On September 18, the four-day-long Reeperbahn Festival in Hamburg opened its entrances to visitors from near and far. It’s a perfect sunny day to be filled with music, talks and exhibitions.
Apart from the Festival Village right next to St. Pauli station and the famous Millerntorstadium, the different venues where the various events take place are scattered all around Hamburg’s most famous street, the Reeperbahn.
Some venues are outdoors and for free, such as the N-Joy Reeperbus, a little trailer with a stage built in front of it. The sets here are 15 minutes long and most of the artists play at least one other show at the festival, either on the same day or on another one.
The same goes for Sebastian Schub, the first artist at the Reeperbus this Wednesday. Starting at 3:40 pm, the German singer-songwriter performs three songs, one of them a cover of Chappell Roan’s ‘Good Luck Babe!’. Between the songs, he engages with the audience a lot, telling the crowd he grew up in Hamburg but then moved to London to pursue his musical career, growing from playing covers on the streets to now playing his own shows with his own work. His newest single ‘Sing Like Madonna’ was released on October 11.
Later in the evening, Schub plays another set under the setting sun at the Festival Village’s Acoustic Stage. The audience is clearly enjoying the calm songs that fit the cute setting of this stage and its surroundings – a little tent on some grass, with deck chairs, fairy lights and garlands.
Back to the N-Joy Reeperbus in the afternoon just after 4 pm, Andrew Cushin plays his 15-minute set. In between the parts of the audience that happen to witness this show somewhat coincidentally, a few dedicated fans can also be seen. Despite his young age of 24, Cushin has already gathered a remarkable amount of well-known musicians as his supporters, such as Oasis’ Noel Gallagher, One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson, and Pete Doherty of The Libertines.
At this first show of his at the festival, the singer from Newcastle, which is prominent in his accent, performs three songs, the closer of the set being the first song he ever wrote – ‘Waiting For The Rain’. The next day, Andrew Cushin plays a longer show at Headcrash, a bit further down the street.
Besides the almost overwhelming amount of concerts, the Reeperbahn Festival also offers a range of talks, exhibitions and workshops all over the festival grounds.
On this first day, a FLINTA*-skateboard workshop is being held, hosted by skate collective SharkSkato from Hannover. On a skate ramp in the middle of the Festival Village, people are encouraged to take a board and try riding up and down, doing turns or dropping in. Everything is guided by helping hands for whoever needs them.
Right next to the ramp, there’s the Fritz Kola stage with an inviting little area of fake grass for people to sit on and enjoy the music. At this moment, German newcomer JAS is performing some of his songs there, including ‘500km’ and ‘Vermissen’. JAS explains initially he had planned to become a paramedic, but when he visited last year’s Reeperbahn Festival he liked the thought of playing on one of these stages and he’s happy that this year he gets to live this dream. Wrapping up this set of tough beats, ‘Winterherz’, the song that made him famous, is last on the setlist.
As the sun has almost disappeared for today and it’s getting cold, young German singer Ronja takes the stage at the N-Joy Reeperbus to play her 15-minute set. Just with her guitar, she manages to pull the crowd into her narrative songwriting, also explaining the meanings behind her songs and lyrics. With a bit of teaching beforehand, the audience sings along to some songs and the set is over before we know it. Ronja will also play another set the next day at Docks, a venue just across the street.
A few hundred meters down the Reeperbahn, at a club called Moondoo, Birmingham five-piece Swim Deep starts their gloomy set at 7:40 pm. Being in the crowded room, it feels like being transported back to the 80s, this feeling strengthened by the fact that one of the band members even looks a bit like young Robin Williams. For most of the set, it’s rather impossible to see a lot through the fog from the fog machines and it’s also quite hard to hear the vocals, but the melodic guitars definitely make up for it. To say the least, the crowd is certainly enjoying it and a lot of people are dancing heavily.
An hour later at Gruenspan, Wasia Project is one of the last bands of the day to take to the stage, performing a jazzy and fun set. At first, the songs are rather slow and calm but they get more and more upbeat as time passes. Wasia Project generally only consists of the siblings Will Gao and Olivia Hardy, but for this performance, they are accompanied by three other band members who play the drums, bass and saxophone, and it is obvious that everyone is enjoying their time on stage. Looking at the audience, there are also a lot of happy faces. Will’s playful melodies on the keys encourage the crowd to groove along and Olivia’s vocals match this all perfectly. With the last song being ‘Impossible’, Wasia Project close their set and releases the audience back into the night.
And that’s it for the first day of the Reeperbahn Festival. Whoever is smart enough is going home rather early today, to be prepared for the next three days that are still ahead. Check out all photos from the first day here!
