STAHLZEIT in Ljubljana: Apophis Ran Late, So We Staged the End of the World Ourselves

Denis Last updated 16 October 2026

foto: DENIS PARADIŽ 2026

STAHLZEIT
Media Center, Ljubljana, September 5, 2026
Jubiläumstour 20 Plus

If you haven’t heard of Apophis: it’s a huge asteroid that’s supposed to come dangerously close to Earth in 2029, and it’s been a handy candidate for all those “the end is nigh” scenarios for quite a while now. Well, Apophis was apparently running late, so on Saturday, September 5, we just made our own end of the world in Ljubljana. STAHLZEIT turned Media Center into a pretty convincing version of hell – with fire, more explosions than in a Michael Bay movie, smoke, a ridiculous amount of pyro, and everything else you’d expect when you head out to a Rammstein tribute show.

When you think of Rammstein, you usually picture massive stages, dozens of trucks of gear, flames, explosions, smoke, enormous production, and of course Till Lindemann strolling around the stage with the look of someone who realized long ago that a normal concert just isn’t enough anymore. So when one of the biggest Rammstein tribute acts decides to bring its spectacle to Ljubljana, you’d expect a pretty serious crowd. Well, Ljubljana apparently had other plans.

STAHLZEIT played Ljubljana’s Media Center on Saturday, September 5, a venue that can hold around 3,000 people. About 450 of us showed up. That’s probably quite a bit less than the organizers hoped for, but it did come with a few perks for the audience. If you wanted to be in the front row, you didn’t need elbows, a basketball player’s height, or Moscow metro rush-hour experience. You just walked up to the stage.

It was also pretty clear before the show even started that Ljubljana wasn’t the only place the crowd had come from. There were surprisingly many Austrians and Germans, and the front rows basically looked like an unofficial Rammstein fan club meetup. Black T-shirts, Rammstein logos, German coming from every direction, and people who had clearly come to Ljubljana far better prepared for a Rammstein night than most of the locals.

Honestly, looking at the front row, I got the feeling that we Slovenes had made just one mistake in organizing this gig: communication. Maybe the poster should have said: “Rammstein tribute show – only 120 kilometers from Graz.” Attendance would probably have been a lot better.

From Maerzfeld to STAHLZEIT

For those of you who don’t know STAHLZEIT yet: this isn’t a band that decided a few years ago it would be fun to put on black uniforms and play Rammstein. The story goes back much further.

STAHLZEIT were formed in 2004, and they’ve been performing as a Rammstein tribute band since 2005. Interestingly, the project grew practically out of the band we now know as Maerzfeld. During rehearsals, the musicians realized their singer Helfried “Heli” Reißenweber had a rather unusual asset – a voice that sounded a lot like Till Lindemann’s. There was a certain visual resemblance too, so they decided that alongside their own original music, they’d start performing as the Rammstein tribute project STAHLZEIT.

And what started as a fairly simple concept has grown over the years into a seriously big project. Today STAHLZEIT are considered one of the best-known and most production-ambitious Rammstein tributes around, playing several dozen shows a year. A crew of about 30 travels with them on tour, along with multiple trucks and buses of gear. Even the Slovenian media stressed ahead of the Ljubljana show that their performances are about far more than just playing Rammstein songs.

And that’s exactly the main difference between STAHLZEIT and some local tribute band that decides to play a given group’s ten biggest hits. This isn’t just about the music. It’s an attempt to recreate the entire concert spectacle – costumes, lights, stage design, choreography, props, and of course the one thing Rammstein apparently can’t go more than five minutes without: fire.

Tons of fire.

A crowd from five to seventy

Even though the hall was pretty empty, one thing about the crowd was really interesting. The age range was huge.

There were older fans, middle-aged folks, teenagers, young adults, and quite a few little kids too. We spotted quite a few children, maybe five to seven years old, sitting in their parents’ arms. Some were even in the front rows, others watched the show from the safety of the back of the hall, but one thing was visible on all of them – they were having a blast.

And before some Karen pipes up to explain that kids simply don’t belong at a concert, let me add: relax. Every kid we noticed was wearing protective ear defenders.

So the whole situation was actually pretty sweet. For some of them it was probably their first real concert ever, while others had clearly been following Rammstein and STAHLZEIT for much longer. And if a five-year-old can sit on dad’s shoulders for almost two hours, watching flames and looking like they’ve just been handed the best Disneyland in the world, then we’re apparently doing something right.

“Versteht ihr Deutsch?”

The show kicked off with Reise, Reise, and then we quickly got Links 2, 3, 4, Asche zu Asche, Du riechst so gut and Sehnsucht. Even though the hall was pretty empty, the energy on stage was like ten thousand people were watching.

In fact, the empty hall was probably more of a problem for the eyes than for the band. STAHLZEIT played as if Media Center were packed to the last corner.

Somewhere in the middle of the show, Heli asked the crowd whether we understand German. Given that there was a lot more German than Slovenian around me, the answer was pretty simple, of course. The crowd unanimously confirmed that yes, they speak German.

And so it was.

The whole evening.

I think this was the first time I’ve experienced a concert in Slovenia where the performer asked the audience whether they understand German, the audience said “ja,” and the performer took it so seriously that we listened to German banter for the rest of the night.

But considering the number of Austrians and Germans in the hall, the decision was perfectly logical.

And even more logical given Heli Reißweber. While it would be unfair to say this is just a Till copy, the resemblance is pretty uncanny at certain moments. Vocally it’s close, physically the presence is similar, and the movement and facial expressions are clearly part of the whole concept. Watching Heli on stage, you very quickly get the feeling that someone took Till Lindemann, sent him off to a German tribute-band factory, and got Heli Reißweber out the other end.

And in certain stage moves, Heli showed very well that they’ve studied the original.

Or rather – studied it in great detail.

Rammstein without Rammstein, but with everything else

If you’ve ever seen Rammstein live, you know that the music is only part of the experience. A Rammstein show is theater, circus, industrial trade fair and a very expensive fire alarm all in one.

STAHLZEIT took this concept very seriously.

For Links 2, 3, 4 there were homemade flamethrower versions mounted on the guitars, Du riechst so gut got its signature burning guitar elements, Sehnsucht brought explosions, Keine Lust served up smoke, and then came one of the most recognizable moments in the entire Rammstein repertoire – Mein Teil.

A giant cauldron appeared on stage, Heli played the butcher, the well-known keyboardist hunt followed, and of course, fire. Watch it all from a safe distance and it’s great fun. But once you realize someone is actually standing a few meters from flames that could easily heat a small living room, things get a bit more interesting.

Ich tu dir weh gave us another classic piece of Rammstein stage-design madness, while Sonne basically turned the stage into one giant bonfire. Feuer frei! predictably brought flamethrowers on faces, one of those moments when you wonder why anyone would choose singing in a band where the microphone is apparently also a potential igniter.

And during Pussy came one of the most recognizable and most absurd elements of the Rammstein live spectacle – a giant penis that shot a serious amount of confetti into the crowd. Of course, STAHLZEIT didn’t invent it themselves; if you’ve ever seen Rammstein live, you know it’s one of their most iconic props. STAHLZEIT simply work it very faithfully into their reconstruction of the Rammstein show.

And let’s be honest, if you’re doing a Rammstein tribute show, it would be pretty strange to say during Pussy: “Guys, we’ll leave that penis at home today.”

When “Du hast” turns into a biology lesson

One of the funniest moments of the night came during Du hast, when Heli handed the mic over to the crowd for a while. And of course the crowd sang the song on its own. With around 450 people, it was actually pretty loud.

Meanwhile, Heli pulled off one of those signature Till stage moves that make you quickly realize the line between Rammstein and STAHLZEIT is drawn pretty thin.

With the microphone, Heli started mimicking the rise of a male organ. The louder the crowd sang, the higher the mic went.

If you’ve ever seen Rammstein live, the scene will look pretty familiar; STAHLZEIT just transplanted it onto their own stage very convincingly. Ljubljana thus got another rather unusual biology lesson, with the volume of the crowd as the main measuring instrument.

The result was, predictably, pretty loud.

And then came “Deutschland”

Deutschland was a special moment of the night, too.

Slovenia has just been through a pretty interesting political stretch in recent months. On one side there was a lot of emphasis on political correctness, on the other a rather loud return to patriotism, national identity, love of the homeland and everything that comes with it. Left and right have been defining themselves far more aggressively lately than they used to, and if you’d been following Slovenian debates for the past few months, you might get the impression that the country is split into two camps that can’t even agree on whether water is wet.

And then the Deutschland chorus hit.

And suddenly we were all Germans.

There was no more left, right, liberal, conservative, politically correct or politically incorrect. It didn’t matter who had been shouting about patriotism for the past few months and who breaks out in hives at the mention of national pride.

We were all screaming together:

DEUTSCHLAND!

If Slovenian politicians are looking for a recipe for national unity, maybe they don’t need to organize any more expensive round tables. They just book STAHLZEIT and put the Rammstein chorus on stage.

I never thought that in 2026 one of the best examples of Slovenian national unity would come by way of Germany.

But hey, it worked.

25 songs, tons of fire and hardly a dull moment

Musically, the show was also a lot better than you might expect from a tribute project. With bands like this, it often happens that the visuals are excellent and the music ends up somewhere in the background. With STAHLZEIT, that problem didn’t exist.

The band sounded really tight, the sound was strong enough, and above all you could feel that these people have been playing Rammstein songs for a very long time. Which makes sense, since the project has been around since 2004, or since 2005 as a Rammstein tribute.

The setlist was put together to cover a good chunk of Rammstein’s career. From Reise, Reise, Du riechst so gut, Sehnsucht and Asche zu Asche to newer stuff like Deutschland, Zeit and Adieu. In total we got a whopping 25 songs, with almost every one coming with some visual or pyrotechnic element.

Mein Herz brennt was especially interesting, with Heli leaving the stage to the piano and the original recording, before the band came back for Sonne, Feuer frei!, Pussy, Zeit and a finish with Ich will, Du hast, Engel and Adieu.

And to be honest, it was really nice to see those roughly 450 people act like the hall was full by the end of the show. For the last songs, it mattered much less how many people were actually in the room. Those who were there sang, jumped and screamed enough to cover all those empty square meters.

Too bad so few people showed up

This is probably where I should say the less pleasant part too.

STAHLZEIT deserve a bigger crowd.

Not because numbers need to be artificially inflated, but because the amount of production the band brings along is far bigger than what we in Slovenia are apparently willing to pay for.

Media Center was too big for around 450 people, and it showed. From certain angles on stage it was probably a bit strange to see so much empty space. On the other hand, that’s exactly why the show felt a little more personal.

After the show, STAHLZEIT told us they have different production setups prepared for different types of venues, and that on bigger open-air stages or larger concert spaces they can use a lot more stage design and technical elements. So Ljubljana was nowhere near the biggest possible version of their spectacle.

The irony is that some people came to the show from countries where STAHLZEIT play practically at home, and drove all the way to Ljubljana. We Slovenes, meanwhile, apparently decided we had more important things to do on a Saturday night.

Maybe next time we’ll just add a free shuttle from Graz.

When the show ends, the night isn’t over yet

One of the biggest pluses of the night wasn’t the fire, the stage design, or the giant penis.

It was the band.

After the show, the members of STAHLZEIT came out among the crowd and stayed for about twenty minutes. They chatted with fans, signed autographs, greeted people and took photos with them. Zero sense that they’d just played a huge spectacle and now had to hide somewhere behind a three-meter-high black curtain as fast as possible.

Quite the opposite.

They seemed really relaxed and, above all, really friendly. And for a tribute band with more than twenty years of performing behind it and such a massive production, that’s pretty refreshing.

Because in the end, that’s what sticks. You can have the best pyro, the biggest stage and the biggest penis in the history of the concert industry, but if the band is unfriendly after the show, that’s mostly what the fan will remember.

STAHLZEIT left exactly the opposite impression.

Ljubljana may not have delivered quite the crowd their production deserves, but those who came got a seriously solid night. The Rammstein songs were played well, the production was impressive, fire was present almost everywhere, and Heli played the part so convincingly that it was sometimes genuinely hard to believe the person in front of us wasn’t just someone who’d swapped shifts with Till Lindemann a few streets away.

In Ljubljana, STAHLZEIT showed why, in more than twenty years, they’ve grown from a project born out of a singer’s odd vocal resemblance to Till Lindemann into a serious production machine.

And even though the hall was half empty, the stage was anything but.

So maybe the right conclusion is pretty simple: next time STAHLZEIT come to Slovenia, it would be nice if half the crowd didn’t have to be imported from Austria and Germany.

And if they bring that penis along again, at least we’ve already got some confetti material guaranteed.