That’s how it was with ROME

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November 03, 2025, Hamburg, Nochtspeicher

History breathes quieter than noise

There are voices that don’t have to be loud to have an effect. They carry history within them – not just words, but traces, shadows, memories that do not fade – even if decades have passed. Jérôme Reuter is one such voice. His ROME project is an archive of heart, ashes and non-negotiable dignity. No posturing, no staging. Only truth – neither whispering nor shouting, but simply there.

And so people didn’t come to Hamburg’s Nochtspeicher that evening for spectacle. Not for intoxication, not for an outburst. They came because memory sometimes needs a voice. Because the world shouts loudly – but truth speaks softly. And because ROME has been cultivating precisely this language for years: one that does not force, does not persuade, but remains.

The Nochtspeicher, almost sold out. A room of brick and subdued warmth. A room that listens. A room that works, because the silence between the sounds is just as important as the music itself. With listeners who came to hear. To know that history is not over just because it is told in the book. On stage: Jérôme Reuter, voice, acoustic guitar and drum, calm and unobtrusive. Next to him: Yannick Dalscheid – bass, percussion, grounding, pulse. And Michel Spithoven, new to the tour since the NCN Festival, on drums. Precise, controlled, never too much. Three people. One body of sound. No posturing. No excess. Only presence!

We had last seen ROME at the NCN Festival – in the open air, between trees that felt black and the late summer romance of darkness. There, the sound was far away. Here it was close. Like a breath on the ear.

Europe has a heart – but it beats hard

The evening did not open abruptly, but more like an old door that one had known for a long time. “First We Take Berlin” began not as a declaration of war or a slogan, but as a reminder of cities that have become symbols, of wars not as triumphs but as wounds. Rather a reminder of how cities fall and how people continue to breathe in them. Not just yesterday, but also today. “Eagles of the Trident” rose drumming out of it like a banner in the wind – but nobody here needed banners. The song remained not a call to rise up, but a contemplation of power that is never clean. A song like an attitude, but without a raised voice. With “La France Nouvelle”, the breathing in the room slowed down. Words like marble, heavy, bright, old. No nostalgia. The song from the current album “Civitas Solis” brought that strange mixture of exhaustion and hope that is often juxtaposed in ROME pieces: The future may be uncertain, but it is not yet lost.

“Sons of Aeeth” was a return, a reminder of the earlier days of ROME – of those songs that seem like old letters: yellowed but unforgotten. Then a moment like a tear in the fabric of time: “Todo Es Nada”. Everything is nothing. Nothing is everything. A line that hung in the room as if everyone here knew exactly what was being spoken. The words were clear in the room, without harshness, but with weight. “Families of Eden” touched on the human in the rupture: we belong together, but we remain vulnerable. Jérôme’s drumming here was not rhythm, but a heartbeat. And then: “Stars and Stripes” – live for the first time. No announcement. No celebratory moment. Just a new song that carefully placed itself in the space of a story that is still being written. You could feel that we were witnessing something that could only be explained later. A song that didn’t ask, but waited. And we listened. Silently.

The closeness that carries

“New memory” came like a slow return to something that cannot be spoken. Not nostalgia – rather an awakening in a space that you wanted to forget and yet know so well. Jérôme’s voice was soft, with a gentle heaviness, but full of weight. “In Brightest Black” was light in the dark, but not a bright one that dazzles – but one that stays under the skin. Like the dull glow of an ember that refuses to go out. “Kali Yuga Über Alles” brought back the heaviness, but not as a darkness that crushes. More like a time that contemplates itself. Reuter did not beat his drum hard – he counted. Every movement was consciousness. History as a circle, not as a line in a time that devours itself.

Then a barely visible crack: “Ostracism, baby!” A half-smile. A brief sigh of relief amidst the implications. “Submission” lowered its shoulders. A song that doesn’t give in, but understands that surrender is sometimes an act of strength and submission is not giving in, but understanding. A reminder that standing up sometimes happens quietly. In “Who Only Europe Know”, the air changed and the room became heavier. Europe as a memory, an ideal, a fragment – not as a continent – it was a question. A wound. A legacy that no one can shake off. No word too loud. No look too direct.

“One Lion’s Roar” was not an outcry, but an inner uprising. Not a call for power, but for dignity. A sign that even in times of destruction, something remains standing. A song like a step that you don’t take back.

And now it became silent. A silence that was not empty – but full. With everything that was said and everything that had to remain unsaid. The loudly demanded encore began quietly. Naked. Vulnerable. A room that listens.

When Jérôme returned alone, the temperature of the room changed. No staging. No concept.
Just voice, breath and wood. “Celine in Jerusalem” stood naked in the room. Just voice and strings, no movement, no gesture. A song like a prayer to places you can’t travel to without leaving something behind. -Wounds that remain open without bleeding. Prayers that lie more within us than on cards.

“Fatherland” came without pathos, without a flag, without a demand. Here, fatherland was not nation, but origin, pain, loss, belonging, which is never entirely voluntary. “Fatherland” was that which hurts and yet is carried. Origin as a wound, not as a banner. With “On Albion’s Plain”, you could feel this quiet recognition, as if something had stopped in the room to listen to see if we really wanted to hear it. Finally, “The Twain” spun a silent thread of breath and memory, of past and present, without explanation, without closure.

Then – no break. Just a quiet rhythm together. The band returned. Not to intensify, but to ground. “The Wolf’s Coat” brought bodies back into the room. A step back to the ground, back to what is tangible. “Uropia O Morte” posed the question that everyone knows and hardly anyone says out loud: what remains of an idea when the world has moved on? “One Fire” was glowing. No flame, no flying sparks. More like a heart that continues to glow and doesn’t go out, even if it has been beating for a long time. And “Swords to Rust – Hearts to Dust” did not close. It left things open. Like memory. Like history. Like everything that accompanies us when we close the door behind us.

Conclusion

ROME at Nochtspeicher was not a concert. It was a commemoration. A remembrance without a monument. A warming of the hands to something that will not pass away. The silence was not empty – it was full. A space in which no one had to prove themselves. An evening that didn’t sound to impress, but to stay.

Setlist:
“First We Take Berlin” – “Eagles of the Trident” – “La France Nouvelle” – “Sons of Aeeth” – “Todo Es Nada” – “Families of Eden” – “Stars and Stripes” – “Neue Erinnerung” – “In Brightest Black” – “Kali Yuga Über Alles” – “Ostracism, Baby!” – “Submission” – “Who Only Europe Know” – “One Lion’s Roar” — “Celine in Jerusalem” – “Fatherland” – “On Albion’s Plain” – “The Twain” – “The Wolf’s Coat” – “Uropia O Morte” – “One Fire” – “Swords to Rust”

Text & Photos: Thomas Friedel Fuhrmann – writes where silence begins.