05-07-2008 Rheinkultur

Location: Bonn (Germany)
By: Nina Mende

The weather forecast for the day was announcing rain, and even some storm warnings were mentioned. But these facts didn’t stop me and 140 000 other visitors from coming to the Rheinkultur festival in Bonn/Germany. Reasons why to go there were not only because it was for free but also because there were many great acts on all 5 stages. Sunny weather, the heat was boiling us till the festival was almost over. Only during the last two bands it rained. But even that couldn’t change the fact that it had been a gorgeous day with many great bands and lots of fun.

The Rheinkultur festival is a one day festival, so we drove there in the late morning, arrived shortly before noon and tried to find our way in… and especially trying to find the check-in tent. After walking around the area one time we found it, located right next to the water. Next thing to do was to check out the lounge. A good thing as we realised just as we entered: there was a little kids pool where you could cool off your feet in. Only a few people were there already, mostly preparing for the day, so off we went to the pool cooling our feet and enjoying the time until the festival would begin.

One of the five stages was a Hip Hop Stage, one was a Techno Stage, one was with to me unknown artists and then there were the blue and the red stage with all kinds of rock acts like Blackmail, Bloodlights, Sportfreunde Stiller, Tomte and Dúné. Impossible to see them all, but you would have fun and see great performances whichever stage you chose.

Back out of the lounge we went again, walking around a little bit and seeing that there were already several people waiting in front of the stage although it was only a couple minutes past noon.

The first band we went to see was Trusting Nolan, a local band from Cologne that began in 2005, playing metal and hardcore. Trusting Nolan was glad to play at Rheinkultur before the guys went off to their Portugal tour. With lots of shouting the band rocked the people that were there already, which were quite many. They jumped around for some time and enjoyed performing. The audience cheered a lot, called the names of the band members and cheered even more. The singer went down into the photo pit to sing from there for a short while. The band played for about half an hour.

After the metal excursion we went to see Dúné on the same stage. A very young band from Denmark. Founded in 2001 this band had played many shows already and the seven Danes are very confident on stage. The music is very energetic and powerful, so is the band. They make you move along no matter what. The beats and the rhythm of each song get your body move and you have fun watching them, which I can promise you. Seven people in the band, including a female playing synths, and they also have a keyboard. So a very interesting band. Reminding of music like Disco Ensemble and The Sounds they amazed the now already much bigger audience. Little girls were screaming in the front rows, and everybody clapped, danced and jumped along. As they played a song off the first album we had to laugh a little bit. It was called “Bloodlights”. The music was very danceable and their German was quite good. Unfortunately they played for 50 minutes only. I could have watched them much longer….

The next band was the only one we watched on the other stage: Trashmonkeys. Four guys from Bremen dressed in all white and playing rock. The singer and guitar player kneeled down on the boxes several times and sag to us and the audience that was quite big already at this stage as well. During the band’s performance there was even some moshing going on. The audience jumped and cheered. Since my phone kept on ringing during their performance I couldn’t watch too much of it, but that didn’t matter too much either. Trashmonkeys rocked in white in the brightest sunshine, got the audience going along and had a blast.

Now we took a little break, a lunch break you could say. Sitting in the back, eating and drinking something, enjoying the great weather and chatting a little bit…

Next band on the read stage again: Bloodlights from Norway. There were many people eagerly waiting in front of the stage. As the band began the audience was dancing and enjoying it. The performance was very energetic and passionate; the band rocked their minds out. The audience appreciated that and got a circle pit going. The people enjoyed it more and more during the show. They cheered and clapped along. During “Bald and Outrageous” the band introduced each member. The only cover they played was “New Rose” by The Damned. After about 55 minutes performing their last song was “Addiction”.

A little later Futureheads performed on the same stage, a British band playing Brit pop. Somehow they did not show how much they enjoyed playing. They rather looked somewhat bored. But the audience still liked it and the performance was good.

The festival was now getting closer to the end, the sun began to set and the rain was pouring down. But more and more people gathered in front of “our stage” to see the following band: Blackmail. The audience went wild as the band entered the stage. Rocking, dancing and singing along, doing everything Aydo (the singer) said. For the “Wall of Death” they made a huge hole in the audience before they began to jump into each other and mosh big time. The performance was very energetic and powerful, great as usual. There was toilet paper and even a shoe flying onto the stage, I wonder why… Aydo stage dived for one song and stayed on top of the crowd for almost the entire song. The band had taken some of these huge balloons from the Sportfreunde Stiller who had a complete truckload of these and threw them into the crowd. A very great performance. Funny to watch what the band all got the audience to do.

Last band of the night was Anti-Flag. A quite political American punk band from Pennsylvania. Even more people were watching their performance, there was a huge mosh going on in the front rows. The band jumped around on stage big time, rocking their heads off and sharing their political views with everybody. The bass player crowd surfing and kneeled down on top of the crowd. Although the audience got a little off beat during clapping along everybody had fun and enjoyed this stage’s headliner and the closing of the night.

A great day of Rheinkultur was now ending. We are all looking forward what the next year will bring….

Links:
Rheinkultur Website
Trusting Nolan MySpace
Dune MySpace
Trashmonkeys MySpace
Bloodlights MySpace
The Futureheads MySpace
Blackmail MySpace
Anti Flag Official