25-04-2010 T-Mobile Xtreme Playgrounds

Venue: Duisburg (Germany)
By: Nina Mende

T-Mobile Xtreme Playgrounds is a huge playground not only for BMX Bikers, Dirt Bikers and such, but also for big kids like me and music lovers. We went to the event in Duisburg, Germany.

In between the dirt bike and bmx challenges punk bands were playing. That was all indoors. Outdoors you could try a lot of funs stuff like riding down a halfpipe or jumping against sticky walls, or you could simply run around and collect merchandise of the sponsors.

Indoors there was a dirt bike parcours set up and on the other side of the venue there was a stage. The event was sold out. 4000 visitors were expected, all of them seemed to be punk fans. But there were also many people only coming because of the bands. First band of the night was Sum41. They didn’t ply for long but with a big bang they got everybody going on in an instant. Everybody was jumping around along with the Canadians, singing and shouting, cheering to the boys on stage. Sum41 got up some fans to watch the show from the stage. The singer was talking quite a lot to his fans. They played some of their hits as well as several songs off their latest album. Several of the people watching seemed to know the songs.

Another xtreme sports challenge was up. But the weather was so brilliant outside that many people were spending time outside in the sun.

The second band of the festival was the US band AFI. The people in the front row seemed quite young and only knowing the latest album of the band. Not many people could sing along to the older songs of AFI.The band even played songs from 1993 and 1996. Davey and Hunter had a lot of room on the big stage to run and jump around. The show was intense and nobody stood still. The band had picked a great mix of old and new songs that made us wish this show would never end. But it did. As last song before the encore Davey and the guys played a cover of Ramones. What a wonderful show it was.

After the finals of the xtreme challenge the punk legend Bad Religion came on stage. With their 30 years anniversary they knew hot to rock the crowd. BUt the audience seemed a little young to know all the old songs. Bad Religion played an awesome show with old and new songs, many of their hits and a lot of talking with their audience.

Extreme Playgrounds by T-Mobile is always a blast and a great party. Great bands, awesome sport shows, and a lot of fun with great sponsors. A definite must for everybody that loves to have a good time.

Links:
Sum41 MySpace
Sum41 Official

A Fire Inside Official
Bad Religion Official

Bad Religion MySpace
T-Mobile Playground Website