What with Folk Club Anniversaries and a last weekend at Kunst!rasen it was a hectic weekend for music in Bonn.
Just time in between Saturday shopping to catch some of the excellent young musicians entertaining in the City Centre to mark the 2014 Beethoven Season. Amy Winehouse songs and saxophones seem very much in trend amongst the youngsters. One thing very clear though is that Jazz fans in Bonn are going to be well catered for in the next decade, and that’s good news for sure!
Bigband der Europa Schule Bornheim, The EMA-Bigband and the Bigband der Musikschule Bonn are all mixed in here but you’ll know who is who if you’re in a picture – and if not, maybe you’ll be in a top band one day and appearing again here on 3SongsBonn…
The last Kunst!rasen weekend is already here and it’s been an interesting mix of musicians who have taken to the giant stage by the Rhine this year. Another interesting evening is promised tonight too. Gregor Meyle is not a superstar by any means but he’s made a name for songwriting and live shows – the latter through an audience rapport that was evident when he implored the Haribo contingent on the VIP balcony to sing along seperately to ‘Don’t worry Be Happy’ and got an enthusiastic response that must have left them with laryngitis for Monday at the office.
The old song title ‘God is great, beer is good, people are crazy’ has become the motto of Folk Club Bonn, and it was indeed taken very seriously, as the 50th Club Meeting was rigorously planned. You would have to be crazy to walk round the streets of Grauerheindorf with pipes blazing the musical way and then fit 50 musical acts into one evening each singing one song. It took planning and meticulous judgement. It took guts. It took people who were… crazy…!
Bonn Folk Club will be 50 sessions old this coming Friday, 5 September 2014. The celebrations will start at 6pm with a ‘wander’ through Graurheindorf to the tune of a Galician bagpipes and involve grabbing a quick pint at former Club venues The Schützenhaus and Rheindorfer Hof. Then it will be back to Haus Müllestumpe for a gala from 7.30pm that will involve 50 acts playing 50 songs on two alternating stages. Sounds crazy? If you like crazy the way I do, don’t miss it!
DJ, Rockband? Theatre? Cinema? Parov Stelar is all of this. It’s a DJ sampling the music, a theatre piece of trumpets and saxophones, a cinemascreen of flashy video clips, It’s also the pseudonym of the man sitting high up on the Kunst!rasen stage and creating the samples for the band to bring to life.