How Bonn came to be a ‘Home Concert’ forCologne’s most celebrated rockband may always remain a mystery. As the locals from Chlodwigplatz night say – “Et es wie et es”. I mean, the locals speak another language! Judging by the number of cars with K registration plates around the Kunstrasen though, BAP have brought a sizeable chunk of ‘Kölle’ with them this evening. The show was sold out long ago and 9,200 people have assembled between the catering tents the stage and the war memorial for BAP’s ‘Zeitreise’ (Time travel) concert on this fine and sunny Summer evening

This Zeitreise tour actually started out last year as a few dates in small Cologne venues. The premise in 2024 was to go back to the first BAP albums from the 1980’s; but It grew and grew until the Tour reached it’s climax many months and venues later tonight here in Bonn.

There are currently legal problems over a concert finishing eight minutes late at Kunstrasen so BAP frontman Wolfgang Niedrecken is taking no chances tonight. No support band, and the show start is due at 6.30 pm (this band out does even Springsteen, with shows lasting well over three hours). I’m still waiting for photopit access at 6.25 pm when there is a roar from the audience and I see a waving arm clad in blue denim on the stage. Mr Niedecken is taking no chances it seems.

“You know the rules this evening” Smiles Niedecken after waving in all directions. “No songs younger than forty years old!” ‘Diss Naach ess alles drin’ from 1984’s ‘Zwischen Salzjebäck un Bier’ both opens the set and promises a feast of music. It comes from a time when BAP were just starting to make a mark in the local rock scene. A time when, Niedecken remembers, it was so hard to get gigs outside of Cologne that he was excited to get a show booked even at an alternative music festival in Frankfurt. How would they ever find an audience for songs sung in a small local dialect?

History has of course proved otherwise, but the best places to hear BAP live must still be in and around Cologne. The songthemselves are 40+ years old, but so too (and a bit more!) is most of the audience, making even ‘outsiders’ like myself feel a sense of pride when I hear 9000 voices sing along to what seems like every song at some point. Niedecken is probably quite relieved that they do so as it gives his own voice brief respite every now and again. For a man well into his seventies though he remains standing for most of the long show – sitting for only a hand-full of numbers with acoustic guitar including the mesmerizing ‘Jupp’ closed out with beautifully evocative guitar by Ulrich Rode.

He’s back standing and rocking again soon after for one of BAP’s big crowd favourites ‘Alexandra’. I’m a sucker for Niedecken’s gentler songs though, and here I recommend digging into the lyrics for any newcomers (not easy as it’s a three way Kölsch/Deutsch/English effort). ‘Verdamp Lang Her’ is a long thoughtful song about Niedecken’s relationship to his father. It takes several text-heavy verses to get to it’s chorus but is the band’s most popular number by far when it erupts into the chorus and thousands of arms wave and voices join in there really is a goosebump moment every time I hear it.

‘Kristallnach’ is another text-heavy song that has become a BAP classic. Here it is perfectly placed in the set before ‘Arsch Huh’. The first is a haunting song addressing 1938’s pogrom against Jews in Germany, and the latter written in 1992 at the formation of a movement adressing the need for racial and cultural tolerance. There is especial sadness in tonight’s rendition of ‘Arsch Huh’ though as its writer Nick Nikitakis passed away two weeks ago after a stroke. “He was not so lucky as I was to survive it” reflects Niedecken who himself almost died from a stroke in 2011, and Nikitakis appropriately appears on the video screens in black and white at the songs end.

In case anyone is still in doubt about lessons to be learned Niedecken cites German Theologist Martin Niemöller: “First they came for the socialists. I was not a socialist so I said nothing. Then they came for the Unionists. I was not a Unionist, so I said nothing. Then they came for the Jews and again I said nothing. I was not Jewish”. Niedeckens warning in 2025 is “Be vigilant!”

If I write about every one of tonights 31 songs this review will be as long as the concert itself. It featured though probably Kunstrasen’s very first Okarin (flute) solo – by Anne de Wolff. Which was also, as Niedecken smilingly points out, the very first Okarin solo ever played at the Wacken Heavy Metal Festival this year. In case you are wondering – it was used in the opening to ‘Wild Thing’ by the Troggs and can give a Gibson or Fender electric a run for its money in the loud and clear department as de Wolff proved. In fact, a word should go out about how marvelous the band around Niedecken is tonight. I remember seeing BAP at Museumsmile some years ago and was somewhat disappointed by the music played by that formation. This configuration though are great, rocking with energy and playing with feeling too when called for. Guitarist Ulrich Rode finds the right tone every song, and the fact that there is a horn trio enables Niedecken to find extra nuances in songs – providing plenty of variety which, in a 3+ hour concert, is a must.

Finish is at 10 minutes before the watershed of 10 pm. Niedecken could have come on at precisely at 8 pm after all. Clearly though he still loves to play and respects his audience enough to give them what they want for as long as he can. I wasn’t around in Germany in the 1980’s when BAP’s ‘Zeitreise’ began but I can imagine that’s how it was even then. I wish that Wolfgang Niedecken will, for many years to come, follow his own words (from ‘Sendeschluss’):

“Bleib da wo du bist

Hält dich irgendwo fest

und bleibt so wie du wart

Geradaus”