It has become the biggest rock-music-festival in Northern Germany. The one who comes to Scheeßel in June knows what to expect: a diverse 3-day program with bands from a variety of genres that have one thing in common: They rock, somehow.
It is about the Hurricane-Festival in Scheeßel near Bremen, for the ninth time this year with all together 45 bands. The mixture of different music-styles proves the organizers right: the open air sold out already in advance. 60’000 people flocked to the Eichenring, a speedway, on this long weekend in June. A giant number and surely a success, however, all the people and with them the rush went to the expenses of that special Hurricane-feeling. Less would have been more in that case.
The weather was, by the way, those 3 days typical for Northern Germany: beautiful and dry when pitching the tent but overall rather cool, sometimes a bit sunshine then again rain. Despite the criticism about the number of people, the festival had a lot of goodies to offer, so that you can already mark the date for 2006 (June, 23rd – 25th) in your calendar.
FRIDAY
The first big highlight of the festival was without doubt Turbonegro on Friday, whose concert deserves the name “show” in a positive way.
Masses of people came together in Scheeßel on this day to court their heroes: countless Turbojugend-members with their blue denim-jackets took over the festival-site and partied together with other festival-goers to new songs like “Blow me (like the wind)” and classics like “I got erection”. Conclusion: a sweaty performance from those Norwegians on the Green Stage.
45 minutes later all the attention of the people in front of that stage was drawn to one man, with whom the word genius comes to mind: Trent Reznor played with his Nine Inch Nails one of the few and therefore highly-anticipated concerts in Germany and they delivered an impressive concert.
From the club-classic “Closer” to the latest single “The hand that feeds” – it was just excellent. The climax of the concert was without doubt the song “Hurt” with Reznor on piano. Awe-inspiring! Whilst Wir Sind Helden were cheered on the Green stage, worshippers of more heavy sounds preferred to remain in front of the Green Stage waiting for Rammstein.
And they showed exactly what was expected of them: A lot of pyro, a lavish stage set and overall a perfectly staged show. Typical Rammstein!
The final act on this first festival day was afterwards Oasis on the Blue Stage. For one it was boring but for others it was relaxed and easy-going. In any case a pleasant and rather quiet end of the night.
SATURDAY
At the latest at 2p.m. for Flogging Molly the festival-goers should have moved their tired bones out of their tents.
The ones that didn’t make it have missed a lot. Dancing, singing more dancing and singing, sweating and partying – there’s nothing more you have to say about the band around Dublin-born Dave King. Pure Fun with punk-tinged Irish folk! Only the performance time was with 30 minutes a bit too short.
After that things got experimental. Mike Patton allowed with Fantomas his musical “play instinct” full bent, some listeners appeared to be a bit confused, though.
The opinions may differ about this band but exactly this and the “being-different than everything else” and last but not least Mike Patton himself makes this band pretty interesting. You have to be open-minded, though, to really get into it.
Audioslave came to the stage a bit delayed but offered both own material and Soundgarden classics. Singer Chris Cornell seemed to be not one of the liveliest on this day but a solid performance anyway and especially the ladies took much pleasure in Cornell.
The following mass crush in front of the Green Stage aimed at System Of A Down. Annoyingly, the technique failed just with headliners and suddenly the sound dropped out. Unfortunately not only once but the party-, dancing- and sing along-mood wasn’t shadowed with songs like “Revenga”, “Chop Suey” and “Aerials”.
SUNDAY
Old heroes whose concerts have still so much charm like back then, musicians who connect past and present – New Order are among them.
A view that is surely shared by many festival-goers after the evening concert of that band on the Blue Stage. Bernard Sumner and his cohorts showed once again that one can count on them still for some time. They were especially thrilled about a fan-club from Manchester that made themselves heard with New Order yells in the first rows. The balancing act between old (“Temptation”, “True faith”, “Blue Monday”) and new was flawless. Nostalgia mixed with modernity!
The final Gig of the Open air is following on the Green Stage. Somehow everyone likes this band: The punk-rocker, the pop-fan, the metallers… the list could probably be continued endlessly because Die Ärzte are not limited to certain scenes if it comes to their audience. And so the bigger part of the still present Hurricane crowd was united for this last concert and they sang out together all the band’s songs.
More pictures in the gallery!
Saskia Meerbaum
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