry fans.
Metalheads are some of the kindest and most honorable kinds of music fans in my experience. Anyone acting a fool in the pit or ruining everyone's good time will get what they're owed
*I never said there wasn't still a segment of shit heads lol, just that generally there seem to be fewer of that type causing trouble when I was a stage rat for a local venue for a few years.
I'm a lifelong metalhead but I enjoy certain pop artists, the most shitty audiences I've ever seen have been at pop concerts. Alarmingly so. Why multiple fights at a Chvrches show for example!
Country fans are the worst. There was a great country music festival in my province (in Merritt, BC) that had to be cancelled due to too much liability from SA allegations and too much garbage left behind. It's a shame because country music CAN be really good.
Oh yeah Rapestein is not problematic at all.
There is a good documentation about toxic positivity in the metal community and how grooming and sexual harassment is something that happens just as much as in every other genre.
If you're interested in it, I can start looking or it but I think it's in German.
I mean, who's going to stand up to the gropers and weirdos in a group like that? That's kind of the problem. Learned helplessness is its own brand of toxicity.
Like that one Billy Eilish Concert when she went out to the crowd and they were literally grabbing and yanking her and pulling her hair and someone literally stole her ring or smth. If it were me the whole thing would've been shut down, so disrespectful. There's no way you can be that desperate and dehumanize someone else to the extent you see them as more of a thing for entertainment than another human being.
I’ve been bartending in a music venue for over a decade and have to agree that metal/industrial crowds are extremely well mannered compared to others. I’ve always assumed it’s because a lot of them have been or are closely related to similar bar service workers.
That and if they start acting a fool, the music genre will get cut from the venue. It only takes one person to ruin it and they all know that. If the lead singer says please no mosh, people know not to mosh.
I got knocked out HARD at a Slayer concert once, and I was genuinely a little nervous until the biggest man I'd ever seen walked into the middle of the pit and held it up until I was back on my feet. Metalheads are fucking awesome
Piece of shit metal heads are genuinely super rare in my experience. Gone to a ton of festivals but the metal fest I went to genuinely felt like a get together of 100000 friends
I have only realized this in the last year or so. Ice been listing to metal since I was about 16/17. And I like to think I'm quite optimistic, happy, relaxed most of the time. I genuinely think that the music is an outlet, who knows
Myth Busters did an experiment with plants where they played them music non stop in a greenhouse, from classical to metal and then measured how much a plant grew and its health. And guess what? Metal plants had grown the most. 🤟🏻🎸
Another part is just that for a while metal was scapegoated as devil music, and attracted alot of the loner types and the more misunderstood, so that group tends to be the people wanting to be more welcoming due to being on the flipside early on into metal history.
When you get treated like a freak, or an evil hateful person you tend to want to be someone who doesn't spread that philosophy and want to be more positive to those who are in the same boat as you
Moshing in metal concerts is fun as hell. You have to know what you're getting into, but it's just a bunch of likely drunk idiots just bashing into eachother repeatedly, singing along, and having fun. Then when somebody inevitably falls down, from my experience everybody immediately works to pause the mosh/protect the fallen person and help them get up... and then resume.
I would like to off an alternative hypothesis. Metal music encourages the expression of internal frustrations so people who hang out with metal heads are more likley to be called out when they act like assholes which gives them the opportunity to reflect on their behavior and adjust their outlook.
TBH most fans at a concert from hard, angry, heavy music scenes are usually kinder.
Ive worked at a concert vanue for many years, and seen 1000's of shows, and also go to quite some giggs/festivals outside of work and i really notice a trent in "the heavier the music, the kinder its people".
the parties with the nicest crowds have for me always been Metal, drum and bass and punk for some reason.
while pop always lurs in the scum of society, usually either smooth brain or easily irritated at everything and everyone.
I can attest to this. Eons ago I was front row Godsmack concert and dummer threw his drumstick to the crowd. I caught it and had a firm full grip on it. Some guy kept trying to pull it from my hand and wouldn't give up. He pulled my finger back to where I could almost feel it break and the guys around him started pounding on him. Did not see him for the rest of the concert.
Was at a killswitch concert years ago and there was a dude who was there for a fight. First red flag was he went straight to the middle of the mosh pit area between the opener and the main band setting up, while the pit area was fairly empty and started glaring at anyone who got within 5 feet of them. Second he brought his 95 pound gf there with him and wrapped his arms around her like a cape. She was a tiny little thing who was dressed like she was attending a Britney Spears show, but we welcome everyone. When the band started playing the pit started back up and this dude lost his mind. If anyone got close to them he was throwing vicious kick boxing style elbows at them and yelling stay the fuck away from us. In the middle of the mosh pit. There was lots of places to stand outside the pit but he wanted conflict and chose the most obnoxious spot possible.
Lasted about 2 minutes before 3 of the biggest dudes at the show had had enough. They picked this short angry little man up and carried him to the front row and threw him over the fence at security, who had seen what he was up to and escorted him out. They also helped his girl over the fence to go with him gently as she had followed along and had done nothing wrong. Felt bad for her. He never got his fight he just got removed.
The mosh pit is a crazy combo of sort of violence but not really, and kindness, at good shows at least. Any time someone fell we would help them up. Any time you spotted someone looking scared to jump in youd go over and offer to hold their hand on their first trip in. It's supposed to feel intense but actually be reasonably safe and fun. People who wrecked it were dealt with.
I’m barely 5’ and got sucked into the center of a mosh pit. Suddenly someone behind me grabbed my wrists and crossed them across my chest as a way to pick me up and carry me out of the pit.
Masturbating is solely reserved to Darkthrone fans. In fact if someone is a Darkthrone fan there's about an 85% they're currently jacking off as you read this
BUT Rammstein also has hardcore security on standby. I was on one of those concerts, where ppl did try to tip over the boat and 3 or 4 machines made of muscle rushed into the crowd. I almost got tanked by them, some other did, they did not stop. At the boat they "cleared" the idiots and pushed the boat back to normal ppl and everything was good again. But seeing them just running at me and not slowing down, i saw my life flash past me....
Several years ago I saw two concerts at an outdoor venue near me.
One was fall out boy with wiz khalifa (didn’t care for him) and the whole show was just a huge party with drinking and weed and what not and it ruined the whole thing
Month later I went to see of life and men, Marilyn Manson, and slipknot and let me tell you. That was the calmest most respectful show ever. Everyone there was just chilling listening to the music it was great.
I have noticed this. My theory: metalheads aren't suppressing their "dark side." They accept it as an essential part of the universe and express it in a healthy manner: music. It's always the "beautiful people" that are the most twisted.
I'm a wheelchair user. You see that stuff, but what you don't see is drunk metalheads figuring out how to release the brakes on our chairs and rolling us straight into the pit where we immediately get an elbow to the face. Or shoving our chairs back and forth like it's a game.
Metalheads are some of the kindest and most honorable kinds of music fans in my experience. Anyone acting a fool in the pit or ruining everyone's good time will get what they're owed.
This has been my experience as well. Everyone is there to have a good time. Everyone is aware of how dangerous certain things are, we take care of each other and keep each other safe. You fall, someone will 100% haul your ass back up onto your feet.
I’m a child of a metal singer and biker family. Do they look scary and intimidating? Sure. If you don’t know them. But they’re big honorable sweethearts
I'm a pretty seasoned metalhead/concert goer at this point and I'm just going to admit right now that I felt so much LESS safe at a pop show. Like I've been to about a hundred concerts and only ever felt unsafe once and it was at a pop festival with some dudes making lewd comments towards me and no one stepped in. At the metal festival I went to I had like five people step in to check on me when they thought that a security guy was being creepy. Thankfully in that instance it was a misunderstanding, everyone was chill, and we all happy knowing that people were looking out for one another. But yeah, at least in my experience, metal crowds are much less scary. The crowd tends to be more friendly and respectful. There's less 'me, me, me' stuff. It still happens but not as much as at pop shows and I feel like bad behavior gets called out and shut down a lot more at metal shows by both fans and the artists.
Someone told me “metal heads are good people pretending to be bad” and hippies are “bad people pretending to be good” and i was like damn that really is true
That is true, until you bring two metalheads together and ask them to define metal. Sit back, relax and watch them fight over what counts and what doesn’t count as metal
Mosh pits are the place where you can beat the crap out of strangers, then go to the bar, have a beer and laugh about what works going to say on Monday morning.
Never forget when someone was a bellend in a mosh pit and my mate clotheslined the fucker and knocked him out cold. Everyone just started dancing around him before security came to get him checked out.
I was crowd surfing at a concert years ago and the stage was set in a concrete parking lot. Someone dropped me and I was going straight onto my head before this big greasy metalhead caught me moments before collision. You meet a lot of good people at metal shows!
That has been my experience too. The only concert I went to that was nice that wasn't a metal concert was weird al. But everything else ive gone to someone was a fucking bitch. Like these girls who pushed into the small space i left so I didnt have to be up a strangers ass, forcing me to be up her ass and get smacked in the face with her hair. Then she acted surprised when I grabbed her hair and told her the pony tail was coming off if she didnt fucking stop it. I had to elbow her several times in the back for her to get the memo and stop. My ex husband was having a fit that we would get kicked out but I didnt care she was already ruining the whole concert for me. I just don't know why people are selfish. You get there late suck it up and stand in the back. Dont push your way in front of others and trying to pressure them to leave so you can have room. Never had that problem at a metal concert. Everyone gave me my space. No one was up my ass or touching me. It was so nice.
I've been to 2 concerts in my life where I had floor tickets. Luke Bryan and Slipknot. At Luke Bryan, everyone on the floor was mashing us up front into the front barricades trying to get themselves up close to the stage. At Slipknot, everyone in the pit gave each other space and evenet each other leave the pit, get beers or whatever, and come right back to the same spot in the pit without issue.
People always say this shit but I feel like it’s only true bc there’s many sub-genres and specific metal bands for the Nazis and rapists that means the kind and respectable folks are more concentrated in the bands most normal metal fans enjoy.
Basically w a lot of genres you get a variety of fans, good and bad, often under the same artists, but with metal the worst of the worst have their own artists making the rest seem like a uniquely kind and honorable group.
The drummer of System of a Down did this when they toured Australia in 2012 (I think). He jumped in an inflatable boat and Joey from Slipknot took over the drums.
They've had mishaps with this stunt before. One time Flake fell (or was yanked?) from the boat and stripped by the crowd. Fans have infiltrated the inflatable boat on several occasions and ridden all the way back to the stage before getting removed by security. But all told, they've done that act so many goddamn times over so many years that the success rate with it is very good overall
Aaah memory unlocked, being a youth, downloading music videos from limewire and being absolutely scandalized when I first watched this video. Also definitely showed it to all my friends, hahaha
Actually they all do! I think Till was the exception when I saw them live, he was on the stage welcoming the "Auslanders" but all the others were in 2-3 boats :-)
It's actually the whole band that does it, at least they did when I saw them last in 2024.
I wondered what would happen if the crowd just decided to NOT send them back to the main stage.
Seems like the kind of situation where you know they're going to be professional and not physically hurt anyone...but probably humiliate whomever was actively trying to cause them harm as performers just trying to do their job, and mentally scar them for life. I mean they have giant dildos and flamethrowers. If asked to pull something like this water bottle kidnapping stunt I would have only one response: nein.
Funny enough, Rammstein might not have existed without the cold war. Till and Richard were both on the communist side of the Berlin wall. Till was assigned a job as a basket weaver, he liked to sing while he worked and that's how Richard discovered him
Oh come on… yes they did… it was just dangling there like a pair of testicles waiting for them to hit it out of the park with that home run of a comment
I went to Germany recently for the first time and had the same thought. Nicest people but wow are they rule followers. And then it occurred to me…ohh yeah.
But literally standing at a cross signal with 15 other people, no traffic in sight. Not one person crosses until it changes.
I work in logistics and yesterday I wrote to my German counterpart if they could stack 2 pallets on top of one another at transport (not a common practice, but we do it sometimes in the Balkans)
His answear was: "I'm afraid that is not possible," 🤣
Meanwhile I've worked out with a German warehouse I work with that they can stack but only if it was specified that sea freight pallets were to be used. Binary choices work with them lol
I said Germanic because I grew up in one of the German speaking countries in Europe, but not Germany. I just didn’t feel like specifying which country.
Whether you agree with it or not, I spent my first 19 years of life there, lived somewhere else for ten years and have travelled a lot, have met loads of different people, and can say from personal experience that it’s a fact that Germans love nothing more than their rules lol.
Bands have been doing this gag for generations, I've seen it myself at least three times at Lollapalooza (but Katy Perry refrained from it at the concert of hers I saw there eons ago). Obviously Katy Perry fans of the 2020s are built a little differently lol
I was a part of that the Rammstein Keyboarder surfed in the boat and everybody rushed to touch and move it, a guy even climbed in the boat with him and surfed to the front (before being taken out of the boat by security) it feels like the Katy Perry fans were just there so they could say they were the Rammstein fans were there for the music
To be fair, Rammstein does their surfing on boats between an unplugged performance on the middle stage and setup to continue on the main stage. On top of that, Rammstein's fans want to keep the show going. If that boat reaches the main stage ASAP it means more fire and fireworks and explosions 🤘
Went to Rammstein with my dad as a young kid. They gave me a glow in the dark condom on a stick to wave around, everyone was so nice! Que to being dragged to Zz top with an opening of ted nugent at age 11 by my besties mom, neither of whome I've ever heard of, but was told "once in a lifetime show" oof that was horrendous. Even though we arrived late to avoid Ted, is was to this day one of the weirdest, longest, slightly traumatizing shows. I saw so much old lady couchie, and zz top encores longer than their set concert.
Rammstein does a good show, and its actually worth getting them back to the stage. Katy Perry's show getting sidelined by getting stuck in the crowd in the inflatable is the best thing that can happen to it.
In all fairness, safety wise they could always get out - and secondly, they can’t even see katy in that bottle, she is literally just presented as an object in there. They can’t see her face and mannerisms, they can’t see if she’s upset or pointing towards the stage. Pretty dumb idea all around
These are some lower-level bands but I was at a Poppy concert and the Opener was House of Protection. the guitarist jumped into the floow mid song, people spun around him in a huge circle without getting in his space, and let him back on stage without even stumbling into his way.
Man, I once went to a cover band of theirs. Was lucky enough to be selected to go in that boat myself.
I was Hella dense though, lead singer kept yelling that I had to go on my knees. Didn't register, so just sat down.
Well, crowd was not so dense so after like 10 seconds the boat just dropped to the ground 😂
Thing is, even if that boat prop got stuck out there not to be returned to the stage, they could just jump off it and find their way back to the stage. Katy was trapping herself with such a ridiculous enclosed bottle prop.
But his is round so he can sort of walk a direction a little bit and get it to roll. also, yeah, his fans listen to him when it's time to go back to stage
I watched the full Katy Perry video, I’ve seen the same thing happen with Rammstein. She was only out in the crowd for about four minutes, at one point she was moving towards the stage, moved sideways and that bit of the crowd didn’t seem to realize she was in the return phase and she traversed backwards for about twenty seconds before course correcting.
Metal gets some crazies but the general vibe of the crowd is dont stop the fun, people seriously hurt is the fun stopping. Country, pop and punk shows get some real obsessed and belligerent fans that give no fucks so long as they get their drink or pics.
Most of the band for Rammstein are decently built germans, they can handle some physical interactions with the fans if things went a bit weird with the boat. Katy Perry is quite petite and she put herself in a giant rattle, if the crowd had gotten that rolling uncontrollably she could have all too easily been in a situation that snapped her neck while the bottle just kept rolling. Insanely unsafe and stupid and nothing like a little inflatable raft Flake could easily dismount from or grab some supporting hands around.
I've seen smaller bands do this at less dense crowds and it's like a 50% chance the singer gets dumped off the inflatable by accident and eats shit
Best one was when we went to see Mac Sabbath, we carried the singer around on a giant inflatable cheeseburger... but there was a barrier in front of the stage and like a 5 foot gap between the barrier and the stage. So when we tried bringing him back on stage, instead we just dumped him over the barrier, oops
I was at a show of a considerably smaller band last year that did the exact same, and the crowd was so in sync with the singer that the boat made it back to stage exactly when the song ended.
Lolol I love that last sentence. I’m gunna start deadpan throwing it out there in my regular life as if it makes sense in that context and then never explain.
“Dude they scheduled a third staff meeting this quarter I’m so sick of staying late just cuz the boss loves the sound of his own voice.”
“Yeah. I guess Rammstein fans really arenot the same as Katy Perry fans.”
The lead singer of Hecht also goes Crowdfunding in almost every major concert and the crowd usually gets him back or he eventually jumps off and just walks back through the crowd
REAL STORY, just saw them with my friend not long ago at Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum in 2022. I picked my friend up below the waist and raised him and he shook hands with Paul, Ollie was in the back as they went by on the boat. They were not expecting and Paul looked concerned for a split second but they quickly shook hands. The first boat over us was with Til and Richard but I didn't lift my buddy at the right spot so we missed the height. Thinking back it's probably a little risky for them and we were the only ones to do that...but we had zero ill intentions and it made for a great story. They've seen much worse I imagine.
One hilarious memory I have is seeing Anthrax during their Sound Of White Noise tour in the early 90s (in Rock City, Nottingham). John Bush wanted to jump from the speaker stack into the audience, who politely parted to give him a good clean view of the floor.
It might seem backwards, but metal enthusiasts I swear tend to be more reasonable in more ways than one than pop fans.
My guess is that metal has a culture of reverence and respect for metal artists. Pop seems to have a culture of objectifying obsession with pop artists.
Rammstein came to mind when I first saw this post somewhere else. I’ve seen them five times and not once did the fans act like Katy’s fans. I can only imagine how annoyed she was.
There were at times Rammstein fans would get a bit crazy like violently pushing Richard up and down, or many fans jumping into the boat and getting onto the stage, but thankfully nothing serious.
Note to admit: this video is lame for dropping in the album cut instead of keeping the live audio (fucking Rhymesayers…), but it still proves the point.
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u/Telefragg Jul 29 '26
Rammstein did crowd surfing on an inflatable boat for many years just fine, in the middle of a song one member goes around the dance floor and it takes a couple of minutes to get back to the stage. I guess Rammstein fans are not the same as Katy Perry fans.