Recommendations of the Editorial team
I can’t remember the very first Weekender, as it was called back then, in 2009 because I wasn’t there. I knew Weissenhäuser Strand, which is both a town and a beach and a holiday resort. When I was there, in 1989, they didn’t say resort yet. They probably said facility. There was a swimming pool, there were shops, there was a large covered passage and a few restaurants. There were dunes, yaks and a pier.
>>> Get your tickets for ROLLING STONE Beach here!
20 years later, FKP Scorpio and ROLLING STONE held a festival at this beautiful location. It was autumn. The holiday resort wasn’t quite set up for a rock festival yet. You had to straighten it out.
A year later, when I traveled with the weekender, I recognized the holidays from my youth. There was still the jungle restaurant, where animated animal dummies whistled, shimmy and grunted. Outside, two replica elephants trumpet in a pool. There was mini golf and a go-kart track. The passage was reminiscent of a replica of a Renaissance piazza, put in layman’s terms. You climbed down the stairs to the pizzeria. I loved the Fischkiste restaurant. There were also grilled sausage stalls and a wooden hut where fish sandwiches were sold.
First years on Weißenhäuser Strand
The Weekender, later called Beach, is an indoor festival, something rare. The concerts and readings take place indoors, with the exception of a beach concert. If you are looking for nature, you only have to take a few steps. If you look for music, it’s everywhere. At the first festival in 2009 there were, among others, Wilco, the Flaming Lips, Gov’t Mule, Billy Bragg and Roddy Frame. A year later, Element Of Crime, The Gaslight Anthem, The National, the Tindersticks and the Cowboy Junkies appeared. And John Hiatt, rarely seen in Europe.
At the Reniassance Italian I met a delegation of Tindersticks led by Stuart Staples. A few years later, the Tindersticks came back. I was staying in the artists’ house. As I walked down the hall a door was open and in the room I saw Stuart Staples lounging on the green sofa. A hero of my youth on the Baltic Sea!
>>> Get your tickets for ROLLING STONE Beach here!
Legendarily, Ed Sheeran made his first appearance in Germany at the Beach in 2014. But I also thought Gisbert zu Knyphausen was great and Anna Calvi. Jochen Distelmeyer was there, Thees Uhlmann, Olli Schulz. Lloyd Cole, Ron Sexsmith and Motorpsycho. Benjamin von Stuckrad-Barre read, Oliver Polak, Robert Forster.
Line-ups, encounters, memories
And the gentleman who always held out his hand to me in the crowd and said “Neil Young!” called out, please let me know.