I don’t know where you were on Saturday evening, but I was attending my first ever Bluegrass Concert. You are, as they say, never to old to learn something new. In this case I was actually learning something quite old. A style of music that goes back, as we shall find out later, to the 1940’s. None of the nine musicians playing in the two bands at Trinkpavillon this evening would have been alive when it was discovered I hasten to add – but clearly the members of Bluegrass Guerilla and The Villwock Brothers have taken Bluegrass Music to their hearts, and by evening’s end I had another musical rabbit hole to go down and lots of new songs and bands to discover.

Bluegrass music is a genre of American roots music that developed in the 1940s in the Appalachian region of the United States.  It features acoustic stringed instruments and emphasizes the off-beat –  hence notes are anticipated, in contrast to laid-back blues where notes are behind the beat, which creates the higher energy characteristic of bluegrass.  Traditional bluegrass performers believe the “correct” instrumentation is that used by Bill Monroe’s band (Literally the foundering Fathers of Bluegrass since they were called the Blue Grass Boys: guitar, mandolin, fiddle, banjo, and bass. 

Reading on, it all sounds scarily mapped out in military precision with ‘instructions’ on taking instrumental turns with the melody  and regimented vocal harmony featuring two, three, or four parts, often with a dissonant dissonant or modal sound in the highest voice, a style described as the “high, lonesome sound.” Commonly, the ordering and layering of vocal harmony is called a “stack”. And so it goes on…  not surprisingly there has since emerged a hybrid called (surprise! surprise!) ‘Newgrass’.  Created presumably by a growing group of Bluegrass players who finally said “fxxk all that formula following.  Let’s just play and have fun!”.

On that basis I can only suggest that this was actually not a ‘Bluegrass’ evening as such, but more accurately a ‘Newgrass’ Evening, since both Bluegrass Guerilla and the Villwock Brothers seemed to enjoy themselves immensely without appearing too weighed down by form or formulas.  A much simpler description of Bluegrass was delivered by one of the bands who explained that what defined it most was the absence of a drum.  I can follow that description a whole lot better – so thank you!

Before plunging into the evening’s music a quick word about its location.  This was described as ‘Musik im Park Extra’ being located inside of the Trinkpavilion rather than, as with the Summer Festival here, in front of it.  My pre-conceptions were that A) It would be a very small area to put a concert in and B) that that would not be a problem, since a lot was happening on the evening in Bad Godesberg so probably it would not need much space anyway as only a half dozen ‘Bluegrass-heads’ (yes, I made that up) would be attending.

My preconception A) about the place being small was correct, but by the time we started it was so crowded that rows of seats were being added as quickly as people were rushing to them.  A word here – there is nothing more annoying than arriving an hour before a concert to grab a front-row seat and then having a row of seats plonked in front of your front row to be filled with people who came in twenty minutes after the show started. 

But I’m being hard on the organizers here I know since they were clearly taken by surprise at the big audience turn-out.  With Dotty’s Restaurant for Folk, Dottendorf for Jazz and Harmonie for Rock maybe we can add Trinkpavillion for Bluegrass as a regular venue?  It would be hard to maintain the standard of tonight’s two exponents though I suspect. 

Bluegrass Guerilla who kicked off the evening’s music will be familiar to Folkclubbers but I have to say that the extra ‘oomph’ of using amplifiers helped even out their sound with all vocals being heard and each instrument getting an equal say as opposed to being sometimes at the mercy of where you are sitting at an ‘ampless’ venue.  The band’s own description of ‘Genuine handmade music from Bonn’ is a fitting one for the quartet.  You very quickly get caught up with their enthusiasm for the genre and the songs themselves which very often come from a tough background of mining and railroad workers – maybe explaining the chugging train rhythm that comes through in so much that’s played tonight.  ‘Laying in my sweet baby’s Arms’ being an example.  With its boisterous tune about preferring a girl’s company to working on the railroad or the farm. 

As a non-expert in the genre, there were only a couple of songs I already knew, amongst them the bass voice-driven ’16 Tons’ made into a classic by Tennessee Ernie Ford.  By this time, late in the set, I’m rather enjoying the regular switch of solo instruments from banjo to mandolin to guitar and the regular switch of vocalist too from song to song.  A little different from much of the music to be heard with one vocalist and, if you’re lucky, a piano to replace the guitar occasionally.  Variety isn’t only the spice of life it seems, it’s also the spice of Bluegrass.

I’m pleased to say that The Villwock Brothers – and Sons of other Mothers (what a great name!) continued almost, to borrow from that mining theme, seamlessly.  Well almost – but closing your eyes you might not have noticed that there was now one extra man onstage and one less (=0) woman.  The Villock Brothers themselves are Martin and Christian.  The former really does look like he might have come to the show after working on an Appalachian railroad.  His accent-free singing is also top notch and although it was a break from Bluegrass my favourite song of the evening was their rendition of ‘Galway Girl’.

Again there were lots of songs and even a tune that all sounded like Bluegrass classics but were unknown to my non-Bluegrass trained ears.  If you had again closed your eyes and continued listening without looking then you might not have noticed that to finish there were now nine musicians practically on tiptoes to cram around the microphones when Bluegrass Guerilla joined them onstage.  Ordinarily this might have caused an onstage riot, but these two bands are actually best of friends and often to be found sharing stages in local pubs – which is where you may also find me in future.  This Bluegrass thing is fun!!!

Thanks to Trinkpavillon in Bad Godesberg under the stewardship of Helmut Both.  More power to your collective elbows, and I hope we will see more such concert gems in your ‘Klein aber Fein’ venue at Bonn Kurpark