Feeling B

Lore & Background

Feeling B was formed in East Berlin in 1983, emerging from the underground punk scene. The band's consistent core members were frontman Aljoscha Rompe, guitarist Paul Landers, and keyboardist Christian "Flake" Lorenz. Other musicians included bassist Christoph Zimmermann and drummers Alexander Kriening and Christoph "Doom" Schneider. On 9 November 1989, the night the Berlin Wall fell, Feeling B was performing in West Berlin at a government-endorsed gig. Keyboardist Flake noticed friends in the crowd who would not normally have been able to attend and learned of the wall's collapse. The band could not return home that night because all crossing points were overcrowded.

Feeling B released two albums after the fall of the Wall: Wir kriegen Euch alle (1991) and Die Maske des Roten Todes (1993), both more successful than their predecessor. The group disbanded in the mid-1990s, though members occasionally reunited for punk festival concerts until Rompe's death in November 2000 from an asthma attack. Zimmermann died in a plane crash in 1999. In 2007, Lorenz rediscovered tapes of old and partial unreleased recordings, which were released as Grün & Blau, along with remixes of known songs.

Reader's Guide

Feeling B holds significance as one of East Germany's most prominent punk bands, whose career coincided with the dramatic political changes of the late 1980s and early 1990s. Their music captured the energy of the underground scene while their live performance on the night the Berlin Wall fell became a symbolic moment in German cultural history. The band's legacy is amplified by the later success of three members—Landers, Lorenz, and Schneider—in Rammstein, one of the most commercially successful metal bands worldwide. Additionally, Till Lindemann, later Rammstein's frontman, participated once with Feeling B on the song "Lied von der unruhevollen Jugend," an interpretation of a Russian communist song, appearing on the album Hea Hoa Hoa Hea Hea Hoa. Landers also contributed guitar to Lindemann's earlier band First Arsch. The 2007 release Grün & Blau ensured that previously unreleased material reached listeners after the band's active years. Feeling B's trajectory from underground punk to post-Wall success illustrates the shifting cultural landscape of a reunified Germany.

Did You Know?

• Feeling B was performing in West Berlin on the night the Berlin Wall fell and could not return home because all crossing points were overcrowded.
• Three members—Paul Landers, Christian 'Flake' Lorenz, and Christoph 'Doom' Schneider—later found fame with Rammstein.
• Bassist Christoph Zimmermann died in a plane crash in 1999, and frontman Aljoscha Rompe died of an asthma attack in 2000.