The sky was indeed sunny. A rare Summers day like we had when I was a boy, with puffy white clouds seemingly hung in a breezeless sky like cotton candy, underneath which people were enjoying cold drinks and hot music in the balmy evening heat. In the heavens sunny skies, and on the stage of the Rheinaue Sunny Skies too. What more could you want?
Category Archives: Reviews
Singing on the Telephone
It should have been a ‘Stink Normales’ ‘Singers Night’ at Bonn Folk Club, but, as regulars will know only too well, nothing is ever ‘Normal’, and the only predictable thing about Folk Club evenings is their unpredictablility. Part of the blame for which, on this particular Friday evening, rests with Barry Roshto. It was he who suggested at a recent meet that everyone should bring along a song relating to telephones.
Bob Dylan – Reigning in the Sunshine
“I came, I saw, I conquered…” The words of Julius Caesar might easily have been coined by Bob Dylan after Wednesdays show at Bonn Kunst!rasen. You might even be forgiven for thinking that Caesar also first declared “The answer my friend is blowing in the wind” – it certainly seems like those words have been around since the Roman Empire existed. So how do you keep songs fresh that seem to have been literally written in stone? His Bobness knew how, and the many listeners came away knowing that where legends are concerned Bob Dylan is very much the living variety.
Lou Reed Kicks off Kunstrasen
Bap frontman Wolfgang Niedecken in the audience, Bonn Lord Mayor Jürgen Nympsch in the VIP tent. A small field next to a duckpond and just a literal stones throw away from Father Rhine was THE place to be on Friday evening as Brooklyn’s original street rapper Lou Reed headlined the first ever concert at Kunst!Rasen.
3songsbonn took a walk on the Rhineside…
JazzTube Stop Two
Friday (22 June) saw the second stage of the SWB Jazz competition JazzTube which brings Jazz talent to the Ubahn Stations of Bonn, with the most popular Act getting a coveted concert in October at the Harmonie. Just listening to two of the latest entrants left me with the phrase ‘Chalk & Cheese’ on my mind. How can you compare a Jazz vocalist (Filippa Gojo) to a Trombone player (Lisa Pflaum)? You can’t of course, so maybe it’s better just to enjoy the music and know that the future of Jazz is in safe hands in the Bonn/Cologne region at least.
Bobbin’ at the Museumsmeilenfest
A flaming hot boogie from the ‘Boppin’ Bobbin Baboons’
The weather was fine so I took a walk down ‘to the hop’ on Friday. Well, to the Museumsmeilenfest actually – but the theme was decidedly 50’s with music from a little combo with an unlikely name: The Wild Bobbin Baboons, a fashion show and vintage Oldsmobiles.
The Bobbin Baboons, to give them their shortened name, are already a popular act in the area and have played before at the Harmonie as well as in their home town of Koblenz at Cafe Hahn. A potent mix of 50’s classics and stage acrobatics – not many bands set fire to pianos or wave double basses over their heads these days or any days past for that matter. It’s ultimately the music that counts though, and clearly these guys respect and love it in equal measures. As lead singer ‘Smelly Pelly’ told me later, He just heard Rock ‘n’ Roll from the likes of Fats Domino and Buddy Holly and was instantly hooked. “It doesn’t take much equipment-wise to play the songs, and most of them are simple Rock n Roll” as he described his favourite music. The Art of writing classic Rock, Pop, or any other music that lasts of course is creating a song that sounds like it grew itself, which isn’t so simple – there is a wealth of such Classics out there and this Band play it with both a musical and a visual punch.
Bonn Folk Club 27
‘Four Fiddlers’ at Folk Club
It was a case of old (as in familiar!) faces in new places, as Bonn Folk Club Evening number 27 kicked off at Rheindorfer Hof. It proved an excellent venue for live Folk too – if only the walls were further part so we could get more seats in.
Easy enough to find. Turn left instead of right after the bus stop at Grauerheindorf and there it is – Rheindorfer Hof. As I’m taking a picture of the building I can even hear the clattering of horses hooves coming up the road. A rustic venue for sure, perfect for a bit of rustic Folk music. The clattering gets louder and around the bend comes – not a shetland pony, but John Harrison in his best clogs. As we enter the building, I’m wondering if loud shoes are legal in such a sleepy rural corner of Bonn. I’m also hoping we’re not the only ones here for the Folk evening, but it’s soon clear that all the reminders have paid off and familiar faces greet us inside the very appealing lounge of the Pub Restaurant. So many of them in fact, that I have to grab one of the few remaining seats whilst it’s still ‘bottomless’.
Tangoyim at GoVinum
What a wonderful atmosphere in the cosy wood panelled interior of the GoVinum wine bar in Bad Godesberg with this evening’s stars Stefanie Hölze and Daniel Marsch, who together as the Klezmer Duo Tangoyim brought Ulf Breuer’s latest half year of “live acoustic music on the last Tuesday of the month” to a very fitting close at the end of the spring season in 2012 before the long summer break.
John Harrison reports.