Lieberberg Revs Up Festival Season

With the Nurburgring Grand Prix motor-racing circuit only a couple thousand short of its 83,500 capacity, the German festival season got off to a flier in what looks to be a bumper year.

Marek Lieberberg, who promotes the twinned Rock am Ring and smaller 60,000-capacity Rock im Park events, reported that everything ran “like a Swiss clock” and said “it was an incredible start to the summer” before going off on his own lap of Germany.

The day after the June 2-4 shows, he was off to see festival co-headliner Depeche Mode at Bremen Weserstadion, followed by Mark Knopfler at Frankfurt Festhalle June 6 and Roger Waters at Berlin Kindl-Bühne Wuhlheide June 8.

One of the festival highlights was the appearance of Guns N’ Roses, which had developed a habit of canceling Euro shows, including Park and Ring a couple of years ago. Lieberberg said the act had made it good this time around.

“I think all the fans were aware that it would either happen or not happen,” he replied, when questioned on how much he felt the earlier pull-outs had led people to question if the act would ever show up in Europe again.

More than 50,000 showed up in Nuremburg for Rock im Park, which brought the combined weekend attendance around 132,000.

Among the other acts on both bills were Metallica, Morrissey, Placebo, Franz Ferdinand, Jamiroquai, Korn, Nelly Furtado, Deftones, Keane, Turbonegro, Bloodhound Gang, Kaiser Chiefs, The Darkness, Lacuna Coil, Paul Weller, Babyshambles, Soulfly, Alice In Chains, Corinne Bailey Rae, The Dresden Dolls, and Editors.

– John Gammon