Super hot music in super hot weather by super hot musicians. The Band was Supercharge, led since 1973 by Liverpudlian Albie Donnelly. The place Bundeskunsthalle rooftop as part of the General Anzeiger Sommergarten Festival.
In 1973, Liverpool bandleader Albie Donnelly founded the band Supercharge as a counter to the ubiquitous Mersey beat sound (remember Gerry & The Pacemakers or Swinging Bluejeans?) The band’s following 50+ years read like an encyclopedia of modern Pop/Rock: studio recordings in London with Bob Geldof and the Boomtownrats, record deals with Richard Branson’s Virgin Music, productions by Robert “Mutt” Lange (Graham Parker, AC/DC, Brian Adams). Add to that performances with Graham Parker, Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, B. B. King and Queen and you have compelling proof that Albie Donnelly’s Supercharge can lay claim to being amongst the number 1 rhythm and blues bands in Europe.
The beard may be whiter in 2026 but Donnelly and his band-mates are anything but a pensioner combo. Albie, aka ‘Mr. Supercharge’ is still coolness personified on the tenor saxophone, and his voice, which has matured over the years, is still strikingly powerful even in the dry heat atop Bundeskunsthalle this afternoon in August.
The band hammers out old style rhythm and blues with the force and panache of BB King. Not surpisingly as Albie notes during a well-deserved break when I ask him about the influence of the undisputed King of the Blues. – “We supported him a couple of times over the years. A wonderful man!”. Donnelly’s band here on the roof is, as was BB’s, complemented by a strong brass section. oddly though it forsakes trumpets or trombones in favour of three saxophones – with Donnelly’s tenor sax clearly dictating proceedings except when guitar was called for – which was excellently covered by the telecaster of Andre Tolba who even took his axe on a short walk-about before the heat drove him back inder the cool shade of the stage roof.
The audience themselves were making good use of the General Anzeiger umbrellas which produced a rolling sea of blue if you managed to stand on tip-toe and peer over them. For most of the people on the roof though that didn’t matter. It was enough to be up there on a sunny day. The wavy ‘Onda’ seating installation by Martin Pfeifle proved to be a particular favourite for adults whilst children were happy to forsake the music and take a shortcut via Carsten Höller’s ‘Rutschbahn’ and cool off in Jeppie Hein’s ‘Circular Appearing Rooms’ which has long been better known in the height of Summer as Bonn’s best free shower room. I didn’t see anyone, not even children, making use of Natalie Brehmer,’s ‘run ran run,’ running track. Possibly because it abruptly ends at an outer wall.
Back on the GA stage the band is playing ‘Caldonia’ and heading towards wrap-up time with the lively ‘Happy Birthday Blues’. The end of a great evening’s music and an all-too-short GA Sommergarten Season. Albie Donnelly looks as fresh as when the evening started. Could he really be 79 next week? Surely the white beard is just a fashion statement? Still Mr Supercharge after all these years.
Wonderful as it is to enjoy free music in Bonn there seems to be a slow strangulation of free events that I hope is not going to continue/increase in coming years. Both this GA Sommergarten Season and the upcoming Stadtgarten concerts at Alter Zoll are a week shorter than in previous years. In addition City events also seem to be cutting back on live music – the recent Bad Godesberg Weinfest had no stage for the first time in my memory. Hopefully there will still be resources for such events that enrich the life-quality of our beleagured City in these troubled times.
