6/3
We started our first full day in Bayreuth by having brunch/breakfast at the Sinnopoli, the restaurant I used to work at while in college/grad school. But beforehand we picked up Fine, Sarah's dog that she already had when we used to live together in college. She's an oldie now but still the best dog I've ever known.
I really didn't expect to see any familiar staff there as I had heard that everyone is working somewhere else now. So it was a nice surprise to see one familiar face there after all. Sarah's mom (who was in town this week as well) joined us for brunch in Sinnopoli's beautiful garden.
After brunch we embarked on an 8.5km brewery hike that would take us around the city's perimeter. Bayreuth is pretty small compared to all the other cities we're visiting on our trip. It only has about 70,000 inhabitants and about 11,000 students are the university I attended.
Fine was one tired old doggy lady by the time we were done.
After our hike we met up with Sarah and her mom at Sarah's place again for dinner and then went into town for one more drink before hitting the bed.
6/4
Today was a public holiday in catholic states (which includes Bavaria) so not much to do in Germany on those days as everything is closed. We went to another favorite restaurant of mine, Oskar's, at the main town square and enjoyed some typical Bavarian lunch. I had "Semmelkloesse mit Rahm-Pilz-Sosse" (bread dumplings with cream mushroom sauce) and Matt ate more sausage.
Afterwards we had to say goodbye to Marit as she was heading back home. We then got back into our rental and I took Matt to what is known as the Eremitage, just outside of Bayreuth.
We saw Frank Turner right as we got to the main stage, followed by Bastille, the fabulous German Beatsteaks (they sing in English, though) and then the main headliner for Friday, the Foo Fighters.
After two days of Doener Kebabs and festival food, we went for a salad lunch before heading back our to the festival.
Our first band of the day was Slash (Guns 'N' Roses guitarist), and Frauke's coworkers who had already left the festival had given us their sponsor passes so we were able to sneak in and our of the two front sections that you normally wait for to get in. We were able to score standing room with my friend Andi and his friends at the front fence right in front of the stage. Slash's band played their own songs, some good ole Guns 'N'Roses as well as some Velvet Revolver.
We left Prodigy about 3/4 through their set to get good "seats" at the Sunday closing act, Deichkind. They are from Hamburg in Northern Germany and started out as more straightforward German hip hop in the early 2000s but took a distinctly electro hip hop direction in the past 10 years. The name means "child of the dike (seawall)" by the way.
Deichkind was probably one of the weirdest live shows anyone could ever witness. From men in bird costumes, LED hats, a giant rolling keg in the crowd with the band on it, band members riding atop of the crowd in a kiddie pool, men in bungee ropes and trampolines on stage, jumping up and down - Deichkind came up with every conceivable weird thing to do on stage.
We started our first full day in Bayreuth by having brunch/breakfast at the Sinnopoli, the restaurant I used to work at while in college/grad school. But beforehand we picked up Fine, Sarah's dog that she already had when we used to live together in college. She's an oldie now but still the best dog I've ever known.
I really didn't expect to see any familiar staff there as I had heard that everyone is working somewhere else now. So it was a nice surprise to see one familiar face there after all. Sarah's mom (who was in town this week as well) joined us for brunch in Sinnopoli's beautiful garden.
After brunch we embarked on an 8.5km brewery hike that would take us around the city's perimeter. Bayreuth is pretty small compared to all the other cities we're visiting on our trip. It only has about 70,000 inhabitants and about 11,000 students are the university I attended.
We ended up only visiting three brewery beer gardens but had plenty of fun walking around and enjoying beers and Bavarian food.
6/4
Today was a public holiday in catholic states (which includes Bavaria) so not much to do in Germany on those days as everything is closed. We went to another favorite restaurant of mine, Oskar's, at the main town square and enjoyed some typical Bavarian lunch. I had "Semmelkloesse mit Rahm-Pilz-Sosse" (bread dumplings with cream mushroom sauce) and Matt ate more sausage.
Afterwards we had to say goodbye to Marit as she was heading back home. We then got back into our rental and I took Matt to what is known as the Eremitage, just outside of Bayreuth.
Afterwards, we strolled around my old university campus for a while, drove by the Festspielhaus where the annual Wagner Festival takes place and then had an early dinner at the beer garden right next to where we were staying. We then met up with some old friends who still live in Bayreuth as well and had a few drinks at another beer garden with them before going home.
6/5
After I got us some sandwiches for breakfast at the next door bakery, we had to pack up and pick up my friend Andi for the drive to Nuremberg. We had hung out with Andi the night before and he had planned to take a train into Nuremberg for the festival but we offered him a ride instead.
It took us about 45min to get into Nuremberg and after dropping him off at the festival, we returned the car and dragged our suitcases in the heat to our hotel. Once we got festival ready, we walked back to the train station, purchased 3-day festival transportation passes and hopped on the next S-Bahn out to the Zeppelinfeld where Rock im Park was taking place.
Rock im Park is the twin festival to Rock am Ring, which takes place on the same weekend in the Eiffel region (close to where my parents live). The lineup of bands is the same but the schedule different due to the two different locations.
It was scorching hot at 95 degrees Fahrenheit /35 degrees Celsius and very little shade. It's a big open space so there really aren't many opportunities to hide from the sun. Luckily we had decided to wear hats which kept us at least a little bit cool.
We started the Foo Fighters fairly far back but then quickly realized they weren't loud enough and the atmosphere wasn't great in the back as a lot of people weren't paying attention. We eventually made it into the second sectioned off area from the stage where it was better. The Foo Fighters brought a great show but Matt noticed that German crowds were slightly reserved with them, probably because their hits aren't quite as big in Germany as they are in the US. Matt would soon realize that German crowds behave differently for German bands.
6/6
Day two of Rock im Park started with the fabulous breakfast buffet at our hotel with my friend Frauke. After that we walked around the center of town a bit to get Matt a basic idea of what Nuremberg is about. Temperatures hit 95 degrees Fahrenheit/35 degrees Celsius by the time we left for the festival and the S-Bahn not having any air conditioning made even a 15min train ride pure torture.
We were already exhausted when we arrived on the festival grounds but managed to see the entire set of Bad Religion, followed by the very loud A Day to Remember and then a German band called Broilers. I had missed 5 years of German music history so I was really surprised to see that they drew a full main stage and people knew all the lyrics. The crowd went pretty wild for them, considering it was only afternoon.
During the next band, Rise Against, Matt and I mostly sat on the floor in the far back of the second sectioned off area. We didn't want to waste our energy for a band we didn't care for and be too tired for Die Toten Hosen, Saturday's headliner and my favorite German rock band. They've been around for over 30 years, all band members are well into their 50s now and I was really excited that I would get to see them live again.
The Hosen did not disappoint and they are unmatched when it comes to mass appeal for large festivals, people knowing all their lyrics and going wild.
Matt was pretty surprised when during their one English song in the setlist, people starting forming mosh pit circles everywhere and fans lit up the flares they'd brought.
The concert was amazing and Matt really enjoyed the craziness of live German rock. Little did he know what he would see Sunday night....
6/7
Sunday was a rough morning for all involved. Everything hurt, our knees, our backs, our feet, even our arms from throwing the in the air so much. The third festival day is always the worst pain-wise. We had decided to go in late so that we could last until the 11:30pm show of Deichkind that would close out the festival. This gave us some time to recover. Thankfully, the heat had finally subsided a little bit and it was "only" 88 degrees Fahrenheit/30 degrees Celsius.
After another great breakfast at the hotel buffet, Matt and I strolled through Nuremberg's old town for 2-3 hours, up the hill to the fortress and back.
Our first band of the day was Slash (Guns 'N' Roses guitarist), and Frauke's coworkers who had already left the festival had given us their sponsor passes so we were able to sneak in and our of the two front sections that you normally wait for to get in. We were able to score standing room with my friend Andi and his friends at the front fence right in front of the stage. Slash's band played their own songs, some good ole Guns 'N'Roses as well as some Velvet Revolver.
Next up after Slash was another great German band that I had no idea existed - Kraftklub. These five East Germans played a mixture between The Hives beats, often with samplers of pop songs in the chorus accompanied by sort of rap style lyrics. They also liked confetti.
After Kraftklub came The Prodigy. I've seen them live before but had almost forgotten how much they "rock the house" at these festivals. If we weren't deaf yet, we certainly were after these guys.
Deichkind was probably one of the weirdest live shows anyone could ever witness. From men in bird costumes, LED hats, a giant rolling keg in the crowd with the band on it, band members riding atop of the crowd in a kiddie pool, men in bungee ropes and trampolines on stage, jumping up and down - Deichkind came up with every conceivable weird thing to do on stage.
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