Kulturpark, Deutzen, Germany4th to 6th September 2015
Nocturnal Culture Night 10 - Warm-up Party with THE SEXORCIST and KLEQQ DEEJAY EDITION on 3rd September and General Impressions
Nocturnal Culture Night, short NCN, was celebrating its 10th anniversary and that was a good reason to celebrate a special festival including some new installments. For the first time at the NCN, a warm-up party was organized on Thursday 3rd of September and the less we could say is that not so many people were aware of the vent when we were announcing it at the camping entrance, but everybody rejoiced. Besides that, the festival has now four fully played open air stages whereof the Willow-Bow Stage and the Culture Stage are theme stages presenting special kinds of music like Minimal or Neo-Folk as well as authors’ readings and bands that are very new in Germany and where the promoters first want to see how they work on Germany.
But there were not only changes according the stages, there was also a new open air seating area in the woods – very beautiful. And there was a new concept for the toilets: the pee-flat-rate. It is always a problem… either you pay and have clean toilets or you go for free and soon, anything is dirty. I think, this flat-rate was a good solution, especially as you could share the tickets with other people. One thing that is not now but worth a mention: the great choice of beverages and food stalls. Of course you have the usual beer / soft-drink stuff and a grill. But there is so much more. You have a stall selling cocktails or punch, there is an Absinth stall and there are stalls with various coffee specialties. On the medieval market you could buy hot Met or dark cherry beer. As for food, there were several stalls also with vegetarian / vegan alternatives. Two are worth to mention: the Vleischerei selling vegan Döner, Burgers or Gulasch (excellent taste!) and the Mexican stall with Burgers, Chili and Burritos. There were many international meals offered at the festival as well as local stuff, you could buy also the great “Kräppelchen”, some fried pastry, or “Baumstriezel”. Most excellent!
But enough of the food, back to the festival area and the music. This year’s festival was nearly sold-out with just under 3,000 people. Due to the new concept, the area grasps more people than in the past years, but 3,000 is the absolute limit according to organizer Holger Troisch. The area in front of the main stage alone grasps 2,500 people. The musical choice was once more fantastic. Of course there were the well-known headliners. But especially the small stages had a lot of surprises. Like KITE or HENRIC DE LA COUR, playing the Culture Stage on Saturday, LEGEND on Friday who were invited again after their fantastic show last year, DAS ICH in original line-up with a very talkative Stefan Ackermann, ORPH, ASH CODE, TWICE A MAN, PSYCHE… just to name a few and my personal favourites. More about the bands in our detailed reviews. NCN is always some kind of family gathering. It feels like coming home. People are here for the music, for meeting friends. And they are coming year by year. And not only from Germany. According to Holger Troisch, alone about 300 Polish people were attending the festival. So, the tiny NCN is going kind of international.
And now, to the pre-party on Thursday before the festival officially started. The party took place at the Culture Stage (all other areas were still closed) and consisted from 22:00 to 23:00 in a first round of DJs spinning CDs: DJ RAUSCHI and DJ ERIC SATOR, in order to attract the early festival goers and warm up the atmosphere. At 23:00 the very first live appearance of THE SEXORCIST was planned, new project of Gunnar Kreuz and Chris L. I know what you think: if you're not into hip-hop, you may wonder how a band called THE SEXORCIST can just see the day of light. Well, it is because you need a 2nd, 3rd, even 4th degree if not more. THE SEXORCIST is all about humour and irony. But as fun is not enough to make a good band, the music itself is actually a good surprise. Don't look for deep serious lyrics, but the self-description of the band as “the modern sound of EBM” fits quite good to the dark, noisy but also danceable and ironic performance they played that night. A few rows of people had gathered in the front of the stage, including some early fans who already know the lyrics by heart.
Yet, the major part of the audience was still enjoying a beer in the back, a bit wondering what they were attending. The show last a full hour – quite a good performance for a first gig – before leaving the night to KLEQQ DEEJAY EDITION by Chris Dupont (MRDTC) and Nick Harris-Jonath, DJ DENNIS (Solitary Experiments) and DJ BORIS (Klangstabil) for a never-ending night of electro music. Especially KLEQQ surprised the audience by combining (and even mashing up) well known music from the 80ies and 90ies with actual beats from the EBM/ Electro Scene. The cold outside intensely incited people to dance and drink (maybe a bit too many drinks for some of them) but you know the saying: “Saufen ist gesund” (Drinking is healthy)! Challenge was successfully met for this first warm-up party at the NCN and we hope for a new one next year. Currently, the promoters have not decided if there will be such a party next year since this year was something special due to the anniversary.
More pictures:
Written by Daniela Vorndran & Cécile Hautefeuille
All Pictures by Cécile Hautefeuille
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