Kunst!Rasen is Bonn’s open air event venue, right by the river Rhine. It started out in 2012 and is currently the former capital’s largest music festival venue, receiving over 90,000 visitors every year.

Let’s mention some negatives first, OK? Which the band has no control of whatsoever, I should say. Organization left much to be desired, with latecomers refusing to wait in line behind those given a number by the first fans in line. No amount of talking persuaded them to be fair to others who had been queueing up for hours in the humid weather. Other German fans took a more subtle approach to jumping the line and would simply slide their way to the front. I had been warned in advance that German fans could be like that and I had trouble believing it until I experienced it myself. Who would have thought!

On a different note, a hardcore fan, Didac from Barcelona, had trouble with his front stage ticket. Having paid for one, his app registered it as a standard one and tried talking to the organisers to no avail. Call me old, but I’d rather rely on a printed ticket than a digital one. What happened to him could have happened to any of us out there, so I hope Ticketmaster can sort out issues like those. However, somehow, he was finally able to access the front stage area and secured an even better spot up front than we did. We had to settle for the left end of the stage.

On the subject of the stage, my biggest criticism of Kunst!Rasen was the elevated stage. That thing must have been 3 meters high. We couldn’t see neither Clarence nor Norpan at all, except for the acoustic set they all played towards the front. Let me stress again this is something the bands have NO control of. They simply have to put up with whatever stage configuration the venue provides. But for fans,things like these are disappointing nonetheless, especially after the homey atmosphere provided by the low stage setting some lucky fans were treated to in Bremen.

That’s it for the bad stuff. No opening act or band was present in Bonn, so our beloved Swedish band took the stage shortly after the designated time and delivered hit after hit.

Christopher was nice enough to greet fans before the show, but just my luck, I had taken a quick bathroom trip at that exact moment. Just my luck! We didn’t see sweet Åsa either, understandable considering her birthday was the next day.

I got a bit teary-eyed when Lena dedicated IMHBL to Marie, as once again, I was aware of the fact she’d never be able to sing those songs ever again.

As always, I tried to film most of the concert – you see, I’m all for preserving the band’s legacy as well -, while enjoying the show as much as everyone there.

Made some new friends (Hi, Geza!), lost my voice a few times, had sore legs afterwards… you know the story. Got back home with a new plectrum, courtesy of my friend Didac who happened to have a spare.

Here’s the setlist (no surprises, sadly). I’ve lost hope of them doing Things will never be the same blasting those guitars like they did in Australia and South Africa. It would be nice if they tweaked the repertoire just a bit every few shows, to give us fans something unexpected to look forward to. Anyway…

1. The Big L.
2. Sleeping In My Car
3. Dressed For Success
4. Crash! Boom! Bang!
5. Fading Like A Flower
6. Opportunity Nox
7. Church Of Your Heart
8. Almost Unreal
9. Stars
10. She’s Got Nothing On (But The Radio)
11. It Must Have Been Love
12. How Do You Do!
13. Dangerous

Band presentation

14. Joyride

Encore

15. Spending My Time
16. Listen To Your Heart
17. The Look
18. Queen Of Rain

Like in other reviews, my sister provided the lovely pics in this article. Kai Uwe was on site, so maybe he’ll share his one day… I have only uploaded a video to my youtube channel so far, but here it is for your enjoyment. 

https://youtu.be/E22zDVRsMTU?si=Jq29TZMdH0dGVnSP