Short impression of the Reeperbahn Festival

I'm still amazed by the Reeperbahn Festival, even though I didn't notice that much. Incredible atmosphere, lots of friendly people, great music - and in an incredible range. But one after anonther…

I have already reported on two activities surrounding the Reeperbahn Festival: Little Simz and this beautiful one Soccer game with Marcus Wiebusch. The wonderful Shawty gave me the tip about Little Simz – hers Tonrabbit You probably know this site, unless you don't give a damn about rap.

I met Shawty on Friday shortly after the Little Simz concert. Shawty was the "local scout" for - how could it be otherwise - rap and hip hop at the Reeperbahn Festival. Since I personally had no time to prepare until that Friday, I was very grateful to be able to cling to her sneakers. But first we chilled out a bit in front of Easy Kisi.

The thing opposite the former Esso houses was a great place to chat and party every evening. On Saturday I was there shortly before the loudspeakers were switched off and the asphalt was soft.

Anyway, Shawty and I went to the Nochtspeicher on Friday night and heard something Olsen sing together like that. I'd never heard of this guy and to be honest it's not my kind of music. However, it was a nice concert and Olsen became more and more interested in the location and people as the evening went on. He had a great party there.

Unfortunately, the lighting in the location was a disaster. To make matters worse, someone had left the video projector on and it was shining directly into Olsen's face. Not only did this lead to complete color shifts when taking photos - I didn't even try to take photos in color. I also had to be careful not to have "HDMI" written on his face. In the second picture of the set below, you can see the imaginary edge of the projector's screen on his neck.

In general: taking photos – I only had a normal ticket to the Reeperbahn Festival. I could get into the small clubs with my camera without any problems. At the docks on Friday evening, however, it was closed at the entrance. Even though Beatsteaks was only the next gig, the security people didn't want to let me in with the Leica. Although I only found out later that the Beatsteaks were even playing, I didn't discuss it. I didn't care! I was only traveling with the camera for my personal fun.

However, I have the feeling that once musicians reach a certain level of fame, they are obviously afraid that photos could steal their songs. I would be happy about every visitor who took good pictures of my concert with a high-quality camera - because good photos definitely convey more atmosphere than these unspeakable cell phones, which are completely overwhelmed in the lighting conditions. Apart from that, I find the video function in cell phones much more dangerous for musicians: I wouldn't want to see bad-sounding music videos of myself on YouTube. But no matter: I'm just a consumer.

On Saturday I had some time to prepare and picked out three personal highlights at the Reeperbahn Festival. And I absolutely shouldn't be disappointed.

But first of all, I smiled at the security at Große Freiheit 36. “The Dø” was performing there that evening. At the entrance, the friendly security guard said, looking at my camera: “SLR cameras have to be left at the cloakroom.” I politely pointed out that a Leica is not an SLR camera. And I was let through without any problems. Later in the concert, I saw someone taking photos with an analog camera a few meters in front of me - but it was an SLR camera. But I'm not picky about that 😉

"The Do“ are an indie-pop band from France that I like to listen to at night while editing photos.

At this concert, The Dø played mainly completely new songs, which will only be released soon – at the end of October – on “Shake, Shook, Shaken”. That is why not everything worked and there were technical problems. I already had that at Little Simz experienced and is certainly due to the fact that many bands share the same stage at the festival. It was only the third time The Dø played the songs live in front of an audience. You can't have a more exclusive preview of the new album. And: I really liked it.

Concert over, out of the hall, onto the bike and to the clubhouse of the magical FC St. Pauli. Yes, the location was also part of the Reeperbahn Festival and, appropriately, punk music from Stuttgart played.

During my preparation, I found the following video by the band “Schmutzki”, thought it was funny and planned to go to the concert. (In the version of the video, the song actually only starts after a minute.)

(Edit: The video was removed from YouTube by Gema. You know that…)

Dirty Ki rocked the clubhouse and the large glass panes were fogging up after what felt like 5 minutes of the concert. Inside, people were singing along and pogo dancing. Wonderful. I had a lot of fun. And the drummer scrounged a cigarette from one of the guests during the concert and smoked it comfortably on the stage - that was part of the song, of course.

The night was drawing to a close and the musical break after Schmutzki couldn't have been greater. After the clubhouse I went to the St. Pauli Church. This had a lasting effect for me, because it meant that I actually got on TV on Monday. Here is a screengrab from the NDR show "DAS!" as proof.

It is completely understandable that television chose this concert at the Reeperbahn Festival to report on. Only a piano was needed “Lambert“, to get the packed church excited.

The man with the antelope mask played enchanting melodies and occasionally entertained with humorous announcements. A fantastic concert, the only one with encores, and a worthy conclusion to the Reeperbahn Festival 2014. I'll definitely be back next year...