Snagga Puss
Chiemsee Regen Summer

Chiemsee Reggae Summer 2000
at Übersee, Chiemsee(07/.08.07.2000)

Reggaenode review by Anne


This summer I did it: I spent 2 weekends in a row at reggae-festivals: Summerjam Cologne and Chiemsee Reggae Summer. I went additionally to Chiemsee, because I didn't want to miss Red Rat and Mr Vegas, who only performed there (as far as I know). I wonder, why nobody else booked them...

THE AREA:

mud1 mud2

I already knew they are getting bad weather almost every year at Chiemsee Reggae Summer. So I was mentally prepared. But I didn't expect this huge mud area! To leave the festival, cars had to be towed by tractors to get out of the mud (so it is really recommended to go there by train, not only because of saving the environment). Anyway, it seemed that rain and mud didn't cause too much problems to the people. This crowd was like hard core. Big up!


The atmosphere:

This festival is beginning less than 1 week after summerjam, so the differences are striking:
- It is much smaller, so the atmosphere seems to be friendlier.
- It takes place on the bavarian countryside (including view to the Alpes).
- Compared to Summerjam, here have been much more police and security in relation to visitors, but they seemed to be friendly and relaxed. This is my personal impression, but in Cologne the securities are like overworked and arrogant, probably because of this mass of people and the sometimes not clear organization. Remember the "highlight" at Summerjam this year: at the entrance, the securities sniffed into every bag to look for weed, what caused 1 hour or more time to wait to get in... At Chiemsee Reggae Summer, I didn't see any drug-controls (although I heard there have been some) .
-The artists got much more time on stage! (I'm often suffering from the restricted time the artists get at Summerjam).


Concerts:

Friday's mainstage program: Gentleman, Macka B, Israel Vibration, Aswad, Beenie Man.
Lee Perry was also announced, but started too late to make it to Chiemsee... People were very disappointed because the show of his recent tour is very special.
Friday's highlight was Beenie Man!! It was raining all time long during his show, but he was great. He came again with Little Kirk, Silvercat and Snagga Puss. The crowd was enthusiastic.

Beenie Man can't stop the rain Silvercat 1 Silvercat and Little Kirk
crowd Beenie


Tent: There have been big screens in the tent with live-video-animations showing crowd, musicians and tropical landscapes what was engineered skillful. The tent was the dancehall-area. Soundsystems Rockers Hifi, Rootsman, Dub Club Vienna and Pow Pow from Cologne heated up the tent.

Saturday's mainstage program: Tolga, Livin' Spirits, Selecter (Ska from England), Sixth Revelation, Michael Rose, Buju Banton, Ziggy Marley.
All those concerts were good. During the day, when it was not raining, they filled up the area with straw. Unfortunately it started raining again...
Just some pictures...

crowd Buju
Buju4 Buju6 Buju and band
... and some words about Buju:
He came again with Wayne Wonder. I found Buju's performance more passionate than at Summerjam, last not least because they took the opportunity (aaaah!! I wished it would happen and it became true!): Red Rat came on stage to sing "love dem bad" together with Buju.....* SIGH*

Buju and Red Rat 4

This increased the appetite for the subsequent dancehall session in the tent a lot (of course for whom who love dancehall. For whom who don't, Ziggy Marley was performing at the main stage at the same time).

Tent:
Red Rat and Vegas, they really enchanted the crowd. I never experienced a dancehallshow like this in Germany. These two guys played with the crowd, it was really fascinating...

Red Rat was first
Red Rat 1 Red Rat 5 crowd Red Rat 3


The backing band!


Vegas came on stage...
Vegas 3 Vegas 6
crowd Vegas 3

... final ...
Vegas and Red Rat



After Red Rat and Vegas, the party went on with Bass Odyssee: Bad news, their dubplates haven't been on their connecting flight from London to Munich... but nevertheless, they organized music to play, so the party could go on until late at night!


Links concerning Chiemsee Reggae Summer:


(@) AnneB for the Reggaenode