Our story

There were no algorithms and no streaming. You got to Rammstein through a borrowed cassette, a video on TV or someone at school who already listened to them. And if you wanted to know more, you had to go looking for it.

You looked on the Internet, which back then was something else: forums, fan sites, chat rooms. Herzeleid.de, Planet Rammstein, Recult, Rammstein Latinoamérica, the original Rammstein México site and French and German communities were the centre of everything: news, rumours, releases and concerts. Every country had people known for sharing information tirelessly, and that is how Colombia started to become visible in that world.

The alternative scene did the rest. Metalheads, goths, industrial fans and rockers met up to discover music and trade what they had, when that was much harder than it is today. Those crossings, on MSN, MSN Groups and chats like Radioactiva, StarMedia or LatinChat, produced the first contacts. It wasn’t a community yet, but they already knew each other.

The first meetups were at Parque El Salitre in Bogotá. Others were organised by members of different communities in the scene, in parks and public spaces. That is where friendships began that are still going today. We were born as Rammstein Colombia years before anyone had thought of LIFAD.

In 2005 the band announced a show at El Campín for October 22. The community was already getting ready when it fell through: in July, in Gothenburg, Flake ran Till over with his Segway during “Amerika” and every remaining date that year was cancelled. The wait would last five more years.

Meanwhile, the community took shape. In 2006 the logo was born: Rammstein’s “R” fused with a “C” in the same typeface. In 2007, when MySpace was where musicians and fans met, Rammstein put Rammstein Colombia in its top friends. It was recognition for what was already happening: organising events, bringing people together and supporting local bands influenced by them, like INFO.

Around 2009 there was a period of inactivity. It ended with the announcement of Liebe ist für alle da, the sixth album.

There were no official shops within reach in Colombia. What there was: bootlegs, imported DVDs, magazines someone brought back from Europe, and expensive international shipments that took weeks or months to arrive, if they arrived at all.

That is why every piece is worth more than its price tag. Behind an original album there was money saved up, a favour asked of someone who was travelling, or a long wait. Almost every testimony in this archive has an object like that: the cassette, the T-shirt someone brought from abroad, the first special edition.

That number was the result of years of work. Behind it were constant, original content, news checked before it was posted, photography, translations, coverage of every release and daily participation.

Going viral was never the goal. The goal was for the page to be a reliable place, somewhere you could come back to and find out what was true and what was rumour. For many people who could never make it to a meetup, that page was the community.

It was at the Centro de Eventos y Conciertos in Sopó, Cundinamarca, on the Liebe ist für alle da tour: the fourth of five Latin American dates, after Santiago, Buenos Aires and São Paulo.

With that visit the community stopped being only online. There were meetings with the promoter and contact with the label, and fan actions were coordinated with the crowd: flags, stickers, a promotion plan. The one people remember most is the largest themed flag in the world, with a welcome message and the flags of both countries.

It also showed what goes on behind a show like that: technical riders, backstage, production, logistics. Putting on a concert of that size in Colombia wasn’t easy. Venues were lacking, and restrictions on pyrotechnics made it hard to bring a show like Rammstein’s. It happened anyway.

For many it was the night of their lives. For others it left the thorn of not being able to go. Both are part of this story.

With a bit more financial stability, travel became possible: Lisbon, Madrid, other European cities, the United States. It was no longer only about waiting for the next Latin American tour.

At home, the meetups went on. Before the party was called Treffen it was called Reunión. The tenth, in December 2011 at Parque Nacional, celebrated the release of Made in Germany 1995–2011.

In 2012 the band renamed its official fan club LIFAD, and in 2013 the official kits it sent to the clubs arrived. Rammstein Colombia officially became LIFAD Colombia as well. The kits were handed out to active members at Parque Simón Bolívar. The name changed, but it was the same community as in 2004.

At Hell and Heaven, in Mexico, the community met people from Mexico, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, Venezuela, Peru and other countries in the region. That is where the international side of what had been built came together: a community born in Colombia that had its place among the others.

That same year the Treffen was born, the club’s official themed party, an idea of Leo Jaime, who also runs it. The first edition, “Treffen I: in Amerika”, was in February at Index Finger, Bogotá. It started during a quiet period for the band and became the community’s meeting point. Ten years later it is still going, with editions in Bogotá, Medellín, Manizales and Bucaramanga.

In March 2017, at the worldwide cinema release of Rammstein: Paris, the community worked with Cineco Alternativo and sold out 15 screens in 8 cities for that one-off screening. Between June and July it followed the band on its US tour.

From then on, travel became part of the community’s life: concerts in the United States and Europe, New Year’s celebrations and gatherings with fans from all over the world. Every trip left stories like the one about that line.

We reckon there were more than 200 of us, and many went to several dates. In those years the community stopped being only Colombian and became part of something international.

The tour never came to South America. In 2022 there was talk of a negotiation to bring it to the region, with El Campín as the proposed venue, but nothing was ever confirmed. Between 2010 and today, the bond has been held together more by announcements that fall through than by dates that happen.

The answer was to make things happen at home. In 2024 Rammstein Colombia turned 20 and celebrated with the biggest fan-organised Rammstein event in the country: the tribute band STEIN and the Medellín Metropolitan Philharmonic, in front of more than 1,000 people.

2025 brought the community’s first alliance, HERETIC, and the philharmonic tribute moved from Medellín to the Teatro Jorge Eliécer Gaitán in Bogotá, in a partnership with Idartes, the Fundación Pasión y Corazón, STEIN and others. In October, the Treffen reached its twentieth edition.

We also follow each member’s own projects, Till Lindemann’s above all. But the heart of this site is still Rammstein and the community that grew up around it.