The light show from Friday’s concert by Schiller brought the 2024 Kunst!Rasen Season to a colorful end and already a round half-dozen concerts are announced for 2025, the most recent being Fury in the Slaughterhouse.
A grand total of 90,000 people visited the shows in 2024, with Last week’s appearance by Hard Rockers Korn bagging 10,000 of that figure alone, as well as making use of the venue’s improved noise control set-up to hopefully be loud enough for (most of) the fans but not too loud for the neighbours. In case you stood at the front and wondered where the drummer was, yes, the stage was even higher than in previous years, which may be a part of that noise-control design, but is not so good for those audience front rows and is a positive nightmare in the photo pit for anyone under 7 foot tall. Maybe with the noise tweaks there is hope for Neil Young next year? The Canadian Rock icon has long been on the wish-list. Who knows…?
My own personal favourite show in 2024 was Jamie Cullum who combined ability with enthusiasm which is not to be taken for granted as this year’s newest complaint seemed to be the number of bands falling well short of 90 minutes onstage. I can imagine the likes of Billy Gibbons saying “Take it or leave it” and, let’s face it, 65 minutes of ZZ Top is infinitely better than 2 hours of some bands these days. Best band award from those I saw goes to the wonderful Blues sisters of Larkin Poe. Rebecca and Megan Lovell have that Rory Gallagher ‘forget the gimmicks, get up and play your heart out’ approach I love – and music to match. Best new discovery, for me anyway as I didn’t know them, was The National. Their ‘Laugh Track’ disc has been a constant on my player since the concert.
Kunst!Rasen Promoter Ernst-Ludwig Hartz has signed the year off as one where he would have liked bigger attendances at some shows (that Rival Sons/Larkin Poe one certainly deserved more than the 1500 who were there). But turnout for the likes of Korn and Pur filled the coffers sufficiently to make up any shortfall.
End of the Season is start of the next Season where booking bands is concerned though. Who were your favourites this year? Who would you like to see next year? Leave your thoughts in the comments box and I will see you between 3 July and 26 August 2025 back on the Kunst!Rasen – stay tuned for new additions as the main Season is planned to be ‘in the bag’ by end of October.