Alligatoah concert in Leipzig and album “Rotz und Wasser”
Inhalt/Content
Lately, we’ve been listening to a musician quite frequently: Alligatoah. Those who have read our blog post about the Camino de Santiago might already be aware of this. During our hike, we spent a significant amount of our walking time listening to Alligatoah’s old albums. Additionally, we also listened to his new album, “Rotz und Wasser.” Well, not entirely accurate, as the album was officially released digitally a month later, but we had already listened to all the singles by then.
After thoroughly enjoying Alligatoah’s new album and watching his live performance at Rock am Ring 2022 on YouTube, we knew that we had to attend one of his concerts. As luck would have it, he had announced a tour for 2023. The nearest venue for us was Leipzig, so we purchased tickets for the concert there in March. The seats we got were not the best, but they were in the middle of the hall. A few weeks later, we received the news that more locations were added due to high ticket demand. Surprisingly, Erfurt was one of the added cities. Without hesitation, we bought tickets for the Erfurt concert as well, even though it only offered standing room. However, this blog post will focus solely on the Leipzig concert, as the Erfurt concert is still in the future 😉
Alligatoah in Leipzig
We were aware that it would be inconvenient to rely on public transportation to get to the concert. The journey there wouldn’t have been a problem, but getting back to Weimar after 11 PM by train was nearly impossible. So, we opted for a similar approach as with transporting the cats and rented a car-sharing vehicle, which gave us the freedom for the round trip. However, something began to unfold on the way there: it started snowing. When we arrived at the Quarterback Immobilien Arena in Leipzig, there was already a lot of snow on the parking lot, mixed with slush. We were slightly surprised by the long queue stretching hundreds of meters in front of the arena. But then we realized that there was still an hour left until admission and that many attendees with standing tickets just wanted to secure a good spot. We had our dinner in the car on the parking lot and then made our way to the entrance, where fortunately, the queue was no longer as long.
Once inside the venue, we made our way to the coat check to drop off our jackets. It might be interesting to mention that the parking ticket cost €10 and the coat check charged €3 per jacket, so we had to shell out €16 just for these services… but well, at a concert like this, money is probably not something you should dwell on… and we didn’t, especially when we headed to the merchandise stand. Alligatoah had already announced on social media that the CD of his album would only be available for purchase during the tour. It seems like he’s not particularly fond of CDs… In fact, the album was apparently sold on CD in 2022, but in very limited quantities. Alligatoah even suggested (with instructions) that people should burn the CD themselves if the limited stock ran out 😅.
The merchandise stand was already bustling with activity, and we were glad we went there right at the beginning, as it was pretty much sold out after the concert. Long queues had formed, and we took some time to survey the products, as they were displayed on a wall. One of my favorite songs from the new album is “Dunstkreis,” and they actually had shirts with the lyrics “Komm wir werden fett, im Duett” (Let’s get fat together, in duet). However, they seemed a bit cheap to me, so I leaned towards getting the regular tour shirt. It was priced at €35, which also felt quite expensive, but I liked the design the most. When I finally got it at the cash register, the album CD was included, which was what we wanted anyway. It turned out (why make it complicated again?) that you could only purchase the CD in combination with a poster or the tour shirt. Well, it worked out well for me. Nathalie also thought the tour shirt was cool (and she might get it in Erfurt), but here she treated herself to a shirt from the clearance section. It was a white shirt with a blue rocket and the words “Der Zweck heiligt die Mittel Der Zweck ist mittelheilig” (The end justifies the means, the end is semi-holy).
As we took our seats, the opening act was still performing. It was the artist “Mayberg,” whom we had never heard of before. The music was okay… but of course, it couldn’t compare to Alligatoah, whom everyone was eagerly waiting for.
Then the concert finally started, and at the beginning, boxes were driven in on conveyor belts from which the band members broke out one by one until Alligatoah himself appeared. I tried to capture some moments here and there, especially because the visuals accompanying the songs were so good. Alligatoah introduced his band members and before the song “Feinstaub,” he talked about how everyone has to wait outside in the cold while he smokes his cigarette indoors. Or before “Nicht adoptiert,” he teased about whether he really has children now… but it turned out to be just an insult to anyone who cares about that, rightly saying that it’s none of their damn business. That was pretty cool and funny. Unfortunately, I didn’t record that part. However, I did make a complete recording of the intro and the song “Lass liegen,” which can be seen here.
I’d like to briefly mention some other small things that made the concert so cool overall.
At the beginning, right from the first song, Alligatoah was on stage with an electric guitar. However, in the last 30 seconds of the song, the guitar went out, so he simply imitated the guitar sound himself for the rest of the song.
At one point, Alligatoah talked about the stage design. He mentioned that the buildings and packages in the background were created with AI. Nathalie thinks he only said that because Stable Diffusion and ChatGPT are trendy topics, and the stage design must have been created long before the tour… but I think it could be true. In the video for “Lass liegen,” you can see the background image of the stage, and it looks so abstract that it could have been created by AI.
One last thing I want to mention is about the song “Mit dir schlafen.” I had been wondering before the concert how Alligatoah would sing parts of songs where he had guest singers involved, like Esther Graf. When the song finally came, we were pleasantly surprised: He simply replaced that part with “Teenage Dirtbag,” which was pretty funny. I didn’t personally record it, but there’s a recording on YouTube of that moment.
At some point after 11 pm, the concert was finally over… and even though the hall, equipped with standing and seating areas, was perfect for the concert, leaving turned into quite a chaos. The majority of the guests had brought their jackets to the adjacent sports hall. However, this hall was only connected to the concert hall through one entrance, so a very large queue formed there. Just imagine, the arena has a capacity of around 12,000 people, and squeezing them all through a double door, where they also had to return their clothing, took quite a while. Well, with a bit of squeezing, we finally made it outside after almost an hour, and it was already past midnight. By then, the snowfall had become even heavier, and we had to brush off the snow from the car. Leaving the parking lot also took a while because the traffic light to the road only switched briefly. Through the night and snowstorm, we then drove back to Weimar via the highway.
Despite the issues with the arrival and departure, as well as the logistics within the concert hall itself, it was still a pretty cool concert overall. At first, I wasn’t sure if the visit to Erfurt in November would be worth it, but since the songs are so good and presented so awesomely, we’re looking forward to our standing places in the Messehalle Erfurt, where we can jump around properly. Moreover, Alligatoah has even written a unique song for each location. So, for Leipzig, there was the fantastic song ‘I’m always horny anyway – I’m Leipzig,’ which was also available as a T-shirt. We’re curious to see what the song for Erfurt will be like.
Unlike the post about the Ärzte concert and the latest albums, I won’t be giving an analysis of how much I like “Rotz und Wasser” here. In reality, we enjoy every song on the album, even though we have our small favorites here and there. This is evident from the fact that we always have Alexa play the album while doing our weekly tasks of cleaning the litter box or tidying up the apartment (since we’ve only had it in digital format so far). While it may not have as many banger hits like “Willst du” or “Du bist schön” as the previous albums, each and every song on “Rotz und Wasser” is incredibly enjoyable. We’re definitely looking forward to the concert in Erfurt in November and may even capture more recordings or purchase other merchandise there (consumerism! 😁).
