Festival season
June 3, 2011
Ever since Woodstock, it's been a summer ritual: Head out with some friends and a tent and check out the latest bands - whether it's a small town festival with just the locals or an arena drawing names as big as the ticket prices. DW presents the 2011 highlights on Germany's pop, rock and dance festival calendar.
Moers Festival
Hear the future of music now - that's the idea behind the Moers Festival (June 10 - 13). For the 40th time, the city of Moers hosts its legendary festival that focuses on improvised music. Jazz, electronic, pop, avant-garde: Everything is possible here, and weird and unusual sounds are exactly what visitors are after. Along with stars of improv from New York, Norway and Japan, it's a longstanding tradition to invite innovative singer-songwriters, traditional musicians from foreign cultures or makers of world dance music. This year's highlights include South African pianist Abdullah Ibrahim, salsa by La-33 from Columbia and Nigerian performer Seun Kuti with his band Egypt 80.
The Hurricane Festival
Hurricane got off to a rocky start in the 70s. Living up to the disastrous name, festival-goers burned down in the stage in 1977 when a number of top acts failed to perform. But in the last 15 years, the Hurricane Festival has rebuilt its reputation as northern Germany's Woodstock. Hurricane and its concurrent counterpart Southside are now two of the top events on the summer concert calendar, second only to Rock am Ring. From June 17 - 19, big names in alt rock take the stage in 2011, including the Foo Fighters, Arcade Fire and Portishead.
c/o Pop
Cologne likes to fancy itself the German capital of electronic music, and c/o Pop gets the city on its feet with all of the latest in electronic music. The five-day festival got its start eight years ago when Popkomm emigrated from Cologne to Berlin, leaving a gaping hole in the city on the Rhine's musical landscape. There's no designated stage or concert grounds at c/o Pop - events are spread throughout the city, from the Philharmonic concert hall to open air venues. Electro isn't the only thing on the program, and the organizers are proud to introduce audiences to up-and-coming acts. Jan Delay and Arcade Fire played here before making it big, and there's room for world music and pop in all of its many facets. Top German acts on the bill from June 22 - 26 include Philipp Poisel and Wir sind Helden.
TFF Rudolstadt
Rudolstadt is a little town in eastern Germany that invites performers from throughout the world each year for its event known simply as TFF, the acronym for "Tanz- und Folkfest" ("Dance and Folk Festival"). At the 21st edition from June 30 - July 3, visitors can look forward to a sampling of the diverse Swiss music scene, hearing a multi-national ensemble of harpists play together and dancing to the music of the likes of Youssou N'Dour and Dr. John. Events take place on 20 stages in Rudolstadt's picturesque old downtown district and in outdoor venues around town. Music fills the narrow streets, and the atmosphere is one of a kind. With 70,000 visitors, the TFF operates at more than full capacity, so the program this year has been expanded from three to four days.
Stimmen Festival Lörrach
You're in for a disappointment if you head to Lörrach expecting meadows, tents and a Woodstock feeling. Everything at this festival - whose name, Stimmen, can be translated as "voices" - revolves around the human voice. Taking the stage are classical and sacred music ensembles, but also solo stars like Erykah Badu and Jamie Cullum. The 31 concerts run from July 7 - 31. One unusual twist: Persian Sufi music set to poems by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. During a range of international vocal workshops, guests can step up to the mic. Having started 18 years ago in Lörrach in southwestern Germany, the festival has since expanded to smaller venues nearby.
Melt!
Europe's biggest festival of indie and electronic music draws 30,000 visitors to an open-air museum featuring enormous wonders of engineering in an area a little bit north of Leipzig. The event from July 15 - 17 features the usual smorgasbord of favorite indie acts - including Crystal Castles, Digitalism, Metronomy and Cut Copy - sure to strike some as obscure and others as the best of recent pop. It's up to the listener to decide if the festival is a great chance to discover new rock and pop or to marvel at how it's all been done before. This year, promoters make an environmental statement by offering special trains to the event including sleeping cars and a one-week bike tour leading to the festival grounds.
Wacken Open Air
The first Wacken Open Air came in 1990, drawing 800 visitors to a little town in northern Germany. Far from its humble beginnings, the world's biggest heavy metal festival has about 80,000 visitors yearly. Wacken is proof that heavy metal and small-town, rural living can complement each other - at least for a few days at a time. A team of local fire fighters traditionally open the event, and pictures circulate of metal fans picking up the trash afterwards. Wacken Open Air runs from August 4 - 6 this year.
Berlin Festival
With a rather drab name and a big disappointment last year - due to overcrowding, festival organizers closed early so that several bands couldn't perform - the Berlin Festival may not seem to have much going for it. But this year's lineup gives plenty of reasons to head to Tempelhof Airport on September 9 - 10. The indie, rock and club music ranges from classics like Suede and DJ Hell to newer acts like Hercules and Love Affair from New York. But even if the party should end earlier than guests would like, dancing will no doubt continue in clubs all over Kreuzberg until dawn and beyond.
Author: Matthias Klaus / gsw
Editor: Rick Fulker