Category Archives: Reviews

Sunny Skies again in the Rheinpark

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Just looking at this year’s programme of events for the Rheinaue Parkrestaurant is a mind-boggling affair.  From opening concert 8 July to the closing notes from local band Handmade on 30 August there is a concert virtually every evening.  Straight away then kudos to Walter Schnabel for organizing such a logistical helter-skelter.  That said though, the shows are some 90% cover-bands and 10% old-time Jazz, and I’m not too much a fan of cover-bands.  That’s something I first admitted to Rope Schmitz some 10 years ago now.  Rope, of course, is the frontman and a founding member of Bonn’s oldest Cover-band (from 1972 in fact) Sunny Skies.  Tonight they are playing at the Parkrestaurant Rheinaue, and I, the cover-band hater, am once again present with a camera and a notebook.  But WHY? you ask.  I’ll do my best to answer that one in the next paragraphs.

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John Fogerty – Proud as Ever

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The litmus-paper test of a memorable concert?  For me, a show only really works if I make the walk home afterwards with a tune from it lodged firmly in my head.  It hasn’t happened for a while now, but tonight I was truly spoilt for choice.  How could you choose between two Rock classics like ‘Bad Moon Rising’ and ‘Proud Mary’?  Plans for a support slot were dropped, and truthfully,  anyone would have just been a distraction.  This was a trip firmly focussed on the past – 50 years to be approximate, August 1969 to be precise.  History was made, iconic moments captured on film forever, an era captured on videotape – excepting one particular performance.  Here at Kunstrasen, we have the chance to enjoy what landed on the cutting room floor – the best songs of CCR Front-man John Fogerty.

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BOB without Beethoven – Classic Picnic time at Kunstrasen

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“Welcome to Bonn’s most beautiful Concert Venue”.  Perhaps Beethoven Orchestra Bonn (BOB) Director/Conductor Dirk Kaftan was genuinely only making a point about the beautiful surroundings at Kunstrasen.  A few spectators at this year’s ‘Klassik Picknick’ might well have taken it as a sly ‘dig’ at the disastrous renovation plans of the Beethoven Hall just down the road, however.  Aside from the fact it would get a bit cold in December though it started me to thinking that perhaps they should keep the Kunstrasen stage where it is and just build a football stadium-style roof over the spectator area to make it all-weather friendly and give the Beethovenhalle up as the ‘bad job’ it has become?

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Walk Off The Earth in Bonn

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Walk Off The Earth?  Somewhere that name said something…  I was still wondering precisely what though as I watched the video screen at Kunstrasen.  It was 8.05 pm and the band were in their dressing room (the green room as they called it) but announcing their imminent arrival on the video screen of Kunstrasen’s stage.  Ah yes, the video screen jogged my memory, there was a video I’d seen once of five youngsters singing Gotye’s ‘Somebody That I Used To Know’ Not unusual in itself, but they were all playing a single acoustic guitar at the same time. The eye-catching video garnered over 175 million views.  Suddenly I realized this could be an interesting evening, both musically and visually – and so it proved.

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Cynthia Nickschas – Playing in the Park

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Introducing Cynthia Nickschas to regular readers of this site would be a waste of words.  She’s appeared here in various guises and on various stages:  Stadtgarten, Harmonie, and this time around as part of Bad Godesberg’s ‘Musik im Park’ series. I’ll keep it short then for newcomers.  Nickschas made her mark as a street musician in the Bonn area, before being ‘discovered’ by top German singer-songwriter (Liedermacher)  Konstantin Wecker.  The lady has since put together her own (excellent) local band, played on ever bigger stages – and will move up to an even bigger one in August as support to Max Geissinger at Kunstrasen.  I last saw her play a fun set at Bonn Folk Club.

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Tears for Fears open Kunstrasen 2019

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It was Back to the ’80s with a bang on Friday as the KunstRasen Season 2019 kicked off with appearances by Kim Wilde and Tears for Fears.  Around 5,500 people braved the extreme heat and were rewarded with great pop music from an era when MTV videos ruled and it seemed like every song had to have a synthesizer solo.  A time when British bands were showing how it was done – as tonights show ably proved.

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Bluesbenders in the Park

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On the face of it Bonn and Chicago don’t have too much in common.  I am glad to say though that they do share a taste in both the playing and hearing of good raw electric Blues.   The best proof local proof being Bill Baum and his Bluesbenders, who once again proved at the Trink Pavillion in Bad Godesberg that you don’t need to be living on the streets of Chicago to play mean electric Blues.  You just need to feel it – and this quartet proves, time and again, that they do just that.

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Folk Club 103 with Cynthia Nickschas

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I would be a happy man indeed to make it to100.  Bonn Folk Club though has now made it to 103 and, on Friday’s evidence, it has never been healthier.  A visit from the very popular and very talented Cynthia Nickschas to Dotty’s Sports Bar was always going to draw a big and enthusiastic crowd – and so it proved.  An evening of song, laughter, and …plants.

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