tim.jagenberg.info

By coincidence I discovered an interesting upcoming concert in Frankfurt just that day. A “family run” balkan brass group.
“The quintessential brass Balkan band, originating from Vladicin Han, Southern Serbia, once again captures the mantle of leading band of Serbia (a title for which they have remained crowned since the late 80’s). Their music, performed by a twelve-piece strong band, is wholly defined by their own gypsy lineage whilst giving a knowing nod towards other musical and cultural backgrounds closely related to that of the Romani’s.” (myspace)
Father Boban is passing on the leadership of this group to his son Marko, which was nicely visible during the concert. At first Boban was in the center, directing the musicians. During the evening this slowly shifted, with Marko moving more and more into the center. My impression was that this also reflected in the music, getting more playful and incorporating modern, almost pop, elements. Definately a great concert, not at all what the prejudices reagarding brass bands in Germany are (old-folks stuff, …).

As every year, my group of friends from studies managed to organise a “class reunion”, this time at Oli’s parents house in the beautiful wine region Pfalz. The first evening we had a nice barbecue at the pool and later went to one of the winefestivals this region is famous for.

The next day we enjoyed the beuatiful weather in and around the pool, just relaxing and talking, playing some garden games (Boule, Beachball, Water-Volleyball, …) from time to time. We even witnessed a partial lunar eclipse that night!

“In the heart of the ‘Taubertal’ valley, with the backdrop of the beautiful medieval town of Rothenburg ob der Tauber, ‘the Eiswiese’ provides an exceptional site for an open air festival.
As well as the great location, this event is genuinely different from other open air events. As we are limited by the natural amphitheatre of the site, for us, it is a question of: ’size does not matter; it`s what you do with it.’ Yes, that`s what counts, folks!” (taubertal-festival.de)

Though the weather was predicted pretty bad (a lot of rain and strong winds) we again were rather lucky. It just rained a little bit Thursday night and it got story Friday, but that was it, the rest of the weekend was rather pleasant, not too hot or cold.
Because of the wind on Friday our pavillions mostly consistet of random sticks and fiber-reinforced tape by then. (Hail tape! What would I do without it?)
As I didn’t expect the parking area to be some sort of remote from the campsite, I removed the backseats from my car (which was surprisingly simple, cheers Toyota-engineers) in order to be able to fit my bicycle trailer in there. Arriving at the festival around midnight (the Filderstadt friends had saved some space for me), I realised that this was no necessary. As the concert area and the camping area were on different sites, there was plenty of space and one could just drive the car right to the campsite. With things beeing very well organised and easy going, I could just dive right into the festival spirit and relax. (Aside very good operated sanitary installations they also organised a small tent-supermarket with all the basics)

Hubert von Goisern “… is considered as one of the most influential heads of the “Neue Volksmusik” …” (last.fm) and of of his specialities is to incorporate folkmusic from various places around the world into his austrian based style. On his latest tour from the Black Sea to the North Sea he and his whole crew are travelling on a barque, which also is the base for the stage. Every now and then they stop at some town along the rivers they travel and stage a concert. At each of these shows they also include local artists with their distinct styles.
After my parents and me spent a day together in Darmstadt, we went down to Hirschhorn near Heidelberg to see one of these shows. Though the forecast predicted rain, we were lucky and enjoyed a great open air concert.