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May 14, 2007

1161: CELEBRITY SIGHTING: RICHARD KRUSPE

Yesterday, just as we were leaving the restaurant after having brunch with Mom for Mother's Day, we found ourselves standing directly in the path of Richard Kruspe.

This obviously means nothing to quite a few of you, but a lot to some -- including myself.

I love Rammstein and frankly, if you wanna have a go at me for it -- do it. I've been a dedicated fan for a decade now, and I can distinctly remember the first time I heard them; riding in the backseat of a rental car during a family vacation to see relatives down in Georgia, my brother handed me his copy of the Lost Highway soundtrack. "Listen to Track 20," he said, and I was completely, 100% sold. Whatever criticism you can throw at them for being overly simplistic or unpolished, it really doesn't matter in the slightest to me.

I find them funny, cheeky, and pleasingly grotesque. And after too many disappointing concert experiences to count, where a band seems to feel the audience ought to be grateful for their even having shown up at the venue (*ahem* Echo & the Bunnymen), I genuinely appreciate Rammstein's commitment to performance. I've yet to take anyone to see them who hasn't left impressed and excited. Given the nature of Rammstein's music, it seems unlikely that you could just bring people with zero interest in that category and turn them into fans simply on the strength of the band's performance -- but that's exactly what's happened whenever I've brought people to their first Rammstein show.

"I'm sure he never gets recognized," Pete said later. I should have said something when I spotted him over my dad's shoulder, but I didn't. I must have looked surprised because he smiled as he rounded the corner with a plastic shopping bag in either hand.

I have no idea what I'd have said -- maybe find out when they'd get back to playing stateside again, or what's new with his side project. The last time I had tickets to see them, I was in London and had hired out the perfect Snow White costume for the occasion. Unfortunately, the show was cancelled because the venue wouldn't allow them to stage their full pyrotechnics display and the band bowed out rather than compromising the show. (I was disappointed, but it did free up more time for me to stay in Ireland on vacation.)

In any event, when I thought later about what I could have said to him on the sidewalk, it occurred to me that the thing which had most struck me about him was something I'd read in an interview several years ago -- how his step-dad had torn down his KISS poster and ripped it to shreds when he was 12, and how he had stayed up all night meticulously putting it back together. Things like that go a long way with me. Things like that and, you know, small explosions.

Posted by ashley at May 14, 2007 08:50 AM

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