We’re only just in 2023 but already more than 40,000 tickets have been sold for this Summer’s Kunst!Rasen Season.
A rundown of the current program:
15.06 Santiano 18.06. Klassik!Rocknacht 19.06. Bon Iver 20.06. Porcupine Tree 24.06. Achtung/Note: No Classic Rocknacht at Kunst!Rasen. Instead E Werk Köln with Billy Gibbons & The Bfg’s! 04.07. One Republic 07.07. Roland Kaiser 08.07.Folk!Picknick 14.07. Simply Red 15.07. Broilers 02.08. Bastille – Neu 04.08. Brings 10.08. Placebo 12.08. Niedeckens BAP
With a couple more shows still to be confirmed so watch this space…
Back to Kunstrasen’s ‘Klein aber Fein’ Vsecond Stage. Roxanne de Bastion and Daniel Bongart were on the bill on a day when all the threat of rain during Sunday’s VIP lounge concert arrived with a vengeance from early afternoon on Tuesday evening. An hour before the music was due to start there were regular peals of thunder from the Rheinaue direction. A wise man would have stayed home. I set out – with a raincoat and strong umbrella. Well, there was an English lady waiting for me. Waiting for an audience of any sort I suspect as the lightning lit up the early evening sky.
‘Musik unter der Zeder’ makes a welcome return to the Bonn Open-Air calendar in July/August. The concerts, created by The Kleinen Theater and KuKuG in Bad Godesberg were a storming success last year, and the 2021 programme looks to be as strong as, or dare I say it, even stronger this Summer. From the opener with Brazilian Jazz & Latin Grooves offered by Astatine and very special guests through to African Drums that will signal the Festival’s close on 9 August there is a veritable cornucopia of musical styles coming our way in the Kurpark Bad Godesberg.
Read on for more information and feedback from the musicians who gathered for this week’s press conference…
Jan Delay has now added an extra show to his Kunstrasen appearance this year. The top German Rap star follows hot on the heels of a similar ‘double booking’ for Lea and makes me wonder if this could be the new norm for concerts – if you can only have half as many people attending, then do two shows. Anyway, Delay is now scheduled for both 24th and 25th August, 7pm Kunstrasen.
There are few musicians in the German pop landscape who can boast a career as rich in surprises as Jan Delay.
He draws from five decades of (black) pop history, but plays just in the here and now. In him are Daft Punk and Drake, Burna Boy and Stefflon Don, Sly & Robbie and Meek Mill. Jan Delay and his terrific band play with disco, trap, funk, afrobeats, ska, arena techno, reggea, rock, soul …. as only free spirits like Jan Delay & Disko No.1 can do.
Jan Delay has always been a popstar by conviction. Never shying away from the big melodies and moments, rather embracing and celebrating them and bringing them into his own cosmos. Only the obvious has never interested him. On the contrary, it is precisely the small breaks and apparent contradictions in his music and artistic personality that have made him relevant over three decades, a period of time that is incomprehensible by hip-hop standards: from the Rote Flora to “Grün Weiße Liebe” to features with Hafti and Tretti. He still takes the political personally almost 30 years after “K.E.I.N.E”.
The fact that he always gets away with it, however, is not only due to his unerring rhyme art and his fine sense for crisp slogans, nor to the trademark of his unique singing voice, but above all to a hard-won fact: There is simply no better live band in this country than Disko No. 1 and their stylish MC Jan Delay.
Congratulations to the Kültürklüngel Orkestar for being one of three local organizations awarded the Bonner Heimat-Prize for 2021.
The ‘Kültürklüngel Orkestar’ is an open and diverse music project that has origins in the grand Bonn Carnival tradition. The concerts of its free-flowing network of local musicians are very often spontaneous affairs with any number of contributors from any number of cultural backgrounds. This is very much reflected in their music, which the orchestra describes as “coming from Orient and Occident, North and South, from the Balkan region to Swabia”. It may at times seem chaotic when you see them marching through the City Centre streets playing. but there is method behind the ‘madness’ whith the aim, by concerts end, to have broken down all cultural barriers with the passers-by through the sheer joy and force of music.
KuKuG in Bad Godesberg has just revealed plans for its open-air season Under the Cedar Trees (Unter der Zeder) in July and August, Covid restrictions permitting.
Six concerts have been tentatively planned in July and August 2021, and if you were unable to travel abroad physically this year, you will certainly have the chance to cross the oceans musically before Summer is out. Familiar faces include Astatine (5 July) with Brazilian Jazz & Latin Grooves, and Marion & Sobo (19 July) with Gypsy & Chanson – fans of Django Reinhardt should not miss this one! Simon Kempston and Bonn Folk Club fans should make a date on 2 August when the British Isles is showcased.
