“Everything that a good party needs” is how Blind Summit describe their act on their website. Seems the perfect band to get Trinkpavilion in Bad Godesberg off to a flying start for their 2022 open-air season.
Will they have the perfect weather though? Or indeed an audience, given the uncertainty and confusion that has bedeviled live music in the last two Corona plagued years. The sun is shining and there’s a pleasant breeze, so let’s head over to the Kurpark and see what’s happening…
When I get there shortly before the scheduled 7 pm start there actually isn’t too much happening. Organizer Helmut Both explains that the start time has been put back a half-hour to accommodate the Kleines Theatre offering a quick open-air intro to its coming season. Not a big deal as regards starting time, and frankly, I’m impressed at how the two event organizers sort things out so easily and simply. neighbours working together. It even gives me a chance to grab a beer and watch the Kleines Theatre outdoor stage from the hill that overlooks the location. I might also add that ‘Zickenzirkus’, the Karaoke comedy from Christian Kühn sounds well worth a visit when it begins its run on 2 June. But it’s time to head back to the music stage at Trinkpavillion, where an audience is building up and beers/Bratwursts are doing good business.
I don’t know how they communicated (flags?) but we were told that Kleines Theatre had finished their short show outside and everything a good party needs could begin.
My words to the late Rope Schmitz come back to me as I finish my Bratwurst and grab my camera. “I’m not usually a fan of cover bands…” Sunny Skies really were/are the Rolls Royce of the genre in my humble opinion. I spoke to the frontman of Blind Summit, Martin Seitz, shortly before the show to ask why there was no info on the band members on their webpage at all. Talk of ‘Handmade music’ but no details on whose hands were making it. It turns out that Blind Summit is somewhat in a state of flux at the moment. Two guitarists have become one and there seem to be changes on keys and vocals from the videos and photos I found online. The show though, as Mr Mercury very rightly said, must go on, and tonight’s band certainly looked happy to be playing music together – an enthusiasm that was quickly picked up by the audience.
I even managed to ascertain the band member names: along with Martin Seitz on lead vox were Andre Zern – guitar, Karl-Heinz Küpper on drums (nice drum solo Karl-Heinz!), Reinhard Jung – bass, Gregor Kess – keys and Susanne Stark – backing vox. They won’t replace the Beatles or the Stones, but when it comes to getting an audience to enjoy the music Blind Summit know their stuff indeed, and certainly Martin Seiz deserves an additional thumbs-up for the leg-work he put in all evening walking out to the audience to keep them involved and thus avoiding that all-too- dangerous pitfall of cover music becoming merely background entertainment. Blind Summit were there to entertain, and they did so extremely well. Happy faces and dancing feet in the audience. Mission Accomplished!
Musically the set-list referred to on BS’s website seems generally intact. An interesting mix of the expected like Robbie William’s ‘Angels’ to the less expected – ‘Driven to Tears’ from Police and ‘Behind Blue Eyes’ from The Who are pleasantly surprising song choices from the repertoires of the two bands.
It’s good to hear the band take on some German music too, even if ‘Westerland’ had more of a Ballermann feel to it than the original punk of Die Ärzte and ’99 Luftballons’ saw Seitz happily joining a smiling group of dancers under the trees. No revolutions planned here – just music to dance to and entertain, which is the name of the game outside of Trinkpavillion. Rest assured that Bill Baum and his Bluesbenders will continue that feel-good and dance factor under the trees on 1 June.
