The sun continued shining for this weekend’s concerts at Stadtgarten Alter Zoll. Saturday saw three young bands presented by popNRW: Becky Sikasa, Florence Besch, and Easy Easy. The latter band’s name describes how it felt to be sitting on the lawn overlooking the beer garden and watching the setting sun glint off the surface of the Rhine.

First a quick intro of popNRW who presented music this evening for the first time at the Stadtgarten Festival. As the name suggests, popNRW’s aim is to promote young musicians in the NRW region and make them visible to a wider international music scene. 3songsbonn finds that a very good thing, and is pleased to put out some ‘Werbung’ in English to a wider English audience. Yes, World, there is some talented music coming out of the region (as this website attests) and tonight’s bands further emphasized that fact.

This evening’s band at Bonn Kunstrasen came fresh on the heels of a headline spot at Wacken, one of Europe’s loudest and proudest heavy metal festivals. Given the problems with noise at shows these days I had to read that last sentence twice to believe it. In the end, the songs were strong enough to survive the drop in volume, and aside from a discontented remark mid-show, The Dropkick Murphys and their loyal audience seemed none the worse for the decibel drop. Along with Dublin support band The Scratch they managed to deliver a powerful set on the night.

‘Songs That Matter’. That’s a pretty heavy tag to put on a concert. We all have songs that ‘matter’ personally to us of course, but songs that matter generally? that’s a pretty tall order to fit into one evening. I take off my metaphorical hat then to Marcus Schinkel (keyboards), Johannes Kuchta (vocals, percussion) who, together with introductions by journalist Jörg Lange had a good stab at narrowing down the field. So, from the fifty or so songs that were shortlisted between them, which ones made it to the final presentation? Read on…

This week sees the closing concerts down by the Rhine at Kunstrasen and the ever-popular Wolfgang Niedecken with his Band BAP on 12 August is now officially sold-out. Until then, enjoy this video from the band’s Kunstrasen appearance in 2013.

Here are the start times for this year’s remaining shows:

10.08.23 8.15pm  Uhr Placebo / 7.00pm The Muder Capital / 5.00pm Uhr Einlaß

11.08. 8.15pm Dropkick Murphys 7.00pm The Scratch 5.00pm Einlaß

12.08. 6.30pm Uhr Niedeckens BAP – Ausverkauft! 4.30pm Uhr Einlaß

13.08. 8.00pm Uhr Calum Scott 7.00pm Uhr  Anny Ogrezeanu 6.00pm Uhr Einlaß

In my ideal world, there would be a live music stage in each City Centre every weekend in the Summer for people to enjoy. As it is though we only have such a Saturday once a year, and this year’s Stadtmusik Day was the usual joyous collection of assorted music, by a varied assortment of musicians, for an equally varied assortment of listeners. For some reason known only to Bonn Council, the four stages in Bonn are so wide apart these days that the time when one could wander from one to another is sadly over (unless said council has a rethink?!). With Steve Crawford/Sabrina Palm, Astatine & Friends, and The Lazarev Project Outside the Stadthalle in Bad Godesberg seemed a good choice, and so it proved. Apologies to the Fountain Cave Basement Orchestra for missing your set – other commitments were to blame.