#07.07.2018

The flip side of having someone to go with you to most gigs  - my daughter Mel as my faithful readers will know – is that it starts to feel really strange to go alone. I must tell Mel’s friends to ask for my gig/festival schedule before planning their birthday parties 😉

(my complete photo set can be found here)

Since 1991, Rock um Knuedler takes place every year in the city of Luxembourg as part of the „Summer In The City“ programme. While its 28th edition last Saturday only featured local bands, it has a history of well known international headliners including Gianna Nannini, Toto, Anastacia, Simple Minds, Manfred Mann’s Earthband, and many more. Honestly though, the Luxembourgish music scene doesn’t need international help to set up a great festival. Three stages, 23 bands and 10 hours of live music – all for free!

Unlike at Josh Island’s EP release show (review), where Pierre Bihl aka Bye Bye Bay had played a solo set, he was accompanied by his band this time, stating that no-one makes music all by themselves – except for Ed Sheeran 😂 A single person would indeed have looked very lost on what was the main stage of the festival at the Place Guillaume II (also known as Knuedler, hence the name of the festival). You can find Bye Bye Bay’s debut EP Never Let Go on Spotify, soon to be joined by the upcoming single:

I remember planning to see The Tame And The Wild at De Gudde Wëllen ages ago, but then life got in the way (not entirely sure, but I think my mum had just returned from the hospital and needed my assistance) and for some reason, it just never happened. The chance to finally change that was one of the main reasons I decided to go to Rock Um Knuedler, and I wasn’t disappointed. The Tame And The Wild play melodic indie folk and they obviously have fun perfoming live which of course means the audience also has fun. Here’s Before We Die, the title song of their recently released EP – give it a listen if you haven’t yet! I’ll make sure it won’t take me so long again to go to another gig of theirs.

(sorry for the imbalance of the vid, can’t even blame on alcohol or whatever...)

If it’s worth mentioning that Seed To Tree arrived in time, it’s because they played another set at Festival des Hauts Fourneaux in Esch the same evening. It was the first time Rock Um Knuedler took place on a Saturday instead of a Sunday, and apparently, not everyone had been aware of that 😉

The band didn’t show any signs of fatigue, but, alas, I had reason to be disappointed anyway – I mean, new album only NEXT YEAR?! Come on, that’s not what I was promised! 😮😉

After their show, Georges was kind enough to remind me that I had missed Tuys (who played at the same time on another stage, remind you of something?) for the second time in a row. Worse even, when I came to that other stage for MAZ, Tuys were still there as well and before I could hide, Tun discovered me and asked me how I was. I told him I was fine, just having a bad conscience... „Why??“ I confessed to having missed them AGAIN and he was like „oh, ok, in that case, I won’t talk to you anymore“ He DID talk to me though, so all good 😉 (and next time, it will be Tuys, no matter who plays at the same time, promised!)

And yes, you read the last paragraph right, I was headed for another dose of rap. I didn’t have a good spot for taking photos – nor videos, for that matter, but here is one anyway: