As we had missed all the 2025 festivals where they were scheduled, we were particularly eager to see ROME on stage again for a very special tour: the 20th anniversary of Jerome Reuter's musical project. To celebrate, as you already know because of course every single one of you reads us faithfully, ROME releases no less than 7 albums this year, from which 2 are only new material, and followed by a european tour full of surprises. Very rare in France, the band started their tour with a parisian date on October 22nd to a sold-out crowd. But since we like to be unpredictable, this is not the date we attended, but the next one organized by a.s.s Concerts, in Cologne at the Yard Club, also sold out.
From one tour to another, ROME changes their live lineup according to desires and needs. There have been classic tours with two or three musicians with percussion and bass accompaniment, solo acoustic tours, and other ones with a full orchestra, including guitars, violin, and accordion. Each tour is a surprise package and is colored differently. 2025 marks the 20th anniversary of the project, and we obviously expect a mix of all the sounds experimented over the years. We finally stand in front of a classic composition, guitar, bass, drums, percussion, and pre-recorded samples and pads to accompany this shipcrew. The atmosphere of this tour reflects the current state of the world: heavy, dark, leaving little room for hope. In short, everything we love.
To complete the look, the band is greeted amidst general indifference. The concert is sold out, but as the three musicians climb onto the stage, one hears a few measly applause. Would we be mischevious, we would claim it looks pretty standard for German goths. It's already very hot in the venue, but the start of the show is cold, filled with gravity. We are immediately plunged into the deep end with the delicious pessimism of First We Take Berlin, between the martial percussion trio and the strident industrial sample. The entire first part of the concert is tense and hypnotizing. No speech between the songs, no more smiles on faces, ROME picks up the darkest tracks from its discography. No melancholy, no nostalgia, no lyricism. Raw, naked darkness.
The setlist includes two tracks from the recent Civitas Solis, La France Nouvelle and In Brightest Black, both very well received by the audience, as well as a new one, Stars, in the middle of the set, whose announcement is the opportunity for Reuter to stammer out his first words of the evening. Little by little, the atmosphere relaxes, while the air becomes stifling. The audience, initially so polite and attentive, gradually lets out a few silly words. The enthusiasm grows and the end-of-set trio Submission, Who Only Europe Know, and One Lion's Roar, classics of the band, get the whole audience moving, with Jerome Reuter inviting us to join him in singing "By one lion's roar".
For the encore, Jerome Reuter comes back alone on stage for a few acoustic songs. Given the tone set for this tour, we obviously didn't expect to hear the softer, more melancholic songs from The Hyperion Machine, even though 2025 also marks the album's 10th anniversary. And to be honest, we had above all looked at the setlist taped to the floor tom at the beginning of the concert. So we did choke with the mouthful of beer while hearing the first notes of Celine in Jerusalem, I have to admit. Timidly, Reuter addresses his sound engineer in French: "I'm going to do 6. 5 were planned, but in the end I'm gonna do 6." He stares at the audience and continues in German: "The poor guy has no idea what I'm doing." That's it, we had to wait until the encore to witness the first joke of the night. The concert takes a more intimate, lighter and punchier turn (don't you dare figuring out it became joyful, oh gosh no, don't worry, for normal people it would still be considered totally depressing) when Reuter's two sidekicks join the stage again for "the grand finale", announced with humor. The audience keeps asking for more, and ROME obliges. Finally, Jerome starts Swords to Rust with his deadpan sense of humor: "We have one last song.... but then it's over, ok?" and the audience's encore for long minutes afterwards won't change anything. It was really over, and it was really too good.
