Sauwasen, Püttlingen, Germany8th to 10th August 2019
Rocco del Schlacko 2019 Day 1 with reviews of Eskimo Callboy, Die Fantastischen Vier, Scooter, Swiss & Die Andern and Juju
It is August and thus again festival high season. In the small Saarland a quite big festival took place: The Rocco del Schlacko. For already 21 years, 25,000 music fans were drawn to Püttlingen. From Rock to Metal, from Rap to Techno - every taste was represented. The festival took place for three days and included two different stages: “Sauwasen” and “Ponyhof”. The first day of the festival was dominated by the blazing sun, which had a positive effect on the mood of the visitors. Everyone had a good time and enjoyed the good weather conditions.
Eskimo Callboy
ESKIMO CALLBOY is a five-piece band that has been making music together since 2010. The band is based out of Castrop-Rauxel, Germany. Their style is a combination of Metalcore and Electrocore which leads the public to dancing, moshing and making pogoes. In the late afternoon, ESKIMO CALLBOY destroyed the idyllic place in front of the main stage in the middle of woods and fields with their crossover of Metalcore and electro and prepared the numerous guests for what was to come. For someone who knows them since their first album ‘Bury me in Vegas’, I was afraid that they would only play their newer songs. But they didn’t disappointed. They tried to keep a good balance between old and new songs so that everyone could be satisfied.
The band started their show with ‘The Scene’, although their feature, the frontman Chris “Fronz” Fronzak from ATTILA, wasn’t able to be there. With ‘Is anyone up’, ‘Supernova’, ‘Best Day’ and ‘MC Thunder’, just to name a few songs, they were able to get everyone to jump and sing along. The audience had a good time and even started crowd surfing, although this was actually forbidden at the festival. But nobody really cared about that. Between the songs, the band kept the good mood while making jokes about the Saarland or even about the size of Sushi, one of the bands vocalists. All in one, everyone was having a good time and were hyped for the next acts.
Die Fantastischen Vier
DIE FANTASTISCHEN VIER, or FANTA 4 as they are also called, are the pioneers of German Hip-Hop. They were the first band which released an entire German language rap album in 1991. Since then, they are well known in the entire Country and abroad. At 8:50pm, it was time: The curtain dropped and the first second from the beat of ‘Fantanamera’ started. DIE FANTASTISCHEN VIER started off with an hour and a half of Hip-Hop fireworks. Unfortunately, the fans weren’t joining immediately after the first second, as this song wasn’t released until 2019 on their latest album ‘Captain Fantastic’. Nevertheless, there was a consenting nod of heads by the crowd in time with the song.
Classics alternated with new songs and the audience joined in bit by bit. With their most famous songs, ‘Was Geht’, ‘Sie ist weg’, ‘Die Da?!’, ‘MfG’, ‘Zusammen’ or ‘Troy’, they managed to fascinate younger and older fans and got them to dance and sing along. Despite the fact that the first song didn't enthuse the crowd as much as the band had hoped, Smudo, Michi Beck, Thomas D and their 4th member And.Ypsilon, were playing their songs with body and soul. Since the band was formed in 1989, they celebrate their 30th anniversary this year. And although the band has been around for 30 years, they lacked neither the energy nor the motivation to make the audience celebrate, sing and dance.
Scooter
SCOOTER is a German trio which is known for their electronic dance music. With their well-known singer H.P. Baxxter, they make music since 1993. Since they are on stage now for a quarter of a century, they have become the most successful techno act of all time. With their many albums they are internationally known and can’t be imagined away from the charts. In the beginning, SCOOTER were not even announced for the Rocco Del Schlacko Festival at all. But since GOOD CHARLOTTE had to cancel all their concerts, SCOOTER jumped in. Impatiently, the fans had to wait 25 minutes for SCOOTER to start their show. Despite the delay, the crowd was in a good mood and started dancing and singing as soon as H.P. Baxxter entered the stage. The Trio started their show with ‘One (Always Hardcore)’, followed by ‘Bora! Bora! Bora!’ and ‘Oi’. H.P. Baxxter and the guys at the synthesizers were optically supported by dancers, who were consisting of two good-looking women and two young men showing off their skills dancing Jump style.
The fire show completed the stage design. SCOOTER surprised the audience with a little RAMMSTEIN moment when H.P. Baxxter played with a fire-breathing guitar for the song ‘Fire’. The crowd was immediately thrilled. The whole festival area jumped to the hard basses of ‘How much is the fish’, ‘Hyper Hyper’ and ‘Maria (I Like It Loud)’ over the Sauwasen and accompanied singer H.P. Baxxter loudly. // Setlist: 01. One (Always Hardcore) / 02. Bora! Bora! Bora! / 03. Oi / 04. My Gabber / 05. God Save the Rave / 06. Fire / 07. How Much Is the Fish? / 08. The Age of Love / 09. Fuck the Millennium / 10. Ramp! / 11. Jump That Rock (Whatever You Want) / 12. J’adore Hardcore / 13. Jumping All Over the World / 14. Maria (I Like It Loud) / 15. Endless Summer / 16. Hyper Hyper / 17. Move Your Ass
Swiss & Die Andern
SWISS & DIE ANDERN is a German speaking Punk-Rock band from Hamburg who wants to draw attention to political topics. The main theme of their songs relates to the inequalities of the world, racism and other important issues such as climate change. They identify themselves as “krank links” which means as much as “ill left”. In September 2014 they released the EP ‘Schwarz Rot Braun’, their first official release on their own label, Missglückte Welt. Two blood red flares, whose smoke took over the whole stage, started the concert. The five boys entered the stage and the crowd was immediately hyped. Swiss, the lead singer of the band, scored with a powerful performance and could draw the audience into his spell. With his charismatic manner he won the sympathy of the audience between the songs again and again. In order to introduce the song ‘Schwarz Rot Braun’, all FREIWILD fans were expelled from the square to clearly show their position against right-wing bands, ideas and parties. Directly after that song, ‘Schrei nach Liebe’, originally by DIE ÄRZTE, almost everyone in the audience sang along loudly and with all their heart.
This mood and the feeling of togetherness could clearly cause Goosebumps. At ‘Punkah on Sri Lanka’ a young lady named Lily was invited on a small trip to Sri Lanka by sitting in a rubber boat which was carried throughout the song by the people in the crowd. With ‘Asche zu Staub’ a somewhat calmer song was intoned. The rather sadly tuned text about an unhappy life left a somewhat depressed thoughtful mood in the audience, which became more relaxed again with the next song ‘Große Freiheit’. ‘Pogo’ was the last song of the band and the concert finished with the outros ‘In Hamburg sagt man Tschüss’ and ‘YMCA’, which turned out to be appropriate to the atmosphere. // Setlist: 01. Swiss oder Stirb / 02. Finger zum MW / 03. Punk zurück / 04. Kuhle Typen / 05. Schwarz Rot Braun / 06. Schrei nach Liebe (Die Ärzte cover) / 07. Fick dich / 08. Morgenland / 09. Der Scheiss is’ live / 10. Hassen oder Lieben / 11. Vermisse dich / 12. Punkah auf Sri Lanka / 13. Wir gegen die / 14. Asche zu Staub / 15. Grosse Freiheit / 16. Pogo (Variations are possible)
Juju
JUJU is a young German female rapper, who became famous with the meanwhile disbanded Rap duo SXTN. Her first solo album, ‘Bling Bling’, was released this year in June and was a great success. With the song ‘Vermissen’, which she recorded together with Henning May from ANNENMAYKANTEREIT, she reached number one in the German charts. While last year, she still performed together with NURA at the Rocco Del Schlacko, this year she was on her own and wanted to prove that she can also amaze the masses as a rapper on her own. Generally women are clearly under-represented on the festival stages, late at night JUJU rapped as the last act in front of predominantly female fans. Although it was already later in the night, she was able to win over the audience with her song ‘Coco Chanel’. The audience could prove with the next song ‘Live Bitch’ that they also knew the lyrics by heart. During the concert a few drinks were distributed in the first row, which of course increased the mood. With ‘Ich müsste lügen’ a more thoughtful song was started, whereby the people still sang along loudly and didn’t have a negative effect on the atmosphere. Immediately after that, her most famous song ‘Vermissen’ started.
Unfortunately, her duet partner Henning May couldn’t be with her on stage, but the audience loved to take over his part of the song. To close the concert, the song ‘Live Bitch’ was tuned again, this time in a remix version including songs from RAMMSTEIN and THE PRODIGY. JUJU’s stage show was rounded off with two large scorpions and a DJ table in the middle. Their fans were there with heart and soul from the first to the last minute and didn’t let it be missed to start a circle pit with JUJUs request “Loch ist Loch”. With an energy that you could feel in the whole audience, JUJU definitely proved that she can clearly stand alone on stage and that she doesn’t need anyone to entertain an audience. Unfortunately, she often used playback in her hooks, which was a pity. Maybe it would be an option for her to take a support on stage so the whole performance could become even stronger. // Setlist: 01. Coco Chanel / 02. Live Bitch / 03. Bling Bling / 04. Hi Babe / 05. Hardcore High / 06. Sommer in Berlin / 07. Ich müsste lügen / 08. Vermissen / 09. Live Bitch (Remix)
All Pictures by Elena Arens
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