Who will be good? who will be bad? and will anyone be downright ugly?! Wednesday sees the start of this years Crossroads Festival, hosted (and filmed of course!) by Rockpalast at Bonn Harmonie.
It’s a pretty safe bet that Sonny Landreth is going to be a winner. Generally aknowledged as one of the world’s best slide guitarists, Landreth’s appearance on Friday evening seems destined already to be a highlight, but let’s take a quick look at the rest of this years programme.
Wednesday is traditionally the ‘quiet’ day as far as visitors to Crossroads are concerned. It’s also a day that has the most potential to be one that has me wishing I’d stayed at home. LoveA from Trier are a Punk/Indie band with an apparent ear for a clever lyric and something to say. But will the music be so loud we can’t hear it? Time will tell. Reward for survival will be seeing Australian Rockers The Volcanics. ‘Dirty, low down Rock n Roll mit Schwung’ it says in the adverts. The RnR sounds good – a bit worried about the ‘schwung’ threat though. Could be a nice discovery.
Die Nerven are a highly praised trio from Stuttgart. A previous disc by the band was proclaimed by ‘Der Spiegel’ as one of the most important German language CD’s of the decade (though I’m wondering how many CD’s Der Spiegel gets to review in a year. Possibly it was this or the latest Guildo Horn release that they had to choose from) BUT they too may very well turn out to be very much the ‘Good’ part of Crossroads. They very recently won big in Hamburg at the Reeperbahn Festival’s Indie Awards as ‘Best Act’ no less – so this will be their chance of televised glory. The Sun & The Wolf have roots in a New Zealand Band named ‘The Have’ and are described as a mix of “Garage Rock und Shoegaze, Psychedelic und Brit-Rave-Rock”. I will definitely be interested to see if I can spot any ‘Shoegaze’ in their performance – There just cannot be too much Shoegaze around for my liking (Yes, you’re right, I have NO IDEA what I’m talking about here) I prepare myself to be educated!
Standing at the Crossroads – with a TV Camera
Sonny Landreth I’ve mentioned before as a must for Friday. Anyone who can still breathe new life into RJ’s hoary old classic ‘Walking Blues’ has got to be special. Sharing the evening will be a tough proposition but someone’s got to do it and it’s London trio Miraculous Mule that have the challenge. They should prove popular with Landreth fans though with their inspirations including the Field recordings of Alan Lomax and the million selling recordings of Chess Records. It might not be so easy for the third act on the bill though. For some reason WDR have also added Indianagefluster, winners of this years Planet Rock Schoolband competition, to Friday’s line-up. Nothing against new talent, but if it’s really a threesome on Friday it seems to me to be the wrong day to cut anyone’s air time.
King King sweat it out for Rockpalast last March
From the young German talent of Indianagefluster we have rather older German talent in the popular shape of Wolf Maahn on Saturday. With over 1200 concerts and festivals under his belt and support slots for the likes of Bob Marley, Fleetwood Mac and Bob Dylan it’s fair to say this is a man who knows how to deliver a great concert. What sort of an edge does your music have after 1200 shows though? It will be interesting to find out. Ciara Thompson will be the front girl with intriguingly named The Buttshakers. A band that deliver dirty RnB with a strong shot of Northern Soul. “A Band that are capable of bringing any audience to a dancing, sweating but happy mass” it says on the bio. Which sounds just the way a Crossroads Festival should finish. Let the dancing, sweating, and fun begin!
