I don’t know where you were on Saturday evening, but I was attending my first ever Bluegrass Concert. You are, as they say, never to old to learn something new. In this case I was actually learning something quite old. A style of music that goes back, as we shall find out later, to the 1940’s. None of the nine musicians playing in the two bands at Trinkpavillon this evening would have been alive when it was discovered I hasten to add – but clearly the members of Bluegrass Guerilla and The Villwock Brothers have taken Bluegrass Music to their hearts, and by evening’s end I had another musical rabbit hole to go down and lots of new songs and bands to discover.
Posters for her current ‘Power’ Tour proudly proclaim “The Blues Queen is Back!” and there’s no doubt that Ana Popovic has been away from Bonn for quite a while. That pause was down not just to Covid and her move to The States, but also due to a fight with Cancer that she has thankfully won. She looks as bewitching as ever in those posters, but is she truly still the Blues Queen? There was a packed house at Bonn Harmonie to find out.
This year sees the 20th Anniversary of the Rockpalast Crossroads Festival in Bonn. To celebrate it’s longer than ever this year, starting on Tuesday and rocking clean through to Saturday, so there should be something for every rock music fan in there. Tuesday’s openers Bywater Call were definitely a good reason for me to head down to the Harmonie, and I also had a niggling desire just to see how anyone could call themselves Eddie 9V. It turned out he was more than just a fun name.
To quote the title of one of this evening’s tracks, Bonn was well and truly ‘Gone to Texas’ on Thursday (18 Oct). Well, at least, Texas had certainly come to Bonn in the shape of two of its premier Blues Rock ‘n’ Rollers. To the uninitiated, Mike Zito and Albert Castiglia go back a long way together, hence the tour title ‘Blood Brothers’. With so many long-term fans in attendance at the Harmonie it certainly seemed like a family affair.
A special guest from Huddersfield UK, Johnny Campbell, and a special event of a different nature were the defining features of Folk Club Bonn #139. A pleasantly full house at Dotty’s in Dottendorf was there to enjoy a pleasantly varied collection of music and musicians – and that special event? Read on…
Old Trees. Has Folk Club had that theme before? If not, it certainly should have. Many is the time now that John Harrison has been found standing under an old oak or a beleaguered birch extolling the virtues of the Green Man. No trees allowed inside Dotty’s of course but Bonn Tree Guardian (Baumwächter) Andreas Thieves was on hand to remind us what these tall and patient guardians of Nature do for us.
All good things etc… On Saturday evening it was time for the 2023 Stadtgarten Season to come to an end. The month has flown by and hopefully, there has been something for everyone, that’s always the aim of the Kulturamt der Stadt Bonn led by the tireless enthusiasm of Hans -Joachim Over oder ‘HaJo’ as everyone knows him. Today it was largely French Music Night with local band the Soline Ensemble and French Indie-Pop band The Rodeo, with a warm-up for everyone courtesy of the Bonn inclusion band Project Inclusion. Three bands then – and a 6:30 pm start to cram all the good music in.
In 2018 she was the newcomer on the Blues Caravan alongside Mike Zito and Bernard Allison. In the five years since though Vanja Sky has been building a very solid reputation and an excellent band as shown last year in her appearance at Bonn Harmonie on the mighty Rockpalast. There were some very promising songs on that show from the upcoming new disc. That disc is now coming up for release in July, . Titled Reborn and in comparison to her debut Bad Penny the title could not be more apt.
If you haven’t visited Vanja Sky’s music since her RUF records days then you are in for a surprise, and if you are a fan of hard rock music it will be a very pleasant one. The opener ‘Hero’ gives you a whopping big clue as to where the music has headed with its clap-along opening drum beat perfect for big venues at Rock festivals which is where the current band seems destined to triumph. Indeed, There are big rock riffs throughout the disc and the influence on Vanja’s musical direction of guitarist/arranger Gunther Haas cannot be overestimated. Haas gives ‘Devil Woman’ (remember Vanja wearing those devils horns at Rockpalast – see below pic?) and ‘Rusty Fingers’ a perfect ZZ Top vibe as well as a classic feel to the much covered Humble Pie song ‘I don’t need no doctor’.
Many readers will appreciate the contribution of Roger Innis on so many contemporary blues releases and he was with Vanya Sky in the Studio in Hamburg contributing to the lyrics on ‘can you here life knocking’, ‘Riding high’ and Rusty fingers’
Vanja’s rising status is seen in the guest appearances on ‘Reborn’. I remember telling Gerry MacAvoy about a young Croatian girl doing Rory Gallagher’s ‘Bad Penny’ on her debut disc and his promising to check it out – and here Gerry is playing bass on Vanja’s storming rendition of Rory’s live classic ‘I take what I want’. She delivers an excellent version of Ten Years After’s ‘Love to change the world’ too, and there’s Rick Lee from the band on drums.
She may not be the greatest female rock vocalist on the planet, but there’s a quantum leap in Vanya’s voice and confidence here with the songs well calculated to work within her vocal range and kick ass too. Great production work too by Bodo Schulte and Vanya to get a good rock sound from both voice and music.
It’s hard to pick highlights from such a solidly satisfying rock release but certainly ‘Muha’ with the shared vocals of current Nazareth and Don Airey vocalist Carl Sentance is a standout, as is the pop/rock ‘Can you hear life knocking?’. But picking stand-out tracks is literally, well, being picky. Vanja sings on the ballady ‘Runaway’ “I want to fly. Just like Freebird, stay in the sky”, and that tells you where the musical heart of the girl and her band is coming from in 2023 . If you’re a fan of rock heroes like Rory, Thin Lizzy, ZZ Top and co then check out the latest Vanja Sky disc. The cover shows her as a young child on a tv screen next to the lady all grown up in 2022, and, like the lady, the music is all grown up and ready to rock with the best of them.
