Lehmkuhl Cooks Up Tasty Melt

Festival promoters regularly say their latest edition was their best one, but it’s worth taking a little more notice when it comes from Melt Festival (Germany) chief Stefan Lehmkuhl.

He was saying it again after the 12th edition of the festival, staged on an old open-cast mine at Gräfenhainichen, eastern Germany, but it did sell all 20,000 tickets six weeks in advance.

The Ferropolis site is now an industrial museum, a memorial for huge 20th-century machines weighing 2000 tons and stretching 30 metres skywards, but the festival itself has become well known for looking into the future of the German music market.

It’s developed a reputation as a tastemaker and many acts have seen it as a step to getting critical attention and building a fanbase in a wider Europe.

This year. 35 percent of the crowd came from outside Germany, mainly from The Netherlands, UK, Scandinavia, Austria, Switzerland and France.

“I didn’t think it would be possible to say this again but, once more, this might have been the best and most versatile Melt of all times,” Lehmkuhl said of the July 15-17 weekend.

Melt won the artists’ favourite festival at this year’s European Festival Awards.

The acts showing that it’s also a fans’ favourite included Pulp, Editors, Robyn, Beady Eye, White Lies, Noah & The Whale, The Streets, Chase & Status, Crystal Castles, and Swans.